You're Sending Me What? Something BAD?

Got an email today from an editor and the subject line really threw me for a minute. I first read it as meaning I was being sent something BAD about my forthcoming series. BAD was capitalized.

After I got over the heart attack, I looked at the subject line more closely. Oh, it said a BLAD. I was being sent a BLAD. Praying that wasn't a typo and it really was supposed to read BAD, I opened the email.

It was a BLAD! Hurray! A pdf of the BLAD to be exact. But my next thought was sort of a whispered: um...what's a BLAD?

Fearing to look at the file, I first Googled the acronym. And I found:

Bovine Leukocyte Adhesion Deficiency?

Um, don't think so.

Bioartificial Liver-Assisted Device?

Ya, no.

So that left Book Layout and Design. Yes! It was a Book Layout and Design!

BINGO!

Okay, so what the heck is a Book Layout and Design exactly? Performing more Google-foo, I found this definition:

Blad (Book Layout and Design)
A blad is a marketing and sales tool, used where printed sample material is needed in advance by the sales force to sell the title. A blad will often feature sections from the finished book, including the cover artwork, page layouts and images.

Hunh, who knew? Thank you Oxford University Press Glossary of Publishing Terms. May you continue to help many confused authors like myself.

So I finally opened the file. And it was awesome! I've never had a BLAD for one of my books before. It's my very first BLAD! And that, my friends, is definitely, most decidedly, and definitively not BAD.