Cooking, writing, and bicycling: Interview with author Anna Brones

April 03, 2015 — by Elly Blue

anna brones reading the culinary cyclist

As I’ve been developing our Self-Promotion for Introverts blog series, one person keeps popping into my mind—our author Anna Brones, who I met years ago when I saw her give a presentation about effective social media use, in which she delivered some of the simplest and most useful advice I’ve heard. When I published her first book two years ago, I should have realized that she’d apply her formidable network and friendly powers of promotion to it, and despite not having any kind of outside distribution the book quickly burned through what at the time had seemed like a riskily large print run. I asked Anna to share some of her magic with you all, and she kindly obliged.

A couple of years ago, you wrote a cookbook for Elly Blue Publishing (which we’re reissuing as a Microcosm title in the fall). Can you tell us a little about the book and what you’ve been up to since?

The Culinary Cyclist is a book about the intersection of a love of bikes and a love of food. What ever does that mean? Basically it’s an ode to the slow life, because if you take the time to ride your bike, and if you take the time to make your own food, then you’re living with intent. And that intent takes time. Since The Culinary Cyclist came out in 2013, Johanna Kindvall and I wrapped up the manuscript for Fika: The Art of the Swedish Coffee Break. Johanna did the illustrations, I wrote the text and we developed all the recipes together. It’s officially out on April 7 and we’re very excited! I’ve also been busy working as a producer on the film Afghan Cycles and keeping up my blog, Foodie Underground. And then there are some other projects in the works, but they’re secret for now!

Before you became a book author, you were already working in marketing and publicity. Was it difficult to transition between promoting other people’s work and promoting your own? Looking back, what do you wish you’d known when you made that transition?

I’ve always liked the networking aspect of marketing. Reaching out to people, putting them in touch with other people and helping people to get the word out. So for that, I really enjoyed doing marketing and publicity for other people’s work. But while I was doing that, there was always this voice at the back of my head that was telling me that I was perfectly capable of doing my own projects and marketing them as well. Honestly it wasn’t that hard to transition to promoting my own work, but there is that part of me that is pretty sensitive to whether or not I am being a shameless self promoter. Then again, a lot of people that get a lot of attention and media are the ones that promote the hell out of themselves. I think we can all find a nice balance, but I do think it’s true that most of us err on the side of too little self marketing and promotion, and we could probably all do with pushing ourselves a little out of our boundaries.

What strategies have worked best for you in terms of promoting your books, and are there any things that have not worked as well?

This is going to sound really ridiculous, but when I was thinking about Fika coming out I kept thinking of it as my “baby.” I don’t have children, and I would never dare compare writing a book to having a child, but there is a similar sense of ownership over this thing that you created. It’s something that you’re proud of. It’s something you want to share. I thought of all the baby photos I saw from my friends, and I figured if they could do it so could I. So started taking really silly pictures of “Baby Fika” all over the place. Baby Fika’s first coffee. Baby Fika’s first bike ride. You get the idea. Because it was such a ridiculous endeavor it didn’t feel like marketing, and because I wasn’t just posting a link every day saying “BUY MY BOOK NOW!” I think people responded well to it. However, my friends who are actual parents might hate me, I’m not sure.

Ultimately I really do believe that when you’re marketing something it has to be a part of a larger story. A link isn’t enough. For starters, your product has to be good. But after that you want it to be a part of a bigger picture. You’re not just selling a book, you’re selling a vision, a lifestyle. That might sound like I’m an aspiring life coach, but there’s a reason that so many brands and individuals nowadays are so focused on “storytelling.” Because stories are what we care most about, and we all have one. So make sure yours is one you believe in and that you can talk about for hours again. People seek authenticity and I think when marketing doesn’t work is when it feels inauthentic.

You’ve now had experience with publishing a book through a teeny, tiny press (EBP) and a major label house (10 Speed, owned by Random House), and soon to be a still very-small indie (Microcosm). What differences between these experiences have struck you?

I feel so lucky to have experienced both. They are two very different worlds. Mostly in terms of time; The Culinary Cyclist went from concept to final product in about 8 months. Johanna and I did the Fika proposal in the beginning of 2012. So that’s 3 years between idea and final book. Another big difference, at least in my experience, is the number of eyes on your work, both in the editing process and on the final product. I think having my first book be a smaller print run, made me more comfortable with having my name out there, doing interviews and seeing the book mentioned, because you know that the whole world doesn’t have access to it. There’s a comfort in that, because you have the luxury of your work really being seen by a niche market that is predestined to like the subject which means that it feels more like a small group of friends getting to read it. But now I am ready to go a little bigger, which makes it exciting that Fika is coming out but also that The Culinary Cyclist is getting reprinted with a much larger distribution.

