Abbreviations (Acronyms & Initialisms) you may run into

[Justanotherbiblophile]

Capitalization can vary.
Hit me up off-thread with additional suggestions, and I'll update this post.

Ctrl-F and Google are your friends.

---

GR - Goodreads.com
[s] - Shelved; used by the GR site
OP - Original Poster (of the thread on GR)
OT - Off Topic (in this forum, there are specific forums for most types of OT threads, please use them)

MMPB / PB - Mass-Market Paperback; sized: 4.25"x6.75"
TPB - Trade Paperback; larger than mmpb, but still softbound; common sizes: 5.5"x8.5" & 6"x9"
GN - Graphic Novel; art & (almost always) text; often a compilation of individual comic book issues (usually softbound); also (confusingly) called a trade paperback
HC - Hardcover; most common size is Octavo (8vo): 5"x8" -> 6"x9"
eBk - an eBook / digital format (eg: .epub, .mobi, .azw)
chapbook - (typically) fewer pages than a novel, bound differently (cheaply)


OoP / OOP / OP - Out of Print; rare -- OP is generally used to refer to the Original Poster (or requester) who is looking for the book (see above)
POD - Print on Demand
ARC - Advance Reading Copy
RIO - Read it Online
KU - Kindle Unlimited

UP - University Press
BC / BCE - Book Club Edition
HQN / MB / M&B - Rom: Harlequin/Mills and Boon
SVH - YA: Sweet Valley High

ToC - Table of Contents

flash - flash-fiction; (usually) online, one-off, unedited, quick (possibly incomplete) story starters, snippets or scenes
short / ss - short story (often used for anything less than a novel)

mega-novel - book: 90-120k words
long novel - book: 60-80k words
novel - book: any work of fiction greater than 40,000 words in length
novella - (sometimes a stand-alone) book: 17,500-40,000 words long
novelette - 7,500-17,500 words
short story - any work of fiction under 7,500 words
short-short story - <1,000 words
flash fiction - very short fiction (<400 words)
micro-fiction | microfiction - (under a sentence or three)
nanofiction - just a few words (<80-140 characters)

AF - (once) Adult fiction - unless labeled otherwise, we assume adult fiction
NA - New Adult (often: college setting/ages)
YA - Young Adult (often: high school setting/ages)
MG - Middle Grade
Juv / Juve / Juvies - Juvenile
Chapter books / kids books
Children's books (illustrated)

Protag - Protagonist
MC - Main Character (has also been: Motorcycle Club)
ML / FL - Male/Female Lead (main characters)
H & h - Hero and heroine; (very often capitalization denotes gender), sometimes used separately in desc. eg: H has baby with OW, h files for divorce. (fyi, spelling matters: heroin is an illegal, highly addictive drug processed from morphine)
pov - Point of View
POC - Person of color
ISO - In Search Of... [X]

NF - Non-fiction
SF / SciFi / scifi - Science Fiction
SF&F / SFF - Science Fiction and Fantasy
Fant / FN - Fantasy
Cont - Contemporary
UF - (contemporary) Urban Fantasy
magic realism - mundane setting with magical or supernatural phenomena
Rom / RO / (once RMC) - Romance
PnR / PNR - Paranormal Romance
H.Rom - Historical Romance (eg: victorian, bodice ripper, family saga, etc)
R.Rom - Regency Romance
H.Fic / Hist Fic / HF - Historical Fiction
Hor / HR - Horror
Susp - Suspense/Thriller
MS - Mystery and Suspense (also, Manuscript (usually ms))
RF - Realistic fiction
AA - Action and Adventure (aka: man-porn)
Hum /HM - Humor
SP - Speculative Fiction
TH - Thriller
UR - Urban
MF - Misc. Fiction

TT - scifi: Time Travel
timeslip - fant: usually magical / unexplained TT
PUniv / PUni - scifi: Parallel Universe(s) / Crosstime
A.Hist - scifi: Alternate history / uchronia(s)
ESP - Extra-Sensory Perception; often used to inc. other psionic powers
were / shifter - limited shape-changing; like a werewolf (lycanthrope) - but usually inc. other animals/beasts; eg: were-dragon, were-tiger, were-leopard, were-hyena, were-bear, etc
OCD - Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

