The project is Google's attempt to crack into the market of distributing current and backlist works.

WSJ: Google to Launch Digital Books by Early Summer

But it has the sort of solid backlist that makes a publisher feel comfortable.

ECONOMIST: J��r?me Lindon

Minotaur is now seeking to acquire the rest of Mr. James's backlist, says Minotaur publisher Andrew Martin.

WSJ: Peter James: In Hot Pursuit of American Readers

Publishers have an incentive to work with a retailer that can put high-margin "backlist" books on physical display.

WSJ: HEARD ON THE STREET: Barnes & Noble Finds Nook in Book Market

Readers will have access to a wider and more diverse range of frontlist and backlist content in multiple print and digital formats.

ENGADGET: Penguin and Random House merge, promise a brave new e-book future

Mainstream publishing houses have long depended for much of their profit on selling backlist titles, books in print for more than a year.

WSJ: Digital Self-Publishing Shakes Up Traditional Book Industry

Which means this "corrected" version of her book--a steady seller off the backlist--had only been brought up to Ambrose code: footnotes, but no quotation marks around the borrowed passages.

FORBES: Doris Kearns Goodwin And The Credibility Gap

The backlist is the bread and butter of the business, as it ensures a steady stream of revenue even when newly published books and recently premiered films are not doing well.

ECONOMIST: Will Britain's oldest literary agency slowly fade away?

Since then he has resold 20 titles in his stockpile to his publishers, insisting that if they wanted his next blockbuster-to-be, they had to buy a few old books from his backlist, as well.

FORBES: Suspense Ratios

Some of the work with the backlist, such as looking after the rights of long-dead poets, is neither lucrative nor exciting, but artists rely on their agents to take good care of their previous work.

ECONOMIST: Will Britain's oldest literary agency slowly fade away?