Posts By: microcosm

Now Kickstarting: The punk lore of Crate Digger!

February 11, 2015 — by Elly

george washington endorses crate digger We’re Kickstarting again! This time the project is Crate Digger: An Obsession With Punk Records.

The book is Bob Suren’s epic saga of punk culture and music in Florida and beyond. He goes as far as Texas, Costa Rica, and Brazil on tour with Failure Face and other bands. While at home in the Tampa area he ran iconic record shop Sound Idea and also Burrito Records, always staying a step ahead of the music industry. His story is told through the records he collected—and eventually sold all at once, when it all fell apart.

It’s the kind of book that kept our proofreaders grinning with bemused looks on their faces, so enthralled in the story that they didn’t hear us ask them what was so funny. We’re having ridiculous amounts of fun coming up with stickers to go with all the major endorsements that are rolling in (see right, and here). The reviewers so far love it. And we think you will too.

So we’re asking, with our hearts on our sleeves: Will you back our Kickstarter project and help Crate Digger come into being with the quiet fanfare it deserves?

Thank you.

Self-Promotion for Authors: What the Publisher Does

February 10, 2015 — by Elly

All our authors ask at some point “how can I promote my book?” A lot of our authors—well, a lot of authors in general—are quite shy and don’t know where to begin with talking about their books to the public. We think a lot about how to promote books to eager readers without totally burning out. We’ll share some of what we’ve learned in the next few posts.

This is the first of a series of posts that outlines how Microcosm promotes books, what authors can do, and some tips for tying your book in with your other work, past and future. so much to read! These posts are written for Microcosm’s authors and artists, and are geared towards our processes, but they should still be useful for anyone who is figuring out how to promote any book, whether you’re publishing it yourself or have a contract with a major house.

The first post is our side of the bargain.

What we do

Microcosm is a traditional-format publishing house. We solicit books from authors, and occasionally accept submissions, work with authors to produce the best possible book, have large quantities of books manufactured (in the USA!), and work hard to get those books into the hands of the right readers. Here are the basic steps:

– Marketing and development: This is the hardest part of the process to describe, but probably the most important. We spend hours researching the market for each book and figuring out a title, subtitle, cover design, and description. Sometimes this process is immediate and obvious, other times it takes months of back-and-forth and doubt. The end goal is to make sure that your book is accurately described and also that it fills a wanted and empty niche in the world of books out there so that excited readers are able to discover it.

– Editing: This is the part that you’ll see the most, in which we make sure that your book is what it says it is, is awesome to read, and has as few typos as possible.

– Production: When your book is ready, we design it and send it off to the printer. The development process informs your book’s size, color, design, paper type, how many we print, when it is printed, when it is released, and where all the copies are warehoused. We pay for the production and budget our promotional activities around selling enough books so that we recoup the investment quickly and begin paying you royalties.

– Publicity: We promote your book via printed catalogs and fliers that we distribute internationally, occasionally in targeted advertisements, and in every creative way we can possibly think of. Before your book comes out, we create digitally printed ARCs (Advance Review Copies) and both we and you distribute them to potential reviewers and interviewers. We work with book reviewers and media outlets that we have relationships with and create new connections with people whose readers we think would like your book. Sometimes we’ll run a Kickstarter campaign. We work closely with authors every step of the way to help you talk about your book and the bigger ideas behind it.

– Sales and distribution: We do our darnedest to sell the heck out of your book through many, many channels including directly to readers and fans—online, at events, and in our bookstore, to wholesalers, to distributors of various types, and more.

This is only a very brief summary of what we do in putting out a book. Hopefully it’ll help put the rest of the series into perspective!

Next in the series: Psyching yourself up to promote your book when that seems like the most terrifying thing ever.

Feel free to request topics in the comments, or by email. Read in more depth about what a publisher does in Joe Biel’s book, A People’s Guide to Publishing.