I also feel very lucky to have worked with two publishers that so wholeheartedly believe in my projects. Obviously my experience is my own—everyone has a very different experience, whether they are working with a small or large publishing house—but I will say that the people at Ten Speed and EBP have been a dream to work with. A large part of that is that they were both so excited about the content that we were doing for them. Which is proof to me of two things:

1. Work with people who are like-minded and passionate about the same things you are passionate about.

2. For aspiring authors, pitch to the publishing houses that you WANT to write for, not the ones you COULD write for.

I think so often we are so focused on getting paid/getting a book deal that we just pitch right and left to places that may not necessarily align with our own values, or be as excited about a topic as us. The golden spot is to find someone that’s on the same page as you.

Anything else you want to share?

One thing that I have really come away with from the last two years of book publishing is a reminder that everything is constantly evolving. Our personalities, our preferences, our attitudes; everything is constantly in flux. We are humans, the only thing constant in our lives is change. But when you write a book, everything is on paper, for the rest of eternity. Or at least as long as your book is out in the world. That can be a bit intimidating.

In re-reading The Culinary Cyclist while I was doing edits for the reprint, there were a few spots that I laughed at myself, or even cringed. Because even in just two years I have changed a bit, and if I were to rewrite that book now, some things would be different. So it has all been a lesson in approaching the things that I read—books, articles, blogs—in a different way, and not making assumptions about what the writer says or what they stand for. When we create, we put something into the world. But if it’s not perfect—and it never is—we can do better the next time. And the next time. We are always learning. And we have to be flexible, and the same things go when we’re talking about marketing and publicity. Try something, and if it doesn’t work, do something different. No one has the right formula, and if they tell you that they do, they’re probably lying or want your money.

This is a Microcosm author interview! Our last author interview was with Al Burian, and our next one is with Ben Snakepit.

Record Store Day!!

April 01, 2015 — by Erik

What’s almost as good as records falling from the sky? Record Store Day!!!

As one of our favorite days of the year spins closer and closer, we’ve decided to spotlight our music books in celebration! We’re offering a special deal for record stores:

We’ve got some new releases and some old staples:

New Releases

Crate Digger: An Obsession With Punk Records

Crate Digger: The record-obsessed Bob Suren (Sound Idea Distribution + Burrito Records) tells stories of a life framed by punk records in this popular new release,

Punk USA: The Rise and Fall of Lookout Records

Punk USA: Known best as the label that put Green Day on the map, Lookout Records has been the breeding ground for hundreds of fascinating records that inspired a generation. This book, an instant hit, documents the label’s rise and fall from 1987-2006.

Classic collections

Henry & Glenn Forever

The greatest love story ever told depicts punk and metalheads Henry Rollins and Glenn Danzig in their domestic life together. Together with their neighbors Hall & Oates they have myriad adventures and deal with each other’s issues as a pair!
First, there was the book that started it all:

Then came four issues of the 32-page comic, each filled with three short stories. Each issue also comes in two different covers, a regular and a variant.
#1 #1, #2, #3, and #4

If you get a combination of 40 or more total issues (including any of the other books on this page!), we can ship ‘em with a free display box.

henry and glenn forever and ever
Henry & Glenn Forever & Ever

Glenn couldn’t understand how complicated it was getting so we released a trade paperback that collects all four issues plus 100 additional new pages.

Punk in NYC’s Lower East Side 1981-1991

Scene Histories: Framed around Reagan Youth, the second generation of punk in New York’s Lower East Side that thrived while being ignored by the media and ended like all good things—with a riot in Tompkins Square.

The Rock & Roll of San Francisco’s East Bay, 1950-1980

Much is written about rock n roll in San Francisco, but not as much is documented about what was happening on the other side of the bay for the first thirty years. Cory M. Linstrum uncovers it all thirty years later.

Snake Pit: Ben Snakepit (Ghost Knife, J Church, and The Sword) has documented every single day of his life in three comic book panels since 2001, instantly becoming an underground classic.

Snakepit Gets Old.
Last year we reissued his first book for its 10 year anniversary: The Snakepit Book
Snakepit: My Life in a Jugular Vein covers his hardest rocking years and includes a CD of punk tracks that he listens to in the comics

We’ve got also copies of his collections from 2007 and 2008.

things are meaning less burn collector 14 burn collector 15

Burn Collector: You might remember Al Burian as punk’s wandering storyteller of humor and dark humor from when he played in Challenger or Milemarker or, if you’re old u’re old, Hellbender. Clearly we can’t shake the guy.

In 2003 we published his Black Flag- quoting graphic novel, Things Are Meaning Less. We’ve published two issues of his Burn Collector zine, first #14 then #15.

More underground punk classics

Beyond The Music: How Punks are Saving the World with DIY Ethics, Skills, & Values

Featuring interviews with leading figures of the DIY punk underground, this book outlines how punks are saving the world, despite contradictions, challenges, and having to overcome cultural and social norms, as well as punk’s spotty history.

Maps To The Other Side: The Adventures of a Bipolar Cartographer

Sascha Scatter (Choking Victim) spent his life adventuring all over the globe, playing in bands and starting seed libraries before founding The Icarus Project, the first member-run mental health advocacy organization. This is his story.

