This week on the pod, Teresa Bergen, author of the zine (and now paperback book!) “Sober Travel Handbook” joins Joe, Elly, and Bernie talk traveling without drinking, the rise in mocktail culture, sobriety and recovery, and everything that went into developing the zine into a full book.
Get “Sober Travel Handbook”: https://microcosmpublishing.com/catalog/books/47854
And hi, we have a solution!: Microcosm’s brand-new, unbeatable, unstoppable Deal of the Day!
How it works:
Every working day, we will offer a different book, super cheap, until it’s sold out.
Most deals will be in the ballpark of either $5 or 75% off the cover price.
And we’ll keep doing this every working day until we run out of books or you stop wanting them.
Sign up here to get an email every morning that gives you the first shot at the day’s deal.
Or just go to our Deal of the Day page, which will always be updated with the day’s deal.
Okay, but what are the books?
We’ve spent 30 years developing a vast catalog and several warehouses full of books and zines to help you rise to any occasion. Recession? Disaster? Grief? Boredom? Rage? Broke-assedness? Hunger? An inarticulate yearning for profound change? We’ve got something to meet every need. If today’s book isn’t your preferred flavor, wait for tomorrow!
How can we afford to offer these deals?
These books have so many origin stories. Some of them we found a great deal on and overbought during the heady pandemic book boom-times. Others got a little scuffed along their journey. Yet others are cool books we misjudged the interest in. Some of these stores don’t want to touch. Others just slipped through the cracks. Our deal price is pretty close to our cost, so we’re essentially passing these along to a good home with you.
I went to the deal page and it’s out of stock, what gives?
Sorry, friend, that means we sold out of this one before the day was through. You can search the title in our catalog to see if a full-price (or sometimes lesser-sale-price) copy is available. If you want to be among the first to be notified, sign up for our daily Deal of the Day newsletter.
Can I put a deal in my cart and buy it later?
Yes, but… if you buy it on a different working day, you won’t get the book you expected, as it will be a different book on that new day, assuming we even still have copies when you check out.
Can I buy deal of the day books for my store?
You sure can, so long as you add it to your cart on our website and check out same day with a $100 minimum order! There’s no additional discount and please be mindful of condition, but if you think your customers would dig a deal, go ahead and grab a few.
We are far from the only ones saying it, but 2025 was an ass-kicker of a year. From tariffs to Baker and Taylor closing to AI, publishing felt like a roller coaster for much of the year.
How did it impact Microcosm, and publishing culture? This week on the pod, Joe, Elly, and special guest Bernie the Office Dog recap 2025 in the book industry.
Make your next event even more special—and accessible
The ultimate guide to creating welcoming, safe, and accessible gatherings for everyone. With detailed strategies and illustrative examples, How to Organize Inclusive Events and Conferences uses principles of design justice to share how to put on truly inclusive occasions built for the needs and abilities of all. If you’ve ever attended or hosted conferences, organize events for fun or for a living, or if you have ever thought, “I guess these spaces just aren’t made for me and I wish I could change that,” this book is written for you!
Expert events organizer Alex D. Ketchum provides the ethical framework of what true inclusion in action means, considering a broad variety of identities and experiences such as economic hardship, childcare needs, racial and ethnic identities, disabilities, neurodivergence, and more. Whether you’re hosting an academic symposium, an activist meeting, a feminist zinefest, or a comics con, Ketchum offers a step-by-step guide through the planning and execution process, with useful tips, timelines, and templates along the way. This book is an indispensable companion to building events and conferences from an ethic of care, allowing us to cultivate authentic community and to create the better world we desire—together.
Have you ever wanted to organize a public event? Do you dream of hosting a battle of the bands, film screenings, concerts, poetry readings, art shows, teach-ins, lectures, seed exchanges, zine workshops, and panels? What about a conference? Maybe you already have experience doing this work but you have noticed that inequities from the society-at-large are replicated at your events, despite best intentions.
