Let's talk about the 'midlist' - what does it really mean?

Is being a midlist author bad or good? What does the term mean in publishing?

Hi everyone,

Firstly, thank you to everyone who entered my competition last week - I am in touch with the winner and very excited to read her work. I will run another one for paid subscribers soon, so watch this space!

Today, let’s talk about the midlist! Firstly, what do we mean when we say the midlist? Well, in my own definition, this is a publishing term for books/authors who are performing steadily, not underperforming, and not overperforming. They often receive perhaps a medium amount of attention from marketing and publicity, and a level of retailer placement that has a limit (for example, maybe one supermarket, not four, or a good level of Waterstones /Indies support but not placed everywhere!) Midlist could also be a book that performs well in ebook or audio to a certain level, so it’s reaching a decent audience but that audience seems to have a limit / it’s a struggle to expand on it.

It is of course a nebulous term so there is not (that I know of!) a set definition but this is my understanding. It’s also a bit to do with the ideas and the books themselves - it might be that an author writes a book a year, they always sell about 10k copies, and the genre remains the same. The ideas are great and readers love them but they are perhaps not ‘different’ or ‘high concept’ enough to gain wider cut-through outside the existing audience.

Looking online, the internet gives this definition (broadly similar to mine):

"Midlist" in publishing refers to books and authors that aren't mega-bestsellers but consistently sell well enough to be profitable and form the backbone of a publisher's catalogue, representing steady earners rather than blockbusters, though modern publishing trends increasingly favour potential bestsellers over these reliable, lower-profile titles. Midlist authors build loyal readerships over time, relying on consistent sales rather than massive marketing pushes, but often struggle for resources against high-profile debuts, according to ArtsHub UK and The Guardian.

In short - it’s a tricky term! To go further - what else surrounds the mid-list? Well, every publisher has top titles - you might hear these called a variety of different things: focus titles, key titles, launch titles, event books, priorities etc - there is no one term that all publishers use, it varies house by house - and the idea is that those are the books the whole company is behind that we feel have broad appeal, strong concepts, and lots of potential to reach readers. You might have a priority title that goes really well, to be followed by another and another - and in the long term that’s how an author becomes a brand. (Though brands can also form without starting off as priority books, absolutely - and some priority books do not work, or they do work but the next one doesn’t…)

Every publisher also, sadly, has authors / books that are underperforming, that we have to often make the difficult decision not to continue publishing. I’ve written about this in other posts, and it’s important to know that most of the time, this is not the fault per se of the author, or because the book is ‘bad’ - sometimes publishers try really hard and a book or an author’s work just does not connect, and that can be very hard and disheartening for all involved (including the editor). Sometimes, an editor believes in an author so much that they can persuade their team to keep publishing them even if the book is making a loss - but this usually does not go on forever, because publishing is, after all, a business. It is super important for editors to keep the faith with writers they believe in - not all authors have big hits straight away, if ever, and some can perform very nicely for a long period of time, without ever becoming stratospheric, but without losing the publisher a lot of money, either. As always, it is the tricky balance in publishing of faith and belief in quality writing, and the hard realities of financials and the business side.

This brings me back to the midlist - it is VALUABLE! We love the midlist and we need the midlist. Without it, we’d lose lots of brilliant, talented writers and we’d lose a big chunk of revenue, too (I am using ‘we’ as a generic term for all publishing houses). However - we do need to keep an eye on it. I believe that every book needs energy, time, love and resource behind it, of course, and if the midlist becomes too large, this can suffer. There are only a certain number of hours in the day and a certain number of editors (and marketers, publicists, designers, etc) and so I think it is very important to be realistic about the number of books a publisher can effectively publish at any one time. If the midlist becomes too big, it can affect sales and it can affect authors in terms of the quality of the care they receive.

There are also those books that have a brilliant and established readership in the midlist, and which we (as a publisher) know how to connect with readers, so those books might (for example) not need big publicity campaigns because most of the audience is on TikTok, or they might need a really focused targeted Amazon spend but they won’t need proofs because, genre wise, they are unlikely to be reviewed in broadsheets and unlikely to be stocked in large numbers in independent booksellers. Our team has to decide where the audience is for each book and how to effectively reach them, and though I do understand that every author would love a huge outdoor tube campaign, those things cost thousands of pounds and they are not trackable (so we can’t see what impact they have on sales, hence why digital advertising is often preferred!) Of course, we do do big tube campaigns sometimes - but this is more likely to be for brand authors, or priority books where we feel confident that the book, the hook, the package and the audience are big enough for it to be worthwhile. To be clear, I am not saying that we as publishers get it right every time; I’m aiming to just explain the situation as it currently stands in most big, traditional publishing houses.

If a midlist book begins to gain more traction, we will pay attention and put more behind it, aiming to reach more readers. Authors can move from the midlist and become brands, and equally they can move from the midlist to become unpublishable (with that house - often authors move houses and have success again, this is common!).

Being midlist is not a bad thing. I promise. I know that it’s a loaded term and that it can provoke certain feelings, but as I say above, it can form the backbone of a list! It’s not realistic to think that one publishing house would publish only top bestsellers, or only underperformers (if the latter was the case, the house wouldn’t last very long!) - hence the term midlist is born. When I use it internally, at work, I certainly don’t mean it in a derogatory way - I have the utmost admiration for midlist authors, who write well, make money for themselves and for their publisher, and who consistently deliver quality books. So if you feel you have been termed ‘midlist’ please do not despair. It’s not a bad thing! Your work is being read. You are, most likely, turning a profit via your books, for your publishing house (whether you as an author are making a lot of money is a separate conversation; hopefully, you are but I do know this is not always the case). You’re writing brilliant books that your editor will want to keep publishing. Of course, as writers we’re all ambitious and I am in no way saying not to reach for the stars, but I also think there is a lot to be said for consistency and length of career, some of which can feel unattainable if you are touted as a huge debut, paid a lot of money, and then can never replicate book one. Priority books can struggle, too. There is no one size fits all model for a book and there is no one route to success - I think the most important thing is an editor who believes in you, who will be honest with you, and who will help you get your work into readers hands.

I hope this helps shed some light on the term midlist, and feel free to post your own comments below as to what the word means to you, your experience of being a midlist author, or how you might like to define it.

Thank you again for reading, and stay warm!

Phoebe x