Things are Meaning More—catching up with Al Burian

February 09, 2015 — by Elly Blue

Microcosm’s first paperback books came out back in 2002, and as I’ve been reading my way through them, I’ve been wondering—where are the authors now? I fired off a few emails with nosy questions, which were followed by a deafening silence… then at last, to my relief, Al Burian wrote back with thoughtful and generous answers. Thanks, Al.

1. Hi Al! What are you up to these days? Where in the world are you and what’s it like there today?

My last publication for Microcosm (Burn Collector #15) was about moving to Berlin, Germany, and in fact I’m still living there, even still living in the same apartment. But today I am not at home for a change; I am in Hamburg, a few hours away. I’m at a band practice in a basement room, filled with musical equipment, like so many similar rooms around the world: familiar, non-exotic territory. Outside, the day is a drizzling, oppressive dark grey. I imagine it is comparable to winter weather in Portland, OR. drawn al

2. Your first book with us was a comic book in 2003 (!), Things Are Meaning Less. Your work now is pretty different in format and also in tone—what changed and why?

I don’t really feel that my work has changed so drastically, but perhaps readers see that differently. My early stuff was informed by a younger persons’ sensibilities, of course. In my twenties I had the typical know-it-all attitude that comes with a liberal arts degree and an obscure record collection. After I finished college I began touring with punk bands and produced a lot of zines; I enjoyed writing in an academic, pseudo-literary style, even as I described dumpster-diving, visits to Waffle House, and other low-brow everyday behavior. The contrast struck me as funny. Other people might have found the affect annoying.

Now that I’m older and have had a few of the important traumatic adult experiences, my horizons have broadened, and I feel like I hardly know anything at all. I’m slower to produce and much more self-critical. I find myself talking about how it’s not all so black and white, weighing both sides of the issue, displaying all the wishy-washy attitudes that used to annoy me about old people. I don’t feel so comfortable anymore with the “insert situation, make fun of everyone’s haircuts, end with a Nietzsche quotation” style of writing. Nonetheless, I would maintain that it is not me that has changed so much– I have actually remained pretty consistent– but rather the context within which I’m working, the milieu I’m in (not touring so much, and definitely not much in North America), the recontextualization of the meaning of analog creative forms in the digital era…. stuff like that.

3. What’s your plan for where you’re going with your work next?

I don’t know. I’ve never had any kind of plan. My creative history is one long and uncoordinated flail forward. In theory I agree, having a plan is a good idea, and I even tried to formulate one when I moved to Germany, which was to quit doing music and focus on writing. Apparently to succeed and be fruitful, you need a solid focus and single-minded discipline; all the self-help books say so. But those have traditionally been my weak spots, and sure enough, now a few years later I’ve meandered off track completely. In 2015, maybe some new comics, most likely will put out some new music, and possibly but not very probably will finish up one of many long-term writing projects.

4. What books and music have you liked recently? Or maybe “like” is the wrong metric, so: what’s gotten stuck in your head?

Books: The Nostalgia Echo by Mickey Hess, Orlando by Virginia Woolf, The Loom of Ruin by Sam McPheeters, Susan Sontag: the Complete Rolling Stone Interview by Jonathan Cott

Comics: Anna Haifisch, Mike Taylor

Music: Mothers of Invention with Napoleon Murphy Brock, Disappears, Corrosion of Conformity self-titled album

5. What question should I really be asking you?

Anyone can ask me any question they want to– leave a “comment” at alburian.com. But as far as “should,” I’d say, hey, no pressure. Maybe you don’t have any more questions. That’s OK too.

This is one of a series of interviews with Microcosm authors. The next interview is with Anna Brones.

Yo Miss

February 07, 2015

Yo, Miss: A Graphic Look at High School takes the reader inside Wildcat Academy, a second chance high school in New York City where all the students are considered at-risk. Through strong and revealing black and white images, Wilde tells the story of “eight students who are trying to get that ticket to the middle class—a high school diploma.” Whether they succeed or not has as much to do with what happens outside the classroom as in, and the value of perseverance is matched by the power of a second chance. It is a story that shows these teens in all their beauty, intelligence, suffering, humor, and humanity (and also when they are really pains in the behind.) A view from the trenches of public education, Yo, Miss challenges preconceptions about who these kids are, and what is needed to help them graduate.