God, Forgive These Bastards

Rob Morton of Plan-it X Records’ The Taxpayers wrote this biography of a college baseball pitcher turned homeless street sage in a redemption tale of pain and forgiveness.

Bobby Joe Ebola: Longtime Bay Area band with a cult following, Bobby Joe Ebola has teamed up with Horrible Comics’ Jason Chandler to produce a parody of Little Golden Books (complete with a CD), Meal Deal with the Devil
We’ve also released their comprehensive lyric books / guide on how to march to the beat of your own (or no) drum, the Bobby Joe Ebola Songbook

Scam: The First Four Issues

Scam: Trainhopping, generator punk shows, stealing electricity from lamp posts, squatting, selling plasma, tagging trains, wheatpasting, and dumpstering as seen through the lens of a young punk. “Totally, totally essential for anyone with anything approaching a punk rock bone in their body.” —Boing Boing

Making Stuff and Doing Things: A Collection of DIY Guides to Just About Everything

“DIY guides to doing just about everything under the sun—from playing guitar to making toothpaste” —Last Hours Mag“If there is a book you get this year this is it…the Time-Life series for punks all in one volume, for one low-low price!” —Hanging Like a Hex

How and Why: A Do-it-yourself Guide

What do you do when you wake up from the dream? Get some blueprints for projects towards a better world! An all- grown-up do-it-yourself handbook with easy-to-use info on bicycles, home and garage, gardening, homeschooling your children, musical instruments, and more.

Punk Documentaries

If It Ain’t Cheap, It Ain’t Punk: D. un I. t Y.

Plan-it X Records has been a vision of hope and inspiration since 1994 and this is the label’s story of ups and downs as told through the 2006 festival in Bloomington, IN

Between Resistance & Community: The Long Island Do-it-yourself Punk Scene

“Punk’s not dead—it’s just cleaned up its act and living in mom’s basement. These well-spoken kids with creative haircuts describe their own basement-band scene as “building community-based movements.” A timely snapshot of contemporary punk’s new sincerity.” —Village Voice

X Ray Visions: A Look Inside Portland’s Legendary X-Ray Cafe

“Accepting of almost all cultural expression or character type that wasn’t mean-spirited, the X-Ray championed a kind of inspired amateurism and a participatory environment that’s unlikely to be equaled for audacity or fun. In the words of one former regular, ‘the X-Ray was the cat’s potato.’ And so is this film.” —The Oregonian

Punk Classics from PM Press

Dead Kennedys: Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables, The Early Years

Using dozens of first-hand interviews, photos, and original artwork to offer a new perspective on a group who would become mired in controversy almost from the get-go. It applauds the band’s key role in transforming punk rhetoric, both polemical and musical, into something genuinely threatening—and enormously funny. The author offers context in terms of both the global and local trajectory of punk and, while not flinching from the wildly differing takes individual band members have on the evolution of the band, attempts to be celebratory—if not uncritical.

Stealing All Transmissions: A Secret History of The Clash

It’s the story of The Clash’s love affair with America that began began in 1977, when select rock journalists and deejays aided the band’s quest to depose the rock of indolence that dominated American airwaves. This history situates The Clash amid the cultural skirmishes of the 1970s and culminates with their September 1979 performance at the Palladium in New York City. This concert was broadcast live on WNEW, and it concluded with Paul Simonon treating his Fender bass like a woodcutter’s ax.

The Story of Crass

Crass was the anarcho-punk face of a revolutionary movement founded by radical thinkers and artists Penny Rimbaud, Gee Vaucher and Steve Ignorant. When punk ruled the waves, Crass waived the rules and took it further, putting out their own records, films and magazines and setting up a series of situationist pranks that were dutifully covered by the world’s press.

Barred For Life: How Black Flag’s Iconic Logo Became Punk Rock’s Secret Handshake

A photo documentary cataloging the legacy of Punk Rock pioneers Black Flag, through stories, interviews, and photographs of diehard fans who wear their iconic logo, The Bars, conspicuously tattooed upon their skin. An extensive tour of North America and Western Europe documents dedicated fans bearing Bars-on-skin and other Black Flag iconography. Nearly four hundred “Barred” fans lined up, smiled/frowned for the camera, and issued their stories for the permanent record.

The Primal Screamer

From Rudimentary Peni frontman, this is a gothic horror novel about severe mental distress and punk rock. A diary written by psychiatrist Dr. Rodney H. Dweller, concerning his patient, Nathaniel Snoxell, brought to him in 1979 because of several attempted suicides. Snoxell gets involved in the anarchist punk scene, and begins recording songs and playing gigs at anarchist centers. In 1985, the good doctor himself “goes insane” and disappears. This semi-autobiographical novel from Rudimentary Peni singer, guitarist, lyricist, and illustrator, Nick Blinko, plunges into the worlds of madness, suicide, and anarchist punk. H. P. Lovecraft meets Crass in the squats and psychiatric institutions of early 1980s England.

