How many books should you publish each season?

This week on the People’s Guide to Publishing podcast / vlog, Joe and Elly answer a reader question—how many books should a publisher put out every season?

For those new to the game, the traditional publishing industry has two or three seasons—Spring, Fall, and Winter (with Fall and Winter sometimes being combined). In today’s episode, we talk about when those seasons run, why they are important, what it means for your workflow, and, of course, how many books it makes sense to fit into each one—and what kind of books do best in each season.

Queering Consent: Call for Happy Endings

Microcosm Publishing is soliciting submissions for our Queering Consent series of queer erotica stories, novellas, novels, illustrated books, and comics!

Pitch us your work in progress or your completed work—make it sexy, make it hot, make it consensual, and make it queer! Titles that fit this series show complex, healthy, joyful queer relationships, have a happy ending, and feature explicit erotic content forming the core of the work.

Anything queer is great! We are especially (but not exclusively) looking for: 

  • Lesbian erotica
  • Real-world (present or past) settings
  • T4T content
  • Polyamorous content

For books, manuscripts should be no fewer than 2,500 words (for a short story zine) and top out around 40,000 words for a book. Manuscripts can be composed of short stories or one longer narrative. Black and white illustrations are also welcome, and we love graphic novels. We are not able to publish poetry or fan fiction. We will consider previously-published work so long as you own the rights.

We are especially looking for submissions from authors and artists who are Black, Indigenous, people of color, mixed race, disabled, neurodivergent, queer, transgender, nonbinary, or who don’t see themselves well represented in mainstream publishing—including (but not exclusively) #OwnVoices content from these writers. 

Here’s a sampling of what we’ve published so far: 

the book cover of Queer Werewolves Destroy Capitalism, featuring a werewolf holding and licking a laughing man
Queer Werewolves Destroy Capitalism – A collection of m/m(+) short stories by MJ Lyons with a science fiction theme
Experience Points – An illustrated m/m novella about the evolution of a relationship that is profoundly healing for both people involved
Even Cowbots Get Blue Balls envisions transformative encounters between various beings
A Tight Squeeze shows a rich variety of transfeminine experiences and pairings

We also publish short stories in quickly-read, pocket-sized zine format!

Just a few of our growing collection of Queering Consent zines!

We also are delighted to consider pitches for nonfiction books and zines about queer relationships and sex!

If you have something you think fits, take a look at our full submission guidelines here and drop us a line through the contact form at the top of that page! 

We can’t wait to read the wildest adventures and happiest endings your imagination can produce!

To ISBN or Not to ISBN?

This week on the People’s Guide to Publishing podcast, Joe and Elly reveal the mysteries of the ISBN, aka the 13-digit International Standard Book Number you see on most books sold to the general public. ISBNs can be costly and a lot of new publishers aren’t sure when they should start using them. We offer some advice about when an ISBN is essential and when it isn’t.

Experiments in Publishing (and podcasting)

Hi all, things got a little wild over the holiday season. We kept posting new episodes of the People’s Guide to Publishing podcast, but we stopped posting them to our blog. So here’s a big post to catch up with what you up on what you missed!

We talked about how book publishers can experiment in order to keep their business limber and growing (but without losing tens of thousands of dollars when those experiments don’t pan out):

We answered one of the questions Microcosm is most frequently asked: “Why have I never heard of you?”:

We tackled a reader question about a pretty weird scenario that happens more often than you’d think: What do you do when a publisher pays you for your book and then never publishes it?

We gazed into our crystal ball and made some predictions about how the publishing industry will change in the next five years:

We talked about sidelines! Stickers, buttons, patches, etc. Not very many publishers make this kind of merch to sell alongside their books (unless they’re heavily influenced by punk music culture… ahem) but it’s often a good idea:

And finally, we talked about how publishers can sell translations, foreign rights, and other licensing deals:

Microcosm’s 2021 Annual Money Report (with infographics! and a video!)

Wow! This marks the end of a year of more than doubling our previous “busiest year ever” with a growth of 119.24% over 2020.