Rampant Media Consumption #5

February 06, 2015 — by Microcosm

Here’s what we uploaded to our brains this week:

Erik

I watched a documentary on James Brown celled, Mr. Dynamite. It follows his career from childhood through the early 70’s. It’s a pretty impressive onslaught of explosive live footage and social history. Say what you will about the ignominy of his latter career, this film made abundantly clear to me why he’s known as the GFOS (Godfather of Soul).

Absorbed some exciting matches in the Bundesliga.

Read through Dream Whip #’s 11-13 by Mr. Bill Brown. He pours his heart all over America and shares it with us in his zine. Every issue is an adventure chock-full of honesty, innovation, and humanity.

I’ve re-visited The Knife album, Silent Shout. I’ve always liked The Knife, I probably liked Karin Dreijer Andersson’s solo work, Fever Ray more so, however, after more than three listens this week, I found the music dreamy and well executed.

Meggyn

Eyes Wide’s When It’s Raining

Title Fight’s Hyperview

Cloakroom’s Further Out

Once I’m deep in a very specific music-hole, it’s hard for me to crawl out. This week it was shoegazey alt/emo. Ironically, no tears were shed.

I’ve also been really inspired and intrigued by Kyle Hilton‘s work. He mainly works in pop culture and media, and his stylistic execution had me interested in something I normally felt apathy for.

I’ve also been binge-watching The X-Files.

Elly

While waiting in line for the bathroom at Powell’s on Sunday night I found Betsy Lerner‘s book The Forest for the Trees. It’s ostensibly advice for writers but actually has a great deal of excellent lore about being a book editor, agent, or anyone else who works with authors. Tragicomically, it’s been remaindered, so I forked over $7.95 and have been gobbling up Lerner’s anecdotes and observations from the New York edge of the publishing wilderness. In her evaluation of writerly personalities she quotes a ton of unbearably pompous manspressions from great male writers of yore, including Gore Vidal, so I was hesitant to agree to watch a documentary about him when Joe suggested it the next day. But the documentary is good, and anyone who was willing to go on TV in like the 1950s and say things like “homosexuality is entirely normal” must have needed a giant ego to survive at all, so hats off to him.

Joe

In a hilarious turn of events, I have found obligation to read something each week rather than state the sad reality that I just watch reruns of Bruce Campbell’s Burn Notice to unwind after work.

Of course, to most people something like The Responsible Company isn’t reading that you’d do to unwind, but I found Yvon’s light and simple advice to be really encouraging. He creates these neat checklists and it was heartening to discover that we are doing 90% of each of them already at Microcosm, basically everything but organizing the staff to do group volunteer activities in the community. The book has nice production values for a self-pub and I appreciate that it’s the right length.

I got a stack of zines to review for the new Xerography Debt but you’ll have to wait six months to read about those when the new issue is published.

Elly and I watched The United States of Amnesia about Gore Vidal, which thankfully seemed to effectively demonstrate the ways that he’s not just another babbling old white guy in the spotlight, but willing to talk shit to power in ways that even rich people! I took in The Wolf of Wall Street as my chaser. I get it that it’s Scorcese’s style, but almost every scene could be cut in half so the movie could be under two hours. All of the historical exposition is interesting and helpful to understand the people that both ruined the American economy and created capital without labor to substantiate it or make it stable. Perhaps it’s the fact that half of the movie is watching the staff do drugs or hiring prostitutes or the main character, Jordan, cheating on his wives that make it interesting to certain audiences, but that stuff literally put me to sleep.

Also, last week’s episode of This American Life and this Guardian article detail a fascinating story of an angry man troll and his obsession, a fat-positive comedian who is happy with her life. Best of all, they interview each other in a way that is awkward but gives closure.