BDSM - Bondage (/Discipline) Domination (/Submission) Sadism/Masochism
SSC - BDSM: Safe/Sane/Consensual (most books have a statement)
tw - trigger warning, potentially distressing material (ie: not safe)
SA - Sexually Assaulted
GaSM / GLBT / LBGT / etc.; currently it goes up to: LGGBBTTQQIAAPP - Gender and Sexual Minorities - classically: Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender (vs. cis)
M/M / MM / mm - Rom: Gay Male-to-Male
mfm - Rom: Male-Female-Male love interaction; hetero-only; implied sleeping together (menage-a-trois), instead of just a love triangle (composed of serial mf interactions only)
mmf - Rom: Male-Male-Female love interaction; implied some homosexual interaction/scenes (mm), instead of just a menage-a-trois
ff - Rom: Lesbian
LD - Rom: Long-distance
OW - (typically Rom) Other Woman (mistress, side-chick/dish/piece - sometimes: new wife/gf)
moc - (typically Rom) Marriage of Convenience
HEA - happily ever after
HFN - happy for now
TSTL - (often Rom) too Stupid to live
OTT - Over the top

WIP - Work in Progress (usually by writers: unfinished / unpolished writing)
TBR / tr - To (Be) Read (pile, stack, shelf, etc); books which a person is intending to read sometime 'soon'

Consider using the urban dictionary:
https://www.urbandictionary.com/defin...


Thanks Dee, Joseph, Serendi, Lobstergirl, Anie-Chan, Rae, MJ, Aerulan, g gggg, Corinne, Mads, Zala


(Also, do you think an alphabetical listing - instead of by cognitive grouping - would be more efficient/useful?)

[Melanti]

YA and NA similar and there's a bit of overlap but aren't the same thing.
Young Adult is Jr. High/High School age.
New Adult is slightly older - 18-25 or so.

It's supposed to cover the age where teens are out on their own for the first time, getting their first real job, going to college, possibly getting married and starting a family, etc.

[Justanotherbiblophile]

At that rate, kids these days aren't ever going to grow up. So, when do publishers think they'll be ready for real adult books? ;)

[Dee]

i would break down BDSM

BDSM - Bondage/discipline; dominance/submission; sadism/masochism

SSC - safe/sane/consenual (most books will have a statement to that fact at the beginning)

HEA - happily ever after
HFN - happy for now

[Dee]

TSTL - too stupid to live - you'll often see heroines referred that way when they do exteremely dumb stuff in romances

[Melanti]

Justanotherbiblophile wrote: "At that rate, kids these days aren't ever going to grow up. So, when do publishers think they'll be ready for real adult books? ;)"

I know! It seems silly to me too, but I've been told by an author that it makes it easier to publish adult books with younger protagonists. In publishers' eyes, us "real" adults don't want to read about a 21/22 kid's first job either. So they see NA as a way of creating a market for books that previously would have been considered too risky.

[Joseph]

I'd also include:

UF = Urban Fantasy

[Serendi]

Someone just used OW, which I finally decided from the context might be Other Woman.

[Kris]

Great post!

[Cruth]

Lafanda wrote: "Does anyone have an idea what KA might mean? I was reading some reviews for Knight and I noticed KA showing up a lot."

The author? Kristen Ashley.

[Victoria]

What about the other abbreviations? BWWM, BBW etc.

[Justanotherbiblophile]

List 'em and I'll add them. I take it you want all the dating acronyms in there?

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

Someone used POC the other day (person of color). Is this widely used enough to be on the list?

[Justanotherbiblophile]

Yeah. Now whether that needs to be further defined for the non-US/non-PC crowds is another question. I'm going to side with: 'google anything you don't understand' :)

ie: I'm not defining 'person of color', you may google that phrase :D

[Dee]

Victoria wrote: "What about the other abbreviations? BWWM, BBW etc."