Left Of The Dial: Conversations with Punk Icons

Featuring interviews with leading figures of the punk underground: Ian MacKaye (Minor Threat/Fugazi), Jello Biafra (Dead Kennedys), Dave Dictor (MDC), and many more. Ensminger probes the legacy of punk’s sometimes fuzzy political ideology, its ongoing DIY traditions, its rupture of cultural and social norms, its progressive media ecology, its transgenerational and transnational appeal, its pursuit of social justice, its hybrid musical nuances, and its sometimes ambivalent responses to queer identities, race relations, and its own history.

Pre-paid orders over $250 get a 50% discount on all the titles in this post!

Order fifteen or more books, get a free display box!
Just select “wholesale” when you order on our site (check out our terms here).

Rampant Media Consumption – February/March 2015

March 29, 2015 — by Microcosm

a girl walks home alone at night RMC is going monthly (turns out we’re all too busy producing media to consume enough of it to report on a weekly basis). So: here’s what we took in during the last month+.

Taylor

watched: a girl walks home alone at night

read: susan howe poems via google search of her name, and a little bit of pale fire by nabokov

heard: rhianna’s new song on every radio station. not a fan 🙁

Meggyn

heard: Curtis Harding’s (Burger Records), D’Angelo covers (I especially love his rendition of this), Marvin Gaye’s Here, My Dear, Curtis Mayfield, Caribou (I saw him on Tuesday this week at the Roseland), WAND, and some Brothertiger.

read: a few pages of Middlesex. I was distracted by the dirty glass I got of scotch at a dive…so I stopped. However, one of my dearest friends gave me a handful of books before leaving to Brooklyn last week, and I plan to dive into those.

looked at: checked out the artists from the Bellingham Comic Arts Festival…I’m really looking forward to meeting them (Emily McGratten, Liz Yerby, and Ben Duncan to name a few)

watched: A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night. One of the greatest films I have seen in a long time. I went home obsessing over it and wanting to watch it over and over.

Elly

This month I was traveling most of the time and sick part of the time. In that time I managed to read four novels:

– The Year of the Flood and MaddAddam, the second two novels in Margaret Atwood’s unbearably believable human-induced-apocalyptic trilogy. At some point while reading these I remembered an amazing overheard from the next aisle when I was browsing at Powell’s one day years ago: A teenage boy saying to another “This is a science fiction book by Margaret Atwood! It’s really good! Which is weird, because it’s by a woman, but…”

-Zadie Smith’s NW (her name is the biggest element on the cover, which means her fame has exceeded any other marketable element of the book, aka she gets to write whatever she wants… and that kind of shows in the book itself, but still better than 95% of what’s out there.)

–A Map of the Known World by Edward P Jones, a novel that centers around a community of free black slave-owners and the other people, black and white, slave and free, in their orbit in Virginia in the 1840s. Totally fascinating and magical and terrifying.

Erik

Been interacting with Magic Seaweed, a mariner/oceanographic interface, well mostly it’s a surfers website that has abundant information on swells, weather, and other conditions so you can plan your surf trips. The weekends in Oregon have been fantastic this last month, considering the winters here are typified by the long dark wet, this site has been invaluable while planning my escapes.

Been listening to the web stream for All Classical Portland. The stream is free and often quite good.

Listened to some Radiolab podcasts. I found this one to be particularly engaging. It begins with a single story with ambiguous undertones. A baby girl is torn from her adopted parents after 2 years and reunited with her biological father who she’s never met. From there is goes to the Supreme Court and unlocks a pitfall of ugly American history.

Began re-reading Simone de Beauvoir’s Ethics of Ambiguity. For those who love flushing out the perimeters of the individual and the margins of freedom, Beauvoir outlines the existential arguments of autonomy and our objectivity while at large in the world of opposing selves. It really is quite gripping! All the while you’re just hoping that you fill the shoes of your own freedom and subjectivity.

Joe

BIKES VS CARS

Fredrik Gertten’s collection of eye candy on film is a frustrating treatise of emotional arguments stacked on top of jaw-dropping visuals. Lacking in substance, original research, or even delivering on the promises of what the film would offer in advance interviews and articles, the only expert in the entire film is a marketing person at a sad, outdoor car show who the film uses to pick apart the hypocrisy, lack of environmental concern, and unwillingness of the car “movement” to change with a changing world. Instead of looking at solutions to the global problem of an increasing number of cars, the film offers sonic vignettes and personal poetry, showcasing a few somber and opinionated individuals, such as a yoga teacher in L.A. who tries to hold onto the world of one hundred years ago and a compelling woman in Sao Paolo woman who refuses to give up her place in the fight for equalizing the streets. In the final fifteen minutes, the film drops the pretense of being an unbiased look at the debate and becomes a didactic collection of other people’s unvetted statistics about the dire state of how we all need to become like Amsterdam yesterday. Disappointing. It could have offered so much.

