Terms of the Month: Leah Brennsteiner
Production Assistant, Charlesbridge Publishing.
The CBC Early Career Committee shares Terms of the Month in our bimonthly newsletter, focusing on hand-selected vocabulary by the ECC to broaden our understanding of the publishing industry. For October 2026, the focus is on the production department.
General Production Terms
- Wetproofs: A physical proof of the book printed with the accurate paper stock and inks before actual production (you can receive un-laminated and laminated wetproofs as well depending on the title’s specs).
- Paper stock: Weight, finish, type (depends on the printer’s supplies) of the paper the publisher chooses for the interior, JKT, PLC, and endpapers.
- Plotters: Sheets that have the printed out interior pages so an editor can easily proofread. Does not have the actual finishing specs, it’s just a rough printing of the interior stapled together.
- Digital proof: A PDF proof of the book files before you receive the wetproofs. If you have any changes after the wetproofs, then you typically ask for PDF proofs back since printing another set of wetproofs is expensive.
- Epson proofs: An Epson proof is a proof printed from an Epson printer, a reliable color and layout determiner.
- F&G’s: Folded and Gathered sheets. Typically only the production team looks at these to make sure the colors look good and are consistent with the approved proofs. This is right before the actual print run.
- Perfect/notch binding: Paperback binding method where the spine is glued.
- Sewn binding: Hardback binding method where the signatures are sewn.
- Specs: These are the technical materials, trim sizes, paper stocks, extras (like foil stamping, embossing, spot gloss, etc.) of a book.
- Headbands: These are the cloth bands on the top and bottom on the book’s spine to hide the sewn thread or glue (usually colorful and cute!).
- Preflight: A preflight check is to make sure that all art is hi-res (300 dpi), the images and text are on separate layers, all of the art is CMYK and not RGB, that there are no color errors/warnings, and proofreading the text.
- Printer errors (hickeys): You’ll mostly find these in the wetproofs, they’re odd little circles or dust specks. If you see them in your wetproofs, just have production notify the printer
- Dummy: A mock-up of the actual book with accurate paper stock, trim size, and page count. Used to see what the book will look like before production.
- Reprint corrections: A huge part of production is the reprints, and editors will create a reprint cx memo to detail what production needs to edit for the next print run.
- Out of Print (OP): When inventory of a book drops to 0 and sales/production/admin decide not to print another run.
- Remaindering: When a book is having trouble selling and sales/production/admin decide not to print another run, so they start selling leftover stock to wholesalers at a discount.
Check out more from the Early Career Committee on our blog.
