Tagged business of publishing

What publishers can learn from preppers (from someone who’s survived climate disaster and lived to read about it)

This post is part of a series by the team at WorkingLit. WorkingLit is cloud-based software developed by Microcosm Publishing that gives independent publishers tools to thrive and grow at their own pace. Our industry is run by billionaires and conglomerates, and we want to give our fellow publishers the freedom to market and sell your books, understand your business, and painlessly pay royalties. Learn more at WorkingLit.com.

Excerpted from Microcosm zine Books and Math: A Manifesto On Publishing Tools by Elly Blue, Joe Biel, and Sara Balabanlilar. Take a look at the whole zine and purchase a copy on our website.

For the unprepared, every small shift in the publishing industry can feel like a disaster on the horizon. But it doesn’t have to be this way if you have your tools at the ready. Even before the current unprecedented times (™), there was an influx of seasonal disaster fearmongering from all areas: the whole west coast looks forward to The Big One and wildfires that grow year after year; the northern Midwest has to batten down the hatches for yearly snowstorms that shut down business for days. I grew up on the Gulf Coast, where weather predictions regularly forecast a potential Cat 5 hurricane that might decimate coastal cities.

I’m deeply uninterested in fearmongering, and if I were, I wouldn’t be on the administrative side of the independent book world ;). The thing is, the disaster is already here, I’ve seen it (many of us have), and getting anxious about a future era of climate dystopia is kinda useless. Y’all saw, or lived, last year’s horrific hurricane that swept away entire areas of southern Appalachia and the East Coast, or the terrible fires that reached Los Angeles and burned down entire neighborhoods. The Gulf lives in the shadow of Katrina and a number of other hurricanes that did irreparable damage to the landscape and population. Heck, my home city has fatal flash-floods multiple times a year that come and go without much comment.

Something I’ve learned (and this is where the prepper stuff comes in) is: the time to prepare is now. Don’t get scared, get ready! That might sound a little desperate or fatalist but I don’t necessarily mean it like that. Yes, I have met the rural Texans with a large store of firearms, but there are also my beloved queer anarchist friends who preserve food every winter, raise their own animals in the middle of their southern cities, know how to fix their own houses when high winds blow the roof off, and build decentralized, anti-surveillance communication networks. What I mean is, think about what you would potentially lose in the face of a crisis and figure out a sustainable practice to keep what you need. Learn to grow, find, and can your food. As these pals have shown me, teach yourself survival skills outside of the system and see if, instead of feeling paranoid, you just feel like your life has become less fretful and more expansive.

Anyway. Now transmute that ethos into other realms. How do you build a life practice that supports you no matter the eventuality? After all, I’m trying to get at a holistic view of existing in the world that invests in climate safety practices alongside all other kinds of safety and nourishment. So of course, coming as I am from a WorkingLit point of view, I’m starting with books.

First, let’s agree that there’s no one impending disaster in the book/publishing industry. Disaster, industry-shifting changes, and outside forces have come and gone in multiple forms, each shift shaping the industry and unfortunately ridding the world of some amazing publishers as it goes. Whether industry-specific, like the rise of eBooks and Print on Demand (see the prescient and thoughtful A People’s Guide to Publishing podcast episode) or U.S. economy-specific, like tariffs (see…another prescient and thoughtful A People’s Guide to Publishing podcast episode, lol) and Amazon’s relentless pursuit of money at the expense of publishers and bookstores, shifts are wide-ranging.

The same outlets that forecast the disappearance of New Orleans due to rising waters are also persistently forecasting the disappearance of print books, or bookstores. But come on, y’all, the binary deserves to be complicated, there’s no Black and White, we already know this. There is no “existence” vs. “complete disappearance.” We can forecast that, reasonably, such shifts will continue to occur, just as I can unfortunately assume that another hurricane is going to hit my home city and, in advance, make sure my family has flood insurance, a stock of potable water, and a generator.

I guess from what I can see, preparing for disaster breaks down to a few major things:

