Monthly Archives: January 2020

Meet the Winter 2020 Interns!

Three times a year we welcome interns from all over as part of our internship program. During the start of the year, however, we partner with Bennington College in Vermont to provide an intense six-week internship for students who are looking to learn more about the publishing industry. 

This year, we welcome Veda Carmine-Ritchie, Walter Greene and David Hakas! We asked them a few questions so you could get to know them too. 

Veda!

Where are you from/where did you grow up?

Veda: Portland, Oregon

Walter: Born in Brooklyn, NYC, raised in Portland, at school in Bennington, Vermont

David: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

What are you majoring in? 

Veda: Creative Writing/Dance

Walter: Literature and Philosophy

David: English Literature and Japanese Language

What first interested you in publishing?

Veda: I was interested in publishing, and Microcosm specifically, because working in this environment exposes you to so many amazing pieces of writing by so many different kinds of people. I think bringing an array of voices into the public sphere is incredibly important in our current climate. So not only do I get to read all the time! (swoon!) but I’m also working for a cause I believe in.

Walter: I first became interested in publishing after sitting in on a class for the literary magazine the “Bennington Review” back when I was a prospective student visiting Bennington College for the first time. During that class, I was introduced to the acquisition process and instantly found myself drawn into the critical dialogue that surrounds selecting pieces of writing for publication.

David: To be honest, initially it was the career opportunities. But I’ve found a lot to love since that time.

Walter!

What do you like best about interning for Microcosm so far?

Veda: I am really enjoying feeling like such a member of the team! Everyone here is amazing to work with and really values your time and opinions. I feel like the work I do here is not only appreciated by others, but something I feel proud of.

Walter: Interning at Microcosm has blown away any of my previous assumptions about what an internship looks like. Since day one, I’ve been met with the respect and responsibility of an employee and have been engaging in meaningful, rewarding work that has provided valuable insight into the world of publishing. Plus everyone here rocks, it’s definitely a no-bullshit environment in the best way possible.

David: I like being able to help people who aren’t experienced writers bring out their best work.

What will you and won’t you miss about Portland when you go back to Vermont?

Veda: I’m going to miss my dog, walking around the city, the pacific ocean and all the coffee shops. Probably not going to miss the clouds though, I want some winter sun!

Walter: I’ll miss the arts and music scene the most. Don’t get me wrong, Bennington College always has performances, lectures, exhibits, and many other events going on, but the arts and music scene is almost entirely contained within the campus. I love being able to travel around Portland and feeling that real sense of “going out” whenever there’s a show or something else happening.

David: I’ll miss being able to walk everywhere. I won’t miss the rain.

David!

Do you have any pets?

Veda: Yes! One chihuahua mix, he was a rescue. Apparently he lived in Hawaii for two years before meeting my family.

Walter: I have one dog, a Portuguese Water Dog named Willa, which is short for Willamette Stormtrooper (my brother and I got her when we were seven and nine). If you look “Portuguese Water Dog” up online you’ll find that they’re classified as working dogs, which clearly no one told that to Willa because she spends all day sleeping.

David: My family has everything from dogs to chickens, but I travel too much to have any myself.

What do you do in your free time?

Veda: I go on adventures with my friends, and if I’m alone, I tend to spend a lot of time in the dance studio, in the library, or home writing poems.

Walter: When I’m not working, I’m either reading, playing guitar, hiking, drinking tea, or roaming the shadow realm.

David: Read a lot and write a lot. If I’m on break, I’ll also watch professional wrestling and play video games with my younger siblings.

What’s one piece of media you recommend to everyone you meet? 

Veda: There’s so much media in the world! I think I’m gonna have to go with the movie Juno, if you haven’t seen it you’re missing out on some prime Micheal Cera and Ellen Page moments.

Walter: While I only found out about it recently, I recommend that anyone involved with music should pick up a copy of She Shreds, a magazine published here in Portland that focuses on women guitarists and bassists. Its articles and artist profiles are fascinating, the graphic design is beautiful, and it has sweet features like guitar gear recommendations based on your astrological sign (I’m a Gemini and this month’s rec was a distortion pedal so I picked up a ProCo Rat)

David: Count Zero by William Gibson, one of my favorite novels and a huge inspiration of mine.

Where can people find you online?

Veda: Follow me on instagram! @callyoutomorrow and if you’re feeling kinda sad, in need of weepy music, check out my spotify @vedsss

Walter: If you’re into it, add me on Instagram @freshprinceofportland

Anything else you’d like us to know about you?

Veda: I’m really excited for the rest of this internship and I’m really gonna miss this place when I’m back at school!

Interns are a vital part of our team, helping things run smoothly and getting to learn about what goes on behind the curtain of publishing. If you’re interested in joining our team through an internship, applications for the summer quarter are open until March 1, 2020! 

F*ck Happiness

Ariel Gore wanted to see if science could help her be happier. And the more she read, the more she realized that the psychology of happiness is full of studies by, for, and about straight cis white men. She set out to find out why her own experience as a woman and mother isn’t reflected in the research, and how we can do it better. The resulting book is fascinating, lyrical, and profoundly affecting.

The Microcosm Publishing Annual Money Report: 2019 Edition (with graphs!)

There’s no way around it: our first year returning to self-distributing was an incredible success!

Unbelievably, our 2019 sales went up 55.77% over 2018, making 2019, again, our best year ever! In the past year we’ve also increased staff wages by 38.94%, with more to come!

At the same time, 2019 really taxed and tested us in ways that we haven’t seen before. We are shipping an average of six times as many packages every day as we were when we moved into this building eight years ago. We are receiving six times as many boxes every day as well. All of this leads to the increased need for diligence and refinement as we outgrow old systems. 

Sure, everyone works harder as well and it’s nice to have that acknowledged. 2019 also saw the implementation of the employee ownership program and we now have five owners with more on the way. We also switched our podcast from quarterly to weekly and added a vlogcast version.

As the growth seems constant and endless, we have to stop and ask bigger long-term questions: when will we need to hire another staff person (February?)? When will we give the next round of raises (April!)? These are wonderful problems to discuss and the opposite of our situation eight years ago when the current staff took over the company. 

We are publishing more books than ever (and reprinting more books than ever too!) and most of this year has been spent implementing new systems to use data to make better decisions and where we have the most growth opportunities.

Most important is the constant feedback we receive from our work. We’ve expanded our books to prisoners program as well this year and many people write back, shocked that we responded at all—let alone sent me them a pile of books to read. Seeing readers recommend our books on social media has been flattering but nothing holds a candle to someone spilling their guts about how much they were singularly impacted in a private letter.

Let’s look at the numbers.

Our total sales for the year were $1.273 million dollars. Here’s what we are selling:

Here are our bestsellers, by dollars:

Expenses this year were also right at $1.27M, partially due to the 38.94% staff raises:

And the real shocker, comparing 2019 to 2018:

And a friendly reminder: While we’re legally a “for-profit” organization, we choose to operate on a break-even basis. This means that when we have profits (which isn’t all the time, but we try), they don’t go into our owners’ yacht fund; they go into staff wages and taking a chance on publishing new books we believe in. Getting to do work we care about every day and put books out there that help people change their lives is way better than a yacht. Which is an important attitude to have in the publishing industry!