At the end of the year, we planned a week of quiet respite. But instead, after holding our breath for a year, omicron hit, coinciding perfectly with a large part of staff going on vacation to cut us down to a rather stressed skeleton crew. But now we’re resting up, reflecting on the last year, and planning for the year to come. And that includes publishing our annual financial and business recap! Financial transparency is one of our values—it helps everyone! And this year, it’s extra nice to be able to show that all the news is good.

In February, 2021, we doubled our warehousing space (and shortly after that our warehouse staffing) with the opening of our Cleveland warehouse. And still, we struggled to keep up with shipping and receiving at the end of the year. Similarly, we had many system and software upgrades and we still couldn’t keep up with our new volume of orders and books. So naturally, we decided to keep it going by publishing 19 new books in the Spring 2022 season, and 23 new books next Fall. National conventions resume in a few weeks and lots of authors are submitting finished books that need attention, but maybe we can run a broom through here in the meantime and clear out the 2021 dust. 

Here’s what the last 3 years have looked like:

[IMAGE DESCRIPTION: a graph showing three years of income by month superimposed on each other: 2019 is the lowest, with the best month hitting $150,000. 2020 had somewhat higher sales almost every month, ranging from about $70k to $200k. And 2021 looks like a mountain range by comparison, with sales hitting $400k several times.]

When other publishers ask how we have been doing and I explain the above chart, their eyes light up in shock and they respond with something like “Well, that’s a GOOD problem!” Which it is, but it’s the kind of problem that resulted in six years without a slow season. For most publishers, January and February are marked by an inundation of returned, unsold books from the holiday season, while we receive restock orders instead. The reasons for this are 50% what we publish and 50% how we publish. Meaning that we mostly sell to stores who purchase all of their books from us and so our salespeople don’t stick them with hyped books that they cannot sell. And we can confirm that the practical skills and values in our books are what the world has wanted for at least the past 26 years. Probably longer. The need remains vast.

We have more than doubled our staff since before the pandemic and we welcomed Sarah as our seventh employee-owner in 2021. Thanks to your support, we were able to give our exhausted staff their largest rounds of profit bonuses ever—equivalent to a $3/hour raise for the last year. Our latest rounds of hiring have been a little too steady to continue to report each new worker, but we have gotten our about page mostly updated other than the three newest and a few people who have been here for ten years but haven’t sent a photo! Our newfound health insurance has been providing people with long-neglected (and sometimes life-altering) care. And we are ready to debut our software to allow other publishers to do what we do! Yet, the books keep arriving from the printer, just about every day—after these historic supply chain delays! It’s been a fascinating time to do what we do. And we are excited that this is finally the year where we will release the beta version of our software to empower other publishers!

And if you really want to get into the nitty gritty of publishing, check out our podcast.

But before we get too tired, let’s take a look at the numbers.

Our total sales for the year were $3.449 MILLION DOLLARS, with published books taking the largest slice of that pie, and finally exceeding distribution sales of the past few years:

And here are our bestsellers, by dollars earned (minus expenses like printing and cover design):