BIKES vs CARS TRAILER from WG Film on Vimeo.

COMETBUS #56: A Bestiary of Booksellers

You have to hand it to Aaron. He never rests on his laurels and he never plays a song just to please the crowd. Yet, this might be the most insular issue of Cometbus ever. And that is saying something. There’s numerous literary references and otherwise here without context or explanation. I know my books and still found myself looking up numerous references. And maybe that is the point. He brings you into his life—where he is now—quickly and forcefully. He’s in love with a woman who acts like she is a bit of a savage mess while they scan bookstore dollar tables and he scours used book sales with other dealers all over the city. He looks at all kinds of obscure books and the men who deal them in NYC. How things get endlessly recycled and turned around year after year, changing hands for money, and presumably at some point making readers happy. At least for a while. I wouldn’t say that it’s his best but that’s mostly because he’s set such a high bar. This issue is particularly saccharine. He never quite ties up the love story in the way that you’d expect or hope—the one with the books or the woman—though we are treated to endless character sketches of the wild world of back door book dealing. From those who deal in hot property to weapons dealers to people who buy up storage units to those who deal in the collections of the deceased, it’s all here and it feels a bit like pricking your finger on a rose.

FEMINIST ECONOMICS

The best thing I’ve ever read on economics and it’s super nonacademic. I couldn’t love it more! Where were you all my life, little zine?

#PEDALFUTURO

On the street in front of the theater in Medellin, a ten-year-old girl approached me with a flyer and perfect English. The flyer depicted a bicycle tearing a car in half with a recycling arrow around it and a list of bullet points about the children’s visioning for the future of the city. She articulated her ambitions to create a sustainable city, harnessing the economic benefits of bicycling, and getting rid of the choking smog and vicious cycles in traffic for the bicicleta to have a safe and proper place on the street. Hit them up on twitter!

PUBLIC TRANSIT IN MEDELLIN, COLOMBIA

1,000% better than any that I’ve seen in the U.S., I was shocked. In some circles, it’s famous and celebrated. While a literal black cloud of car exhaust hovers over the entire city, half-size busses show up at unmarked roadside stops about every two minutes, though sometimes you have to wait as long as five minutes. If you purchase an “integrado” pass for about 80 cents U.S., you can connect to the metro rail which runs the length of the city to reach the 147 square miles of city proper. The metro was explained to us to be a point of pride and thus it is so clean that you never see a speck of garbage on platforms or trains. A train shows up within five minutes, moves quickly and efficiently, and is so smooth that it makes you wonder why anyone would risk the gridlocked traffic and start and stop streets outside where an average of two motorcyclists die in traffic every day. As a further perk of connecting neighborhoods and allowing mobility for the neediest of citizens, there are escalators built into one particularly steep section of the mountainside surrounding the city. Two sections with massive elevation changes, where poorer (“popular”) residents live also have metrocable cars, suspended aerial trams that connect neighborhoods and parks to the main metro line and massively reduce commute times from popular neighborhoods to the rest of the city and for tourists to stimulate their economies. While Colombian traffic leaves much to be desired, the U.S. has so much to learn from these simple, reliable, and effective transit systems.

WORLD BICYCLE FORUM #4

Founded as a response to a wealthy banker driving through a Critical Mass bike ride in Brazil, this event was founded in 2012 as a form of positive response and change. It has grown and developed over the years to become both a global movement as well as being one of the only transportation conferences that it is literally by the people and for the people. This year, in Medellin, Colombia, once the most violent city in the world but having calmed down after the U.S. murdered Pablo Escobar and slowed down his cartel and gang war, the city is now a pleasant and calm place that strangely bears much in common with most major U.S. cities in virtually every way, albeit with less panhandling. The event took a turn this year to include some trade show elements and to be a bit less of a grassroots exercise in empowerment but more like a U.S.-style suit and tie advocacy conference. It’s disheartening in some ways, but clearly was serving as an exciting injection of inspiration for the six thousand people who attended from all over the world and for politicians to stress their dedication to the bicycle. During a massive six-hour democratic discussion on Sunday, the future steering of the conference was decided, including the legal groundwork of the organization, how responsible to the grassroots organizations the board of organizers must be, what priorities are for the event, and where it will be held next. Join everyone next year in Santiago, Chile!

Tim

Last week’s reading was Scot Sothern’s Curb Service. Scot is a second generation photographer who strayed from the family portrait photo business and has been compulsively photographing prostitutes in Los Angeles since the ’60s, but it wasn’t until very recently that he gained any recognition for his work. He’s a bit of a screw up, in both his personal and professional endeavors, but he’s the first to admit it, and it’s actually a big part of what allows him to relate to the prostitutes he encounters and interact with them in a very humanizing way. It’s graphic and depressing, but also a look into the people that make up a world most often avoided.

Nathan

Watched this video of an uncanny sighting in a natural phenomenon.

