A backlist is a list of older books available from a publisher, as opposed to titles newly published. Record labels also have backlists of music titles they have published. Having a strong backlist for a publisher is also a form of The Long Tail in 21st Century business plans. The phrase The Long Tail (as a proper noun with capitalized letters) was first coined by Chris Anderson in an October 2004 Wired magazine article[1] to describe certain business and economic models such as Amazon. ...

Building a strong backlist has traditionally been seen as the way to produce a profitable publishing house, as the most expensive aspects of the publishing process have already been paid for and the only remaining expenses are reproduction costs.