midlist

English

Etymology tree

Proto-Indo-European *me

Proto-Indo-European *dʰeh₁-?

Proto-Indo-European *-dʰe

Proto-Indo-European *médʰi

Proto-Indo-European *-os

Proto-Indo-European *médʰyos

Proto-Germanic *midjaz

Proto-West Germanic *midi

Old English midd

Middle English mid

English mid

English mid-

English list

English midlist

From mid- + list.

midlist (not comparable)

(publishing, of a book or author) Unlikely to be more than modestly successful.
- 2007 June 4, Celia Mcgee, “A Way to Give Authors a Lucrative Second Platform”, in New York Times‎^[1]:
  He scoffs at the lesser-known, midlist and emerging authors […] .
(publishing, attributively, of books being planned) Expected to achieve sales performance that blends frontlist performance with backlist performance, being neither a bestseller when new nor a perennial backlist performer but strong enough in each of those categories to be successful overall.
Coordinate terms: frontlist, backlist

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.