Self-Promotion for Authors: Getting Psyched for Self-Promotion

March 26, 2015 — by Elly Blue

microcosm authors at a book reading Hello again! This is a series for Microcosm authors (and other curious bystanders) about book marketing and publicity. The first post in the series was a rapid-fire outline of our job as the publisher of the book. There’s a lot of misinformation out there about what publishers do and don’t do (and a lot of variation in the reality, too), so hopefully this is helpful.

This next post gets started on the author’s role by focusing on a pretty common anxiety among authors: Self-promotion.

Many of our authors have no problem at all with promoting their work, and some have come to us with years of building up a successful body of work or a personal brand and are ready to grab a megaphone to tell the world about the book they haven’t even written yet. Many others experience discomfort akin to panic at the idea of standing up and talking to a room full of people about their book, using social media to broadcast sales pitches and positive reviews, or even telling friends and family that they wrote a book and that there’s an opportunity to buy it.

First of all, self-promotion anxiety is so normal as to be, well, the norm. That said, you’ve gone through all this work to produce a book. The more comfortable you are with talking about it with friends and strangers alike, online or off, the more people who want or need to read it will be able to. And we’re here to help you do that.

Here are some common concerns and what I’ve learned over the years, as a nervous author myself and working with many others, about how to tackle them:

I don’t want to spam/annoy/ask people to buy my book

Ok, good point. But there is a huge difference between actual spam (eg, twice-daily unsolicited marketing emails in bold, red, italic letters saying BUY NOW) and book promotion. Here’s another way to think about it: You just wrote a book about topics that you care deeply about. Other people who care deeply about the same things (or about you) are going to be excited to find out about, buy, and read your book. Your promotional role is to find them and offer them the opportunity to do this as easily as possible.

Practical tip: Think about what makes your book exciting and interesting. How did you get the idea for the book? When did it really come together? What have other people or your editor said that they like about your book? Write all of those things down and refer to them when you’re trying to find something to say about your book other beyond “it exists! buy it!”

Most people won’t want to read my book

That’s true. But you didn’t write this book to please everyone in the entire world (that would be the most boring book ever). You wrote it for your readers. That’s a very particular set of people and most of the job of promoting is finding them and talking to them (often about topics other than your book). Here’s yet another way to think about it: You’re part of a movement. Whatever your book is about—teaching in inner-city schools, making soap, cats, vegan cooking—it’s now become a building block in that bigger movement, and you’ve become a leader of that piece of the movement (and maybe a much bigger piece than just the one covered by your book). So your job is less to find random people and tell them you have a book, and more to connect with your movement about your book and the ideas in and around it.

Practical tip: Starting a blog or forum where you write about many related topics (but keep a purchase link to your book in the sidebar) is one way to do this. Social media is another. For many authors it makes sense to bring readers into the conversation as much as possible. For others it works to share parts of their personal experience with the book. For yet others, the best strategy is to speak at conferences, write guest blog posts, and otherwise tap into existing platforms. Your style is up to you!

If my book is good, then I shouldn’t need to promote it.

Sadly, sadly, sadly, this is not the case. If it were, all our jobs would be much easier. Thousands of books are being published every day, readers have more choices than they can even understand, and much as we have developed your book uniquely with its title, cover, marketing, and publicity plan, it is still necessary to go out there and tell the world why it’s worth taking a look at.

Practical tip: Practice describing your book in one sentence. We call this the Five Second Pitch. Find a friend, family member, or coworker who knows very little about your book and try the pitch out on them. How do they respond? Adjust as necessary. Once you’ve mastered this, think about other things that people engaged by this will want to know. Prepare a 30-second speech with more details about the uniqueness of your book and, if relevant, how it fits into existing news stories and trends.

Help, the critics are going to eat me alive!

Yeah, reviews are scary. It’s a mixed bag out there. Many famous and well-regarded authors have a policy of never reading reviews and we think this is a great idea. The psychology of it is unfortunate—your ten good reviews might leave you cold, while the one lukewarm one could have you grinding your teeth for years. We keep track of reviews for all of our books so that we can tell the world about the good ones and issue corrections for the factually inaccurate ones. So there’s no reason that you need to read your reviews or set up a google alert for your book unless you want to. Reviews don’t affect sales as much as everyone wants to believe (though bad reviews are better for sales than no reviews at all), so our advice is not to worry about them as much as possible. Easier said than done, we know!

Practical tip: Instead of googling yourself, google other authors whose books have sold well yet gotten mixed or terrible reviews. They often have very funny (and helpful) things to say about the experience.

Imposter syndrome (eg, feeling like you aren’t an expert or have no right to speak out about the topics in your book)

First of all, let me reassure you: You did a great job. Your book is awesome. Only you could have written it, and you are perfectly qualified to speak about it, and the subject matter in it, on par with anyone else on the planet. We’re selective about what books we publish, and we don’t let them go to print until and unless they are good (and unique) inside and out, with strong, well-put-together contents that are compelling to a group of readers. No exceptions.