TitleISBNQuantityTotalRetailWholesaleDistributorWeb QtyProfit/Loss
Unfuck Your Brain: Using Science to Get Over Anxiety, Depression, Anger, Freak-outs, and Triggers (Paperback)978162106304942,167$281,504.8414.958.97Z-MC-VERSA1316+4656.99 / month
Unfuck Your Brain: Using Science to Get Over Anxiety, Depression, Anger, Freak-outs, and Triggers (eBook)978162106040653,280$63,994.3413.998.39Z-MC-VERSA6773+3208.21 / month
Unfuck Your Boundaries: Build Better Relationships through Consent, Communication, and Expressing Your Needs (Paperback)97816210610077,415$50,997.3414.958.97Z-MC-VERSA284+3.91 / month
Practical Witch’s Almanac 2021, The (Paperback)97816210665527,915$49,618.5413.958.37Z-MC-VERSA588+503.40 / month
How to Resist Amazon and Why: The Fight for Local Economics, Data Privacy, Fair Labor, Independent Bookstores, and a People-Powered Future! (First Edition Paperback)97816210670617,711$46,992.2112.957.77Z-MC-VERSA0+1.97 / month
Gold Lyre Tarot (Deck)97816210678702,748$43,592.5429.9517.97Z-MC-RR Donnelly52+848.86 / month
Boundaries Conversation Deck: What Would You Do? (Other)978162106370418,032$42,052.3514.958.97Z-MC-RR Donnelly43+394.32 / month
Unfuck Your Intimacy: Using Science for Better Relationships, Sex, and Dating (Paperback)97816210676275,257$37,007.5914.958.97Z-MC-VERSA248+886.88 / month
Unfuck Your Brain: Using Science to Get Over Anxiety, Depression, Anger, Freak-outs, and Triggers (audiobook download)9781621063049246,0621$32,777.8019.9911.99Z-MC-VERSA100+486.30 / month
Making Stuff and Doing Things: DIY Guides to Just About Everything (Paperback)97816210664773,538$26,403.9716.9510.17Z-MC-VERSA275+1138.62 / month
Unfuck Your Body: Using Science to Eat, Sleep, Breathe, Move, and Feel Better (Paperback)97816210632853,154$23,853.5514.958.97Z-MC-VERSA1592+208.77 / month
Unfuck Your Boundaries Workbook: Build Better Relationships Through Consent, Communication, and Expressing Your Needs (Paperback)97816210617624,941$22,760.489.955.97Z-MC-VERSA425+232.27 / month
Make Your Place: Affordable, Sustainable Nesting Skills (Paperback)978097886656316,048$18,487.409.955.97Z-MC-VERSA145+3084.17 / month
Stoner Babes Coloring Book , The (Paperback)97816210643052,367$18,019.7214.958.97Z-MC-VERSA72+1.83 / month
Unfuck Your Brain Workbook: Using Science to Get Over Anxiety, Depression, Anger, Freak-Outs, and Triggers (First Edition Zine )97816210658907,749$16,968.144.952.97Z-MC-VERSA384+352.38 / month
Henry & Glenn Forever & Ever: Completely Ridiculous Edition (Paper over board)97816210684021,379$15,831.8525.9515.57Z-MC-VERSA159+437.76 / month
Green Witch: Your Complete Guide to the Natural Magic of Herbs, Flowers, Essential Oils, and More, The (Hardcover)97815072047191,424$15,321.0517.9910.7910+0.96 / month
My Vag: A Rhyming Coloring Book (Paperback)97816210689072,024$15,201.9114.958.97Z-MC-VERSA37+1.00 / month
Unfuck Your Boundaries: Build Better Relationships through Consent, Communication, and Expressing Your Needs (Ebook)978162106067336,814$14,615.269.995.99Z-MC-VERSA178+700.09 / month
Make Your Place: Affordable, Sustainable Nesting Skills (Paper-over-board)97816210612501,941$14,500.0014.958.97Z-MC-VERSA1412+252.48 / month
You Are a Great and Powerful Wizard: Self-Care Magic for Modern Mortals (Paper over boards)97816210648311,599$14,483.3319.9511.97Z-MC-VERSA0+0.93 / month

UNF*CK YOUR BRAIN, which we published in 2017, is still outselling even our runners up by a wide margin—combined. Even if you ignore this aberrant title, it was a phenomenal year. We published 42-some new books and about twice that many zines. And healthfully, 87% of the titles holding sales are over a year old, meaning that they will continue to sell for years to come.

So where did all those millions go? (We still can’t believe we’re talking about our company sales with all these digits.) As is written into our company bylaws, we invested it all back into the company and into our workforce, much of it in the form of those profit-sharing employee bonuses mentioned above. Nobody got a yacht, but we all got by. You can see that piece of the pie alongside the rest of our outgoing money below.

Expenses for this year were $3.346M, including the purchase of the additional warehouse and inventory to fill it:

Thank you for supporting us, our authors, and our team in the last year, whether as a reader, partner, or member of our team. The last two years have been difficult in many ways, but it’s been heartening the way our entire culture seems to have turned to books for comfort, meaning, perspective, and a little bit of escape. We’re prouder than ever to get to play a role in bringing people and books together.