Bwwm - black woman white male
Bbw - big beautiful woman (sometimes one of the b's can also be black)

[Dee]

For mfm and mmf i'd specify they are different - all within menage realm - but mmf will include mm sexual scenes mfm won't

[Justanotherbiblophile]

Dee wrote: "but mmf will include mm sexual scenes mfm won't"

That's a subtlety of which I was unaware, that not being my forte.

Also, is there a consensus that we want all the dating abbreviations in this list as well? Maybe a link to the commonly accepted ones would be better?

I was kinda keeping this as a list of book-ish terms, that you wouldn't (easily) find on other abbreviation pages/outside of GR/this group... I suspect many people are familiar with the dating terms (esp. if they've been single in the last 15-25 years), but the book-terms, not-so-much (we get casual readers as well as book-nerds).

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

Justanotherbiblophile wrote: "Also, is there a consensus that we want all the dating abbreviations in this list as well? .."

I would say we have reached a level of specificity more than adequate for this group. If posters are using abbreviations no one except the most insider romance/erotica readers know, they should be expected to explain what they mean.

[Anie_chan]

ISO. I've always get stumped when I see that. I thought it was similar to ISBN but turns out it just mean 'in search of'.

[Jen]

what is OTT and IRRC?

[MJ]

Rae wrote: "what is OTT and IRRC?"

Over The Top

And do you mean IIRC?
That's... If I Recall/Remember Correctly

[MJ]

Someone recently clarified these genres for me, as I've never seen the difference...

YA = high school setting/ages
NA = collage setting/ages

[[deleted user]]

Maybe sticky this? Maybe move to first folder? It's been done now. great.

[Aerulan]

Noticed a typo in the list

"mmf - Rom: Male-Female-Male love triangle; implied homosexual interaction (mm), instead of just a menage-a-trois."

The written out version is reversed (and the same as the entry below for mfm) should say Male-Male-Female to match the acronym and to make the description make a bit more sense.

[[deleted user]]

CIS - Cisgender (often abbreviated to simply cis) is a term for people whose gender identity matches the sex that they were assigned at birth.

[Anne]

Justanotherbiblophile wrote: "Capitalization can vary.
Hit me up off-thread with additional suggestions, and I'll update this post.

---This is great! I don't think an alphabetical list is necessary, if you don't want to look through the entire list you can use "Ctrl F" to search and find. Thanks for taking the time to do this.

GR - Goodreads.com
[s] - Shelved; used by the GR site
OP - Original Poster (of the thread..."

[Justanotherbiblophile]

deleted user wrote: "CIS - Cisgender"

Has anyone actually run into this in the wild of the requests? Why would you need to specify this, rather than the obverse? ie: Isn't the assumption to believe what we see is what it actually is - instead of automatically assuming it's a lie until told otherwise?

[[deleted user]]

I am "deleted user" in this case and I did come across it in a suggest-book-for-me request. I had to google it so I thought I'd post my results here.

Searching the term now shows these threads
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

[Justanotherbiblophile]

Corinne wrote: "I did come across it in a suggest-book-for-me request. I had to google it so I thought I'd post my results here."

I'd already put it in as a 'vs.' in the LGBT entry above - do you think that's too subtle/needs it's own line/entry? We'd kinda decided not to include all the dating abbreviations, in order to keep this list more focused on book-request-type things (there's a lot of SJW, BW, BBW, SWM, etc, etc that we get to not drown people in by excluding them).

In case anyone cares about the changelog: fixed some typos, and redid a couple of definitions in the interest of clarity. Added some examples. Wanted to mention in the definition that lycanthropy only applies to wolf-shifters, but it didn't work out. :)

[[deleted user]]

Justanotherbiblophile wrote: "...do you think that's too subtle/needs it's own line/entry? ..."

I think what you've done is fine and its a great list. only 2 mentions in all of our threads so can't be a real need for its own line.

Thanks for your time on that.

[[deleted user]]

For interested parties
"GSM acronym better than LGBT alphabet soup"
http://www.collegiatetimes.com/opinio...