  1. Know what you’ve got on hand. Keep track of your stock. Life is a mystery, your assets don’t have to be. Publishers: Make your systems as infallible as possible. If you’re hand-counting stock in a garage to keep track of your catalog, please please stop. If you’ve not taken inventory in a while, please build it into your schedule at least twice a year. Track your product movement so you’re not scrambling to reprint or find space for bestsellers.
  2. Recognize your network. If you’re just the “firearms” type of prepper, this is your nuclear family, I guess; if you’re the “queer anarchist” type of prepper, this is your family too, but maybe not so much in the bound-by-blood type of way. And if you’re a publisher, this is not just your audience of readers but your community of peers. You need them and they need you! Keep track of the actual stats year over year, don’t just make assumptions based on your loudest customers. You’ll find out a lot more about your highest-selling accounts, the wild online-only stores that try to return 60% of their orders from you, and the small but determined gift accounts that love what you do.
    If you’re sure of what you have, you’re sure of where it’s going, and you’re sure of who’s doing it with you, then you can…
  3. Prepare for the future and any eventuality. Remember when I said “getting anxious is kinda useless”? Ok, we’re back to that again. Knowing where your weak/strong spots are means that, as time passes and the world changes, you know where your business could use growth and will need support. At all costs, stay the flexible, creative, generative person I know you are if you’re reading this. With the stable support of data behind you, you can focus your brain on that critical thinking and spend less time wondering when you accumulated 1000 extra copies of an underseller…
    Pile these three together and they lead to the hopefully inevitable outcome that you can:
  4. Feel like you’ve got the control to do what you WANT. One of my friends referenced disaster preparedness including a “go-bag” and knowledge of evacuation routes. I’m from the south, baby! We don’t have evacuation routes, we hunker down and keep our “bunkers” above ground-level. But you do you. You know your apocalypse best; preparedness is not a one-size-fits-all process. In the publishing world… I’m sure you can see where I’m going with this. If you’ve followed steps 1-3 above, you know your context, your catalog, your pals, and your requirements to move forward. You can pivot depending on each year’s needs. In Microcosm’s case, this means owning the software to track sales proactively, thereby weathering recessions with relative ease and sticking around for decades to sell more great books.
  5. Lift up yourself and your community. In the Gulf Coast case: make sure you know the person on your block with a boat (it might be you).

As a book industry worker outside the coastal hubs, I spend a lot of time, mostly digitally, with fellow book people talking about our geographic challenges. There’s something incredibly loving and thoughtful about what I have seen: a growing group of book people who can share their gripes about working in South Carolina, Idaho, Tennessee, Texas, New Mexico, Missouri, etc., but also share support systems and brainstorm solutions together. Non-New York presses were some of the first to pivot when Covid started in 2020, and I think it’s because we’re so used to existing outside the spotlight, and (already limited) funding, of the literary world. Decentralization is not a gimmick, it’s vital that we retain independence and also support our fellow indies. Rising tide and all that.

May we all survive and live to tweet (or whatever the next inevitable post-apocalyptic social media is, as the samsara of app churn continues) another day.

Sara Balabanlilar has spent almost ten years working in the book world, including bookselling, event organizing, design, marketing, sales, and indie publishing. She is currently the Marketing Manager at WorkingLit and a Senior Sales Specialist at Microcosm Publishing.

Make a Zine!: Start Your Own Underground Publishing Revolution

Share your passions and find your community!

Do you have a passion that you want to obsess about in a love letter to the world? In this new edition of Microcosm’s popular DIY guide to zine-making, Joe Biel updates the information provided in the first edition (edited by Biel and the late and great Bill Brent) to address zine making in today’s digital and social-media-obsessed world, featuring a new foreword by St. Louis zinester and literacy worker Ymani Wince.

Covering all the bases for beginners, Make a Zine! hits on more advanced topics like Creative Commons licenses, legality, and sustainability. Says Feminist Review,Make a Zine! is an inspiring, easy, and digestible read for anyone, whether you’re already immersed in a cut-and-paste world, a graphic designer with a penchant for radical thought, or a newbie trying to find the best way to make yourself and your ideas known.” Illustrated by an army of notable and soon-to-be-notable artists and cartoonists, Make a Zine! also takes a look at the burgeoning indie comix scene, with a solid and comprehensive chapter by punk illustrator Fly (Slug and Lettuce, Peops). Part history lesson, part how-to guide, Make a Zine! is a call to arms, an ecstatic, positive rally cry in the face of TV book clubs and bestsellers by celebrity chefs. As says Biel in the book’s intro, “Let’s go!”

Read on for a sneak peek at Make a Zine!: Start Your Own Underground Publishing Revolution by Joe Biel, shipping now from our site or available to order from your local bookseller!

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How does a press release their first book? w/Jane Friedman | A People’s Guide to Publishing

So you’ve got your company. You’ve got your book. You’ve got an idea. But how do you get it out into the world?

Releasing the first book as a press can be a lot like making the first pancake—you learn a lot in the process. There are a lot of traps and pitfalls presses can fall into, and Jane Friedman of the Hot Sheet is back to talk to Joe and Elly about how a press can get their first book out there.

Prefer an audio experience? Listen to the episode on your favorite podcast app.
Get the People’s Guide to Publishing here, and the workbook here!
Want to stay up to date on new podcast episodes and happenings at Microcosm? Subscribe to our newsletter!

Adventures at Coffee Fest

Microcosm VP Elly reports on one woman’s quest to befriend the bean beverage trade

Elly prepares for the Fest

Last week, I attended Coffee Fest in Portland. Cafes are one sector where Microcosm’s business is holding steady, despite the fact that we haven’t been doing much much to reach out to them. I wanted to learn how to better serve these shops and see what I could learn, so I spent one Friday walking around a giant Oregon Convention Center hall, recklessly accepting every sample someone offered me and talking to a lot of really kind people about the many facets of the coffee biz. 

To prepare for the event, I pulled together a list of our books and products that have been hits with coffee shops. We talk a lot about market segