Microcosm Publishing

Year of the Witch

Magic is the ever-present energy around us—it’s in the sky, our companion animals, what we eat, where we live, and ourselves—and it can be used to create and manifest the things we want in our lives. By living with our intentions and the moon’s guiding energy, we can align ourselves with this energy and live our best lives, creating our narratives and movement along the way. And with each step we take, we are closer to our authentic selves. If you're new to witchcraft, this guide will walk you through your first year.

The Queer Affirmations Coloring Book

Heteronormative platitudes got you down? Color these joyful queer affirmations instead! Next time someone pulls out an old walnut like, "It's just a phase, they'll grow out of it," you can correct it to, "I love your strong sense of self!" Sick of hearing trite shit like, "It could be worse"? Cross it out with a Sharpie and replace it with, "I'm sorry you're going through this." Not everyone in your life may know how to talk about feelings and affirm your experience, but you can do it for yourself and the community you create. Joe Carlough's thoughtful and humorous revisions of everyday platitudes pair perfectly with Ally Shwed's colorable scenarios of all sorts of queer people bonding with each other, expressing their emotions, and learning to love themselves a little more every day.

Unf*ck Your Sex Toys

Sex toys, sex tools, sexual aids—whatever you call them, they have the potential to revolutionize your sex life. Whether you use them solo, partnered, or in group play, sex tools can bring you to new heights of pleasure, teach you about your body, affirm your identity, and liberate you from physical or emotional constraints. But damn, they can be expensive if you buy them new. Sexologist and therapist Dr. Faith is all about making sure you know how to get off safely and on a budget, and provides instructions for making a variety of do-it-yourself toys without breaking the bank or taking an embarrassing trip to the ER.

Divine Deco Tarot Coloring Book

Glamorous, exuberant, luxurious decorative details suffuse these pages, each bringing to life an archetype of the classic 78-card tarot major and minor arcana. Inspired by the lushness of the early 20th Century Art Deco movement and the Balkan folk art of her native Albania, Gerta Egy's images draw you into a fantasy world, beautiful and rich with meaning and feeling. Sprite-like human figures dance, writhe, and play with swords, wands, cups, and coins against modernist patterned backgrounds in these ornate pages that await your coloring pleasure. These images are drawn from the Divine Tarot Deco deck.

Now Kickstarting: Unfuck Your Addiction

Dungeon Degenerates: Hand of Doom

An instant classic and underground favorite from the moment it appeared on tabletops worldwide, Hand of Doom puts players into the boots of hardened criminal adventurers, escaping from the dungeons of Brüttelburg into a deranged, demented, dark-fantasy world of swords, sausages & sorcery. Players attempt to make their way through a series of interconnected weird, nasty & mysterious adventures as the world of the Würstreich gets progressively more dangerous & the Hand of Doom descends—distorting the land with evil sorcery. Over the course of multiple sessions, players will make morally questionable decisions that affect the game narrative, all while fighting ghouls, cops, bog monsters, and other unimaginable horrors. Think of it as a role-playing game in a box, dungeon master included. 

A Tight Squeeze (Queering Consent)

A Tight Squeeze showcases the hot sex magick of queer t4t connection. Balancing the weird, fun, and exciting with the vulnerable and bewildering, laura q explores the complex and sometimes painful realities of transfem identity, desire, and erotic experiences. Share in the intimacy of two genderqueer lovers’ playful first time together, witness the ultimate spell cast by a fiery mathemagician, and journey with the first trans astronaut toward a whole new kind of first contact. From after-hours surprises that lurk within the closets of a Swedish furniture store to the hustle of navigating life and love in post-condopocalypse Toronto, the queer women, enbies, and bois featured in these twelve tantalizing tales serve up a tender erotic banquet—sometimes with a side of consensual violence and always finished with a sweet course of connection and community.

Queer Animals & Plants Coloring Book

Lesbian gulls, intersex grizzly bears, gay orgies of manatees, trans clownfish, binary-smashing lichens, sex-changing willow trees, and asexual naked mole rats! Queerness is everywhere in the natural world. This coloring book celebrates the diversity of animals, plants, fungi, lichen, and coral and the way our beautiful queer communities exist far beyond the realms of human culture. So many of us grew up with wildlife programs and school biology classes that showed only monogamous, heterosexual pairings with the goal of making little baby animals. Bring your brightest colors to learn about and befriend some of the most colorful characters in nature and challenge society's cis-het norms. 

Monthly Manifestation Manual

Spend a month manifesting your greatest desires and potential. This planner and workbook gives you 31 days' worth of exercises for rewiring your brain to create new patterns of thoughts and actualizing your intentions and dreams. Perfect for when you're stuck at work or in love, out of touch with your emotions, angry, anxious, afraid, or depressed, or feel like you're hurtling down the wrong path in life too fast. Each day, fill out a check-in form and embark on a special exercises designed to hone your focus, channel your intent, dream bigger, and love yourself harder. Jessica Mullen and Kelly Cree's dreamy designs and potent exercises are tested and true methods for getting yourself back on the path to living the life you want. 