The goal of this book is to provide event and conference organizers of all levels with the tools to make their events accessible, sustainable, and rooted in social justice principles. Whether you are new to organizing or highly experienced, this book will provide frameworks and practical tips to create inclusive events. No matter the kind of event or conference you are interested in organizing, whether large or small, online, in-person, hybrid, synchronous, or asynchronous, this book includes what you need to know. From the smallest details (such as what to have in your bag on the day of the gathering) to large topics (such as choosing a location, selecting presenters, funding, designing publicity materials, working with community partners, etc.)
This book draws on my experience organizing hundreds of public events, including:
100+ events for Disrupting Disruptions: The Feminist and Accessible Publishing, Communications, and Tech Hybrid Speaker and Workshop Series
Several conferences, including:
Queer Food Conference (Boston and Montréal)
Food, Feminism, and Fermentation Conference
Circuits de consommation, a food, feminism, and technology conference
Multiple Feminist Research Colloquiums
I have also organized concerts, book launches, pumpkin festivals, sports tournaments, dances, parties, potlucks, podcasting workshops, film screenings, rallies, marches, and parades. As both an organizer and attendee, I have paid attention to what worked, what did not work, and what could be improved. I will also share insights from other event organizers, disability justice activists, feminist educators, and queer designers.
How we do the work is the work. In this book, I hope to help you organize events and conferences that reflect the ethos that inspired your event in the first place. We will explore how decisions over signage, outreach, website design, food, pricing, venue, technology, and so much more can foreground queer, feminist, accessible, socially just, and inclusive principles. This book will help you host an event or conference in which everyone who takes part feels included, supported, and valued!
This book begins in Part 1 by exploring the foundations of inclusive event and conference organizing. Part 2 focuses on event organizing. Much of the content in Part 2 informs Part 3, which focuses specifically on conference planning. Part 4 focuses on your needs as an organizer.
One other note: Part 2, the section on events, can inform your conference organizing decisions . . . because conferences are, in essence, a series of smaller events, grouped together.
While each section of the book builds on the next, I encourage you to flip to different sections as they are most useful for you. Templates for your event and conference organizing are distributed throughout the book. If your phone has word detection capabilities, you can turn your camera app on and select the text so you can use the templates more readily. Adjust them to your needs.
Finally, although I may mention certain applications and software, technology is ever-evolving. I encourage you to focus more on the technological capabilities of any tool (whether paper, email, computer software, or a phone app) and how they can serve the values of your conference rather than the exact software I discuss.
This book contains information that will help guide your decisions to ensure that your event is inclusive and reflects your goals and values.
Edelweiss is known in the book industry as a powerful tool connecting booksellers and librarians with publishers and their titles. But in the last year, Edelweiss’s new owners have made some changes in both the site’s functionality and pricing. What does this mean for publishers, and how do we think it’ll effect the industry? Jane Friedman of the Bottom Line is back this week to talk with Joe and Elly about her thoughts.
How do you set a personal budget, even if thinking about money feels like the worst thing ever? What if you’re allergic to spreadsheets, or your family set you up with a ton of anxiety and expectations around finances?
Joe Biel, founder and CEO of Microcosm and regular host of the pod, did a little seminar for Microcosm staff on setting a personal budget and Joe’s favorite tips for money management. We got so much out of it, we wanted to share it with you!
In-demand independent publishers available via MCP in 2026!
Portland, OR—Microcosm Publishing & Distribution has entered distribution agreements with three new client publishers: Nine Ten Publications, a Canadian publisher specializing in art, craft, and creativity; Bellingham, WA-based Generous Press, focused on high-caliber romance writing by queer, BIPOC, and disabled writers; and Bobby Dazzler, a mission-driven imprint of Jim Dandy Books featuring non-fiction and self-help titles that offer support for mental wellbeing, illness, and discrimination.