Secondly, a lot of people feel this way. Trust me, many very accomplished people who seem utterly cool and collected on the outside are often a total mess internally when they’re up on a stage, or doing an interview, or approached by a gregarious family friend at a party who wants to know all about their book. It takes courage for anyone to step up and promote their vision. You’ve already done a lot by writing a book about it—don’t stop there!

Practical tips: Practice, practice, practice. It truly does get easier. It helps to have someone you can call on for supportive and encouraging words when you’re experiencing self-doubt or stage fright. Also, figuring out exactly what you are promoting (It may help to think of it as not being you but rather your vision, your readers, and your movement) can help you take the stage as an expert in a way that feels supportive of your community of readers rather than uncomfortably self-aggrandizing.

Go out there and promote!

The next post is about promoting your book on social media. You can read more publishing wisdom like this in Joe Biel’s book A People’s Guide to Publishing.

Meet the Microcosm Staff: Meggyn Pomerleau, Designer

March 20, 2015 — by Elly Blue

Slowly but surely, we’re aiming to introduce you to Microcosm’s hard-working, book-loving team. Here’s an interview with our on-staff graphic designer, Meggyn Pomerleau. She designs many of our covers, and sometimes illustrates entire books.

I’m looking at your last interview here, with Eleanor Whitney when you were designing her book Grow, which was before you were at Microcosm full-time. Can you give us an update on your evolution as an artist, both art-wise and career-wise?

I can say with full confidence that I’ve achieved the goals I set while in that interview, sans high stress agency job. My life is now devoted to design and Microcosm, and it’s a much better turn out than I could have ever expected. (I haven’t been inside a cubicle in over a year!!)

In the interview, there was even a mention on developing a style and I think I’ve nailed that. I feel more confident as a designer, illustrator, and artist. Basically this all has lead me to believe that if you truly set goals and want them, you will get them.

We went to the climbing gym the other day. It ruled. How’d you get into that, and what other pastimes and passions are you pursuing?

The thought of falling off a cliff and not being able to simply pull my own body weight up has always terrified me. Recently, I’ve been trying things that will help me out if I’m ever in an intense survival mode, such as the situation I just described. When I was introduced to climbing by a friend, I thought that top roping (the one people usually see with 30 foot walls and being tied in with a harness) was all that was available….and then I discovered bouldering. Freedom. I fell in love. I had never done much physical activity like that before, and it motivated me to get in shape and push myself harder. Other than that, I’ve turned my side writing-gig into a side illustration-gig, drawing bands or people and my interpretations after seeing a concert or stand up show. I was never much of a writer and I now have the freedom to “review” with a drawing rather than words. I enjoy hiking with my dog, Padme Creampuff Blueberry Parmesan, and eating all of the burritos in the world.

You always recommend music for our Rampant Media Consumption posts. How does the music you listen to go with (or not go with) your design sensibilities and life philosophies?

Most of the music I listen to inspires me because it reminds me of specific memories and takes me to a place where I can see, feel, touch, taste, and smell everything. I reflect on the past a lot because it’s a constant reminder of why I am the way I am now. I don’t think music shapes my aesthetic or even my philosophies, but it definitely keeps my drive constant. I’m frequently distracted by how much good music is out there, and I have to take a minute to step back and just pick something I can have on in the background…such as Las Vegas (my hometown) club music.

What are you working on right now?

I’m currently finishing up Manspressions and Teenage Rebels, two of the hardest and most fun projects I’ve ever done. I’ve pretty much been laying low and holding my breath until their completion, and it will be nice to come out of hiding once they surface.

Favorites! What’s your favorite food? Favorite game? Favorite place in Portland? Favorite place in the rest of the world?

My favorite food of all time are burritos. Traditional (vegan) burritos, non-traditional (full of mac and cheeze, fake meats, and veggies) burritos, raw vegan (collard wrap with seeds and nut pate) burrito, the list could go on. There are so many options! The most perfect handheld food.

My favorite game goes back and forth between Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter. I’m terrified of the day I invest in a game console and one of those….I’ll really never come outside.

My favorite place is Portland is the Multnomah Whisk(e)y Library….because it’s literally a dream. I’ve never had a terrible time/interaction/drink there and the vibes are so inspiring. It’s my favorite nighttime place to work. As far as exploring and nature, the hike to Eagle Creek is breath-taking.

My favorite places for the rest of the world are a bit sad because I’ve only been to the northern tip of Mexico and a few places in this country! It’s probably a tie between Chicago, Austin, and San Diego…all of which I plan to visit this year.

This is one in a series of interviews with Microcosm workers. The last one was with editor Taylor Hurley, and the next one is with publicist Tim Wheeler.