Nathan

I went to another Powell’s book reading, for Sarah van Gelder’s Sustainable Happiness. Which ties into several of our “happy” books. But, more important, it fits right into our ethos of promoting “simple” living which pretty much covers all of our Urban Homesteader collection as well as many other DIY titles we sell. :o)

Aftermass: Bicycling in a Post-Critical Mass Portland

February 01, 2015

The world looks to Portland, Oregon as an example of how bicycle culture can blossom out of the ruinous freeways of car-oriented civilization. Aftermass is the first feature documentary to explore the events, people, politics, and social changes that led to Portland becoming the first major bicycle city in the United States.

Aftermass features many of the leaders and major participants behind the growth of bicycling ridership since 1971. The narrative demonstrates the complex dynamic throughout the 1990s between advocacy organizations, politicians, city planners, and the then new, grassroots Critical Mass ride. The film is full of smiling faces on two wheels, but also explores the controversies, setbacks, and bumps along the way, including riots, political roadblocks, and an illegal police spy.

The film provides new and vital insights into Portland’s transportation history as well as into paths other cities can follow to healthy planning and a green future.

Rampant Media Consumption #4

January 30, 2015 — by Microcosm

Here’s how we’re rolling with reality this week.

Tim

I have the (bad?) habit of just kind of flying through books of poetry. I know it’s usually the style of writing that demands the most attention, with each word or line-break having a very deliberate and specific meaning, but I often approach it like a song and go for the overall emotional impact. That’s what happened the other day when I sat down with If I Really Wanted to Feel Happy I’d Feel Happy Already by Jordan Castro…one pint of coffee and 160 pages of minimalist prose later, it was back on the bookshelf and I was slumped in my chair. The title is probably enough to know why. RIYL: All those other sad sacks (Mira Gonzalez, Spencer Madsen, Ellen Kennedy, Sam Pink, etc.). But you really can’t go wrong with anything from Civil Coping Mechanisms.

But to be honest, I’ve spent most of my life lately catching up on Bob’s Burgers. It’s its own sort of poetry.

Jeff

I’ve been reading Humor by Stanley Donwood. He’s one of my favorite artists, he did the covers for all of the Radiohead albums (except Pablo Honey). This isn’t an artbook though… this is a collection of his nightmares. Which is surprisingly entertaining. Some of it is pretty gruesome, but most of it is oddly funny.

Also, I’ve been skimming through How to Stay Alive in the Woods. It’s pretty good, once you get passed the killing-small-animals part.

And of course the new Tape Op magazine…which is always great. Especially while listening to lots of Portishead.

Elly

I started using Facebook in earnest again last week, after months away. In part, this was for awesome reasons like creating pages for the Crate Digger book and Feminists Against Freeways. But from there things got out of hand and I was right back to the glazed-eyed clicking and scrolling that I’ve sworn off so many times. That ate up every moment that I’d normally give to pleasure reading. On Thursday I wasn’t feeling well and intended to rest all day, but there was social media, gnawing at my brain. Today I’m using Self Control again and my brain is once more my own.

Nathan

I went to yet another book reading last night at Powell’s, this time on Hawthorne. Which might work into some of our many parenting titles.

The Business of Publishing

January 28, 2015 — by Elly

One of our most frequently asked questions here at Microcosm is something along the lines of: How does publishing work anymore?

We have a few ways of answering that.

Want a big picture look at the state of the industry, Amazon, the Big 5, and where small fry like us can fit in (and thrive)? We’ve got you covered.

Or would you prefer brass tacks instructions that you can follow along at home? We have that, too.

We have it in book form: Joe co-authored Make A Zine, which tells you not just how to lay out your type-written treatises for photocopying and handing out at punk shows, but how to publish books with spines, from editorial nuts to distribution bolts. More recently, Joe wrote *the* book on book publishing, A People’s Guide to Publishing.

I wrote a blog post a ways back about running a small zine production operation out of my living room and funding it on Kickstarter.

For people who want to take their book publishing enterprise even farther, Joe has an ongoing series, The Business of Publishing, over on my blog from way back in 2014 when we ran separate enterprises. Each post offers an in-depth guide to a new aspect of the industry, geared toward advanced beginners. If you put out a book through CreateSpace and are wondering why you aren’t getting ahead, read this!

