Imprint

Full disclosure: I binge-watch crappy television, it’s my thing when I have nothing else to do.  On one such day, I found the TVLand series “Younger” and plowed through the entire first and second seasons on-demand.  As I watched this show about a 40-year-old divorced housewife from New Jersey who is posing as a 26-year-old assistant to a Cruella Deville-type Marketing Director at Empirical Press in New York City (I know, ridiculous premise but don’t judge), I was inadvertently introduced to a lot of publishing industry terms. 

In one episode, Kelsey, an ambitious young book editor, threatens to leave Empirical for a competitor. The Editorial Director recognizes that Kelsey is an asset (when does that ever happen?) and decides to create an imprint, for her to run, in order to keep her at the company.  The imprint is called “Millennial” and Kelsey is tasked with signing authors and writers who will appeal to the millennial generation.  More full disclosure – I had never heard nor understood the concept of an imprint as it applies to the publishing world.

Through this week’s reading and perusing of websites, I found the term again – this time defined on bookjobs.com.  Imprint: The identifying name of a specific line of books available from the publisher. Publishers may have many imprints. 

In the television series, the imprint is a departure from the style of other Empirical authors and published titles.  Attracting wider audiences, creating more business, driving more revenue is the strategy and desire of all businesses and in this sense, I see where imprints help publishing companies diversify.  

It also occurs to me that television is the way I've stumbled upon many concepts.  I was never a bookworm, more of a television and cinema consumer and so it only makes sense that my writer's path is being paved more by what I watch than what I read.  So, thank you to Darren Star and the other creative minds behind “Younger.”  You have opened my eyes to the publishing world, albeit in a fictional, generalized fashion with predictable plot lines (I'll forgive you for that because you brought me "Sex and the City.")