Frontlist

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A list of the most recent books available from a publisher, as opposed to the backlist of older titles.

    "The frontlist is often the top revenue center, but a strong backlist provides another revenue stream that hedges risk."

  2. 2
    Intended to sell strongly while still recent, and to be profitable on that basis alone, even if predicted to sell poorly after that. attributive

    "The celebrity tell-all has been proposed as a frontlist title, whereas the cookbook has been proposed as a backlist title and the food history book as a midlist title."

Example

More examples

"The frontlist is often the top revenue center, but a strong backlist provides another revenue stream that hedges risk."

Etymology

From front + list.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.