Of the new partnerships, Microcosm founder and CEO, Joe Biel, says, “We’re excited about our growing collaborations with these publishers—they are solid complements to Microcosm’s own offerings in home and crafts, inclusive erotica and body positivity, and self-help and that acknowledges systemic injustice. They’re a breath of fresh air expanding genres in substantial ways that are honestly interesting. All of them are logical companions to what we publish while still being remarkably different from us editorially.”
Nine Ten’s newest release, Kate Atherley’s Math for Knitters, quickly skyrocketed to #5 on the Globe and Mail bestsellers chart of Canadian non-fiction and has been taking the U.S. by storm, selling out of its first print run as it landed in Microcosm’s warehouse. Kim Werker of Nine Ten is excited about the new partnership, explaining “Working with a values-aligned partner and such an enjoyable team to bring our books to a much wider audience of makers is a tremendous leap for Nine Ten.”
Generous Press has been racking up praise for Black romantic comedy novel Losing Sightby Tati M. Richardson and inclusive romance anthology Someplace Generous, edited by publishers Amber Flame and Elaina Ellis (formerly of Copper Canyon). Their previous titles were praised by the trade and continue to be popular. Elaina Ellis approached Microcosm for their new distribution relationship because “The inclusive romance market is surging, and Generous Press is growing along with it. Microcosm has cracked the code on scaling with integrity—they’re the ideal partner to help us meet this incredible moment.”
And Bobby Dazzler (co-led by Duncan MacLeod and Brenda Knight, formerly of Mango Publishing) is preparing its list of titles curated specifically for a collaboration with Microcosm. Knight says, “Microcosm is the stuff of dreams to me as a writer, publisher and fan of badass book people. I can’t wait for the day when the super cool feed store that sells gift books and CBD lattes is selling our books. Microcosm will put them there.”
Microcosm vice president Elly Blue noted of all the new distribution clients, “These books feel like a natural fit for us—I love the way they bring practical, political, and inclusive ideas into their respective lists.” Microcosm currently represents Nine Ten Publications and their full front- and backlist catalogs everywhere but Canada, and will begin worldwide distribution for Generous Press with their spring 2026 frontlist. Microcosm will offer worldwide distribution for Bobby Dazzler’s frontlist titles beginning in 2026.
“Innovation” is one of the biggest words you hear in just about any industry, especially with the rise of our new AI overlords. It can be so tempting to make big changes just for the sake of making changes! But what is real innovation, and how do you know when it needs to happen? How do you innovate with intention? Is innovation even right for you? Jane Friedman of The Bottom Line is back with Joe and Elly this week to talk about branding, change, innovation, and how to go about it all thoughtfully. (Does “innovation” sound like a word to you anymore?)
Usually books and math don’t mix. The book people sit in one spot, the math in another, with their calculators and abacuses (or whatever it is math people use). But Microcosm founder and CEO Joe Biel is a known champion of combining the two!
This week on the pod, Joe and Elly talk about the math that goes into publishing, from finances, to calculating print runs, and everything in between.
Breaking it off? Got dumped? Parting ways with a pal? Ouch, that hurts. Even beyond the heartache, embarrassment, and logistical strain of the moment, breakups can summon up all our old baggage to play havoc with our lives and heads.
Dr. Faith G. Harper, bestselling author of books like Unfuck Your Brain and Unfuck Your Intimacy, brings you a kind, relatable, and plain-language guide to all things break-up: deciding to do it (or not), doing the thing, and picking up the pieces afterward to build a life that suits you better than ever. Whether or not the breakup was your idea, or if the partnership was romantic, sexual, or platonic, no matter the seriousness of the bond or the shared responsibilities and finances involved, parting ways can be a canon life event with powerful transformational potential as you rise from the wreckage. And it’s never too late to come back to your best self.
Keep reading for an excerpt of Dr. Faith G. Harper’s Unfuck Your Breakup,shipping now from our site and available through your favorite purveyors of indie books!