[Justanotherbiblophile]

Corinne wrote: " 'GSM acronym better than LGBT alphabet soup' "

I can't believe they didn't do that correctly. You include the 'and', making the (gasp) acronym GaSM, which just needs an Or to make it complete ;>

[Justanotherbiblophile]

In other news, I went looking for a website list of dating initialisms to link (like the urban dictionary is linked), and couldn't find anything that wasn't trash. Some of the sites have intermingled the info with texting shortcuts, etc. Usually there's about 30, and then the writer gets his word-count, and stops (I'm assuming). So, not useful.
The acronym dictionary or whatever was the best, giving you what looks like about 300ish. They break their information up into pages, so they can up their ad-count, and I didn't go through every page.... Because they're actually giving you a tag-sorting of 'dating' - so they've tagged things like radiocarbon and other stuff as 'dating' - which is accurate, given some of the meanings of dating, but also not super-helpful.

[Scott]

Thanks for defining "MC." I have a friend who reads these romances and always found it odd that so many series were "something something main character." Now that I know it stands for "motorcycle club" it makes...slightly more sense.

[Kell I Am]

Anyone know what RH means? It has shown up in 2 posts today.

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

[Aerulan]

kelgar01 wrote: "Anyone know what RH means? It has shown up in 2 posts today.

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/......"

The one marked found, the book is tagged Reverse Harem so that'd be my guess. Stupid thing to shorten though it's not that common a theme.

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

Yeah that is way too specific.

[Ann aka Iftcan]

Gee-and I always thought that meant Random House. :oP

[Justanotherbiblophile]

Corinne wrote: "WLW = Women who love women"

And, as far as I can tell, that's the only place it has ever been used. I think I'll hold off on it, just like I'm holding off on RH (which I'll have to list with Random House - thanks Ann).

[Kate]

The acronyms will take over and rule the world PDQ!

[Melanie]

Reverse harem = RH

[MJ]

Isn't RH just polyandry? But I guess there's a difference between that and a harem... In some books ;)

[MJ]

I should probably know this, but anyone know what *(sic)* means in the newspapers etc?

They'll have it in the middle of quotes, so I suppose it means something like 'we added, or they missed something' maybe.

[Rosa]

It means, “The mistake is theirs, not ours, we’re just quoting them exactly.” It’s short for sic erat scriptum, “thus it was written.”

[Justanotherbiblophile]

Rosa wrote: "short for sic erat scriptum, 'thus it was written.'"

Interestingly enough, this page claims it is not an abbreviation/shortening: https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-an...

A few other latinisms most people should know:
i.e./ie, e.g./eg, etc, am/pm, AD/BC, percent, ps, qed, re:, r.i.p., sic, vis, v./vs

However, like dating abbreviations, should these be included in with the book terms? This post is not meant to be an all-inclusive abbreviations dictionary - merely for stuff that you would otherwise not run into / or is extremely hard to parse from a huge dictionary.

I'm not averse to linking a list of common latin things still used in the English language - but I've not found a good link, merely a bunch of sites which have partial coverages, or wayyyy too in-depth / huge.

[Thanks for catching the typo Rosa]

[Rosa]

It's "averse."
MJ was just asking what sic meant, not suggesting that it should be included with the book abbreviations.

[Zala]

Hi,

I hope it's not too self-explanatory but I noticed some people create bookshelves with tr abbreviation. So it says, tr-fantasy, tr-adult, tr-bookclub and so on. What does it stand for?
Thanks

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

I'm guessing "to read" but I don't really know.

[Andy Phillips]

I don't know if this is a stupid question, but what's a "chapter book" please? Don't most books have chapters or sections? I guess not all of them do, but it doesn't really reduce the possibilities much if you're looking for a typical fiction book. Does it mean something specific?

[Aerulan]

Andy Phillips wrote: "I don't know if this is a stupid question, but what's a "chapter book" please? Don't most books have chapters or sections? I guess not all of them do, but it doesn't really reduce the possibilities..."

Unless there's a new definition, it's the next step up in childrens' books going from the illustrated ones with a simple format to more complex books with actual chapters.