Tracy’s new e-book, PubSpeak: A Writer’s Dictionary of Publishing Terms is now on sale through the following retailers: Smashwords, Barnes and Noble, Amazon, and Amazon UK. Tracy writes:
Hello readers and writers of Glass Cases!
I’m very excited to be here today and host a contest for my new ebook, Pub Speak: A Writer’s Dictionary of Publishing Terms. When I wrote the book, I was envisioning an author who may have received their first contract using it to look up terms, or perhaps someone who wanted to get into the industry reading it to get a jump on the numerous other graduates competing for the same internships. I think there is a lexicon in publishing, and like many businesses, those that speak the language tend to do better than those that don’t!
Today though, we build a new lexicon – one of wit, and snark, and hopefully, pants-peeing.
It’s a Pub Speak Definition Contest and the winner will receive an electronic copy of the book, as well as my eternal admiration and probably some embarrassing congratulatory tweets. (You know you want it.)
I’ve listed six terms out of the 400 plus in the book. Choose one term – or all six – and come up with a definition in the comments section. Keep the comments limited to one definition only, but feel free to comment again choosing a different word. Only use each term once – no multiple definitions please from the same commenter, please.
Example: So if one of the terms was “advance,” your definition could be, “Advance: A figment of the writer’s imagination” or, as a second comment, “Advance: Half what you made that year at McDonalds.”
Here are the terms, good luck!
1) cheap edition
2) offer
3) work
4) novelette
5) shelf life
6) advance
Sarah and I will pick the winner and announce on Monday.
Sarah LaPolla 
Advance – A request by some guy with dyslexia named Vance to add him as a friend.
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Work – ?? I have no idea what this is. Next!
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Work: That thing I should be doing instead of this.
I love these types of challenges. Thanks! 🙂
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Cheap edition: A book that smells of strong perfume and inexpensive whiskey, with lipstick stains on the pages and runny ink.
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Advance: Instead of money, authors get a T-shirt or mug (your choice!) with Vivian Vance's face on it, advertising “I Love Lucy.” Shortened, this is called an Ad-Vance.
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Shelf life: That fuzzy stuff growing on your bookshelf, where you spilled orange juice last year.
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Novelette: The gambling game editors play when deciding which novel to publish. All manuscript titles are written on a wheel. A wadded-up form rejection serves as the ball. Whichever title the ball lands on when the wheel stops spinning, GETS PUBLISHED!
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Novelette: As far as your novel lets you get (with it)
Shelf life: Moving time
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Work: the activity that hinders a person from writing/editing
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That was a blast. Thank you!
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Offer: synonymous with “dream”
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Advance: Sum of money available to any author whose literary income negates his need for one.
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Novelette: the polite society term for 'short story.'
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Shelf life: With the explosion of e-books, an obsolete word of the 21st century. Sorry folks, all traditional books have been canned.
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Shelf life: The date by which a book has more copies in second-hand stores, used bookstores, cottage bookshelves, institutional lending libraries, and the dump than available for sale.
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Novelette: The core of the story that prematurely strikes out on its own, leaving its fully fleshed-out, would-be self behind.
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Work: (verb) Self-indulgent behavior which the writer feverishly tries to be paid for, so that it may gain this nomenclature. (noun) The product of the above.
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Offer: Magical document which drastically reduces one's need for this dictionary.
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Cheap edition: The flimsy paperback edition that you wish you could start with so that everyone could afford to read your book, but which in reality gets published when you are way beyond needing the exposure.
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Work: Something I watch my parents do to support my dream of becoming an author.
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