Every publishing company has a legal name, but this isn't always the same one that appears on the spines of the books they publish. The name that appears on a book's spine is called its 'imprint' and it is often associated with a particular logo. In fact, the logo itself is sometimes called the imprint and can be evocative of the imprint name (like the anchor in Anchor Books) or wholly distinct (like the borzoi dog used by Knopf). In any case, the imprint identifies the title as part of a 'line' of books and serves two marketing purposes. First, the imprint may indicate a level of quality to the buyer due to the longevity of the company and the prestige of other well-known titles and authors associated with the imprint. In other words, the imprint is essentially an established consumer brand name.

Second, the imprint serves a wholesale marketing purpose. Since a large established publishing firm publishes many new titles every season, their sales reps tend to concentrate on a handful of 'lead' titles on their frontlist. Larger publishers, therefore, break their lists into smaller groupings and attribute them to separate imprints rather than let their many other deserving new titles get short shrift in the sales presentation.

For some small and midsized firms, the company name often is the imprint. Lonely Planet, for instance, which publishes travel guides, applies its name to all of their travel guides, phrasebooks, maps, calendars, and other titles.

Other midsized firms like Ten Speed Press, publish their most popular backlist titles (in the case of Ten Speed Press, What Color Is Your Parachute? and The Moosewood Cookbook) under their "flagship" imprint, and create separate imprints for other types of books. Ten Speed Press, for example, also publishes children's titles under the Tricycle Press imprint, and spiritual nonfiction titles under the Celestial Arts imprint.