There’s remarkably little candid information we’ve found out there about how to publish books in a way that makes economic sense. (Sorry, Smashwords. Sorry, Amazon. You are all sharks, you’re out to screw over authors, readers, and other publishers, and you know it.)

One refreshing exception came this week from our friend Amelia Greenhall, who wrote this extraordinarily detailed and useful account of founding a financially successful quarterly journal. (A word of caution: She was able to raise her entire first-year operating budget up-front. If that’s not in the cards for you, you may need to be a bit scrappier.)

Another great resource on some elements of the most important but undervalued work that publishers do can be found here. The head of our former distributor, IPG, kicked off an extraordinarily helpful series on “habits of successful independent publishers.” (My favorite part: “They spend a lot of time in bookstores.”)

Rampant Media Consumption #3

January 23, 2015 — by Microcosm

Here’s how we’re allocating our attention spans this week:

Rosie (intern)

Princess Nokia (formerly Wavy Spice) came out with a new music video for her song “Young Girls” this week, which got me back into her Metallic Butterfly mix tape. So good!

I’m reading Dorothea Lasky‘s most recent book of poetry, Rome, and like all her other work it’s super weird and pop and amazing.

This might be a little late in the game, but I just started (and finished) Transparent… in just three days…

Poet Paul Legault‘s twitter has a super strange sense of humor, but I think it’s funny! @theotherpaul

Morgan (intern)

Lately, I’ve been listening to a lot of my all-time favorite band, mewithoutYou. Their understated, lyric-driven indie sound is in direct contrast to what I’m currently reading: Black Echo by Michael Connelly. It’s the crime/mystery/police thriller genre author’s debut novel, and having just enjoyed a novel of his based loosely on the work of Edgar Allan Poe, I decided to go back and start at the beginning. So far, it’s satisfyingly profanity-laced, cliff-hanger-y, and full of technical police talk. I love it.

Meggyn (designer)

This week, I really just played Hemingway’s So Predictable and REPLY’s remix of Let It Run on repeat…back and forth….forever.

Nathan (publisher’s assistant in training)

Nathan reports that he went to a reading of I Think You’re Totally Wrong at Powell’s this week. He describes it as a debate about the importance of the life/art balance and recommends one of our books and a zine that can also help with that.

Erik (sales manager)

This week I spent an unusual amount of time on YouTube researching and listening to old Dub recordings. I’ve always liked old roots reggae and the Dub always seemed like a rogue splinter group with origins and facets hidden away in old vaults and obscure collectors closets. This isn’t too far off. Some of these recordings had numbered pressings equal to the amount of cash they had at the time, maybe 200 copies, maybe 1,000… making them for the most part, exceptionally difficult to find. Thanks to YouTube, I’ve invested no small amount of time tracing the legacy’s of King Tubby, Lee Perry, Mad Professor, and Jah Shaka. I’ve discovered a new holy grail of records to hunt and secure; it’ll likely be a long time before I see one, and it’ll probably be way too much money and I’ll have to make concessions… I did manage to go out and find a few of these albums, maybe the one I like the most right now is: The Commandments of Dub, Chapter 2, put on by Jah Shaka. Many of these album titles have these types of overtones linked to Rastafarianism, I just like the music.

I’ve been sifting through Michel Foucault’s, History of Sexuality series, three volumes: #1 An Introduction by the same name, #2 The Use of Pleasure, and #3 The Care of the Self. At this point it’s difficult to say exactly what I’m looking for, but I think I’m after some leverage to use against some other writers, which will remain nameless. Foucault has always left huge impressions, as I get older these impressions I feel, take shape alongside other dents and damages from lack of maintenance in my former study. So now as I encounter his work, which some would say is a little demanding, I feel I have to be all the more diligent not to re-open old wounds.