Rampant Media Consumption #7

February 20, 2015 — by Microcosm

Here’s what we’ve been reading, watching, listening to, and playing this week. abner-jay

Tim

A friend of mine recently sold off all his records in an attempt to make some cash/lighten his load while moving. His loss is my gain. But of the few I bought, the one that has stuck out is Abner Jay. He was a one man band in his 50s, with a strange six string banjo, harmonica, percussion made with animal bones, and what ever else tickled his fancy. Sound-wise, he’s like the second generation of country blues meets Daniel Johnston, fueled by amphetamines. I usually dread the “this band on this drug” cliche in music writing, but it’s hard to avoid when he’s yelling at you about cocaine.

And if you found your way to this blog, you probably know all about it, but I’m currently on letter “N” of Aaron Cometbus’ A Bestiary of Booksellers. Each letter focuses on a different character in Aaron’s life as a folding-table bookseller on the streets of NYC. A surprisingly interesting underworld of beardo book hunters and curmudgeonly characters.

I also watched the documentary Florida Man. Less a narrative and more a 45 minute portrait of the characters found wandering the streets and beaches of southern Florida. In the end, I actually ended up feeling a little jealous. Warm weather, a clunky bike, and a cold beer sounds pretty good right now…

Erik

This week the Champions League UEFA Champions League – UEFA.com began again, so I’ve been watching some soccer matches. For folks excited about European soccer, the Champions League title is like winning the Super Bowl, World Series, and the Stanley Cup all in one.

I haven’t got much reading done; there were some Hemingway short stories, but I get bored and just wait for the punchlines. Although, The Snows of Kilimanjaro has a man suffering from gangrene, and somehow I find that fascinating… perhaps for the same reasons I keep a copy of A Journal of the Plague Year on my bedside table.

I think I was swallowed by a slew of Hall and Oates videos… I can’t get enough of their use of fog and mesmerizing head-bobbing.

Meggyn

read // Afro Vegan by Bryant Terry, started Yo Miss!, Manspressions, Women by Bukowski

listened to // Giraffage’s “No Reason“, True Widow’s Self Titled, Joey Bada$$’s “1999“, Spazzkid’s “Desire 願う“, MIMM’s compilation of “From China With Love“, and A Tribe Called Quest’s “The Low End Theory”

watched // X-Files season 2 and The Other Woman (one of the best rom-coms in my opinion, though I shamefully watched)

played // not enough basketball or Twister

Taylor

listened to- Jessica Pratt (self titled album)

read- The Art of the Novel by Milan Kundera and Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

Nathan

This week’s Powell book reading was a fictional tale, but still resonated with me in terms of themes and subject matter! Binary Star discusses body image issues like anorexia and the impact of veganarchism all in one terrific coming of age story we could all relate to, but most importantly find subtle references to lots of the issues we attempt to address with most of our titles at Microcosm Publishing!

Rampant Media Consumption #6

February 13, 2015 — by Microcosm

a page of manspressions Here’s what’s been rocking our small worlds this week! (PS: Back our Crate Digger book on Kickstarter! Five days to go!:

Meggyn

This week, I’ve had an EP from Portland’s own Happy Dagger (nearly identical to Tame Impala, soft psych funk, perfectly relaxing and appropriate for a Monday morning) and Title Fight’s Floral Green (aggressive emo that immediately became a classic) alternating on repeat. I also listened to a fair amount of Kurt Vile before his show last Friday, and I still believe Waking On A Pretty Daze to be a timeless masterpiece.

Other than that, I was laughing my ass off at our upcoming educational title, Manspressions.

Elly

We were traveling this week. I brought two books: Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood and Physics for Rock Stars by Christine McKinley, but didn’t have time to open either one. Then I bought a third book, Cubed: A Secret History of the Workplace, at a little independent shop in Seattle, Phinney Books. I victoriously stayed awake long enough to read the first ten pages.

Erik

On good recommendation, I watched a Netflix documentary on the Virunga National Park in Democratic Republic of the Congo. The film, self titled Virunga, is a harrowing story of the park rangers fighting and dying to save and protect the Mountain Gorillas who live, as the last of their species, in a area set to be harvested for its natural resources. Corrupt and villainous investors and politician work with rebel fighters to enact whatever horrible means they can to kill all the gorillas, with their thinking being that if they’re all gone, there would be no reason to protect the park…

Listened to a bunch of James Brown. Inspired by the documentary I watched last week, I’ve dug into my collection of his records and been at it nonstop. Some of my favorite stuff came after Mr. Brown liquidated most of his band, The Famous Flames, and enlisted Bootsy (bass) and Catfish Collins (guitar). Here’s a pretty wicked performance featuring the two.

The New Yorker (Feb. 16, 2015) has an interesting article, Northern Lights. It A-B’s the global identity of modern Scandinavia and its laurels of utopia, against the vast spectrum of realities that are producing this identity; all of this balanced against the American dream…

Nathan

Attended another Powell’s book reading about PTSD and found a lot of helpful information to assist me in my own struggles which you can read about in our excellent book Alive with Vigor: Surviving Your Adventurous Lifestyle which I had a small part in! We also sell tons of excellent works on similar subjects in our The Icarus Project collection which are also totally worth checking out!

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.