The Autism Partner Handbook

Learn key communication skills for succeeding in a neurologically mixed relationship, gain a better understanding of your partner's mental processes, troubleshoot your sex life, and level up your appreciation for your partner's relationship strengths. Autistic-allistic relationships, as well as relationships between two neurodivergent people, can work out splendidly, but there are a few consistent and predictable areas where they can get in trouble, which you can work through together once you know how to spot them. Dr. Faith G. Harper, author of Unf*ck Your Brain and Unf*ck Your Intimacy, joins Joe Biel (an autistic publisher and author) and Elly Blue (a partner of an autistic person), to offer hard-won guidance on a wide range of relationship topics.

From Dream to Reality

Want to make a living as a freelance writer? Here are the resources, answers, and real talk you need about what it takes to make a living as a writer for hire. Drawing on her own varied and successful years of freelance copywriting experience, Jessie Kwak (author of From Chaos to Creativity and From Big Idea to Book) offers valuable insights on how to figure out if this fast-paced, ever-evolving career is for you—and how to make it work if you decide to go for it. 

50 Ways to Protect Bookstores

Bookstores are important. So are booksellers. And they—and the ideas and communities they serve—need protection. Danny Caine, the best-selling author of How to Resist Amazon and Why and co-owner of the Raven Book Store in Lawrence, Kansas, writes a stirring call to action. Bookstores are not charities, he writes, and they shouldn't get a pass on exploitative labor practices, but they play a vital role in our society that is worth upholding. Preparing the ground for a more expansive book on the topic, Caine offers 50 ideas for protecting this idiosyncratic business niche and, by extension, the neighborhoods that bookstores anchor.

WorkingLit: Publishing Software from Microcosm

WorkingLit is cloud-based software developed by Microcosm Publishing that gives independent publishers tools to thrive and grow at their own pace. Our industry is run by billionaires and conglomerates, and we want to give our fellow publishers the freedom to market and sell your books, understand your business, and painlessly pay royalties.

Microcosm built our own software from scratch starting in 2002, and we owe it our survival, success, and continued independence. Now we want to share it with you. 

Get involved and stay in touch!

We're planning to launch our first phase publicly in summer, 2022.

• Take our survey for publishers
• Join our email list
• Are you a programmer? We're looking to grow our team. Email elly at microcosmpublishing dot com with your skillset and why you're interested in being part of WorkingLit
• Take the tour:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/uRj8l2paG2Y

Call for Submissions for Neurodiversity zine series

A People's Guide to Publishing Podcast

In 2012, Microcosm founder and CEO Joe Biel started writing blog posts. Biel wanted to share 25 years of experience and how Microcosm sold millions of books to leave a trail of bread crumbs for others to have similar success. Biel has also written a book about the topic, A People's Guide to Publishing.

Joe and Microcosm's marketing director Elly now make the weekly People's Guide to Publishing People's Guide to Publishing podcast. You can listen to it on your preferred app, or watch the video version as a vlogcast.

Got questions about the publishing industry or need help troubleshooting your own process? Submit your question to podcast at microcosmpublishing dot com, and we'll try to address it on an upcoming episode.

Find the series of blog posts that started it all here:

An overview

What a Publisher Does

Paralleling the Dinosaurs

Title Development

For authors: How to Pitch Your Book to a Publisher

Data About Your Book's Details (MetaData)

Profit & Loss Statement

Am I Stealing Your Art?

The Economic Case for Traditional Format Offset Printing

Distribution Question (with infographic)

The Print Run

Working with The Printer

Formatting for Print

How to Pack Books for Shipping

Social Media for Authors

Self-Promotion for Authors

Organizing a book tour

Microcosm In Your Town!

Want to meet us in person, check out our books, or see an author speak? We've got author events and convention events coming up! There's a full calendar at the bottom of the page.

Upcoming Author Events

 

• April 13th, 2023 (7pm): Gwendolyn Olton reads from From Conflict to Community at Burning Books, 420 Connecticut St, Buffalo, NY 14213.
   

Interested in having an author at your store or event? Reach out!!

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Upcoming Tabling Events

Where we'll be selling books and zines

• May 8-11, 2023: Peerpocalypse, Seaside, OR

Upcoming Trade Shows and Industry Events

Usually not open to the public, these industry events are a chance for store buyers to peruse our books, write orders, and chat about terms. We plan to either attend or exhibit at the following events. If you'll be there too, drop us a line—we'd love to meet you.

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Planning an event and want us to be part of it (speaking, author readings, movie screenings, setting up a book and zine pop-up shop, etc.)? Let us know!!

In the Portland area? We can set up a book fair at your workplace like the ones your school used to have.

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BFF Book Subscription

Be our Book Friend Forever (BFF)! For 6 months you'll receive every new title we publish. The subscription is sliding scale price $15-30/month—check it out here!  Thanks for your support!