From volume two: ” My aim was not to write a history of sexual behaviors and practices, tracing their successive forms, their evolution, and their dissemination; nor was it to analyze the scientific, religious, or philosophical ideas through which these behaviors have been represented. I wanted first to dwell on that quite recent and banal notion of “sexuality”: to stand detached from it, bracketing its familiarity, in order to analyze the theoretical and practical context with which it has been associated.”

I received the Jan. 26, 2015 copy of the New Yorker, and I’m happy to say, that at this point I’ve only read the cartoons!

Elly (marketing)

Couldn’t stop reading this week. I finished Gretchen Rubin’s The Happiness Project and kept thinking about her unbelievably disciplined, almost athletic endeavor to be perfect in her career, marriage, parenting, and personal development. Started Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In and Roxane Gay’s Bad Feminist. Takeaway from all of these: Women, we’ve got to stop being so damn hard on ourselves, it’s not like the rest of the world isn’t happy to do that for us.

Looks like I’m going to play Dungeons and Dragons for the first time this weekend. I read Joe’s battered 1989 manual and had a great laugh at the art and less happy laugh at the disclaimer about global use of the “he” pronoun (everyone would be SO confused if they did it any other way).

Also gobbled up: Let My People Go Surfing, Yvon Chouinard’s memoir and manifesto about founding Patagonia in the 50s and growing it into a successful global company in between long climbing trips. We’re looking for business role models for Microcosm, companies that started small and grew big while sticking to values and not being sold to investors. Check, check, check, check. Super inspiring.

Dove into the new Cometbus, felt some love and recognition for the smelly, unsocial book dealers in there.

And I lay on the office floor and read Crate Digger! It’s so good. Bob Suren made a mix as a reward for the Kickstarter backers (could be you!), and I serenaded the office with it, closing out this week in screaming style.

Bike stuff for bike shops!

January 21, 2015 — by Elly Blue

Hello, bike shops! evolution shirt

The bicycle transportation revolution is happening, bigtime! More people than ever are getting on bikes for fun, community, and transportation—and we’ve got stuff that they are really, really stoked about. Here’s the scoop:

T-shirts

New bike converts and old hands alike love to declare their Evolution or tell the world where to Put the Fun. Our wide range of (mostly bike-related) t-shirts include timeless standbys like our Chainring Heart, newer classics like the Bikenomics tee and Every Car a Murder, Every Bike a Love Affair (a vengeful rental car once destroyed a bunch of these while on tour, but we bounced back). All our shirts are manufactured and printed in the USA.

Small gift items

We have a huge variety of bike stickers (plus one for cars, to be fair). Bike-themed patches and buttons. Magnets. Greeting cards! Even a coloring book. All this stuff is also made in the USA.

Books

Want to give your customers access not just to a bicycle but to a whole way of life? You can pick up a selection of some of our bestselling bike books in this nice-looking counter-top display box (email us if you’d like other price options with the display).

Here are some highlights (all printed by union workers in the US! yes!):

Bikenomics by Elly Blue (the economic case for bicycling)

Chainbreaker is the best bike repair manual out there (written for bike projects so you know it’s rad; also includes all the back issues of a New Orleans bike project zine from before Katrina). (We also have the super basic $3 zine version.)

Aftermass (this is a DVD – Joe Biel’s documentary about the history of bicycling in Portland)

Everyday Bicycling (also by Elly—great for people who are just getting started riding and need to learn skills)

Pedal, Stretch, Breathe (Kelli Refer’s charming illustrated guide to the yoga of feeling awesome on and off the bike)

The Culinary Cyclist (Anna Brones’s gluten free, vegetarian cookbook for people who live the two wheeled lifestyle)

Why We Drive (Andy Singer’s scandalous history of the automobile’s troubled rise to popularity in the US, told largely in cartoons)

Bikes in Space (feminist bicycle science fiction!)

We’re always happy to pick out a selection that’ll suit your and your customers’ style. Just ask!

Wholesale ordering is straightforward. The best way to do it is to set up an account, select the wholesale option, and go ahead and order what you want on our website. If you run into trouble, give us a call at 503 232 3666 any time from 11-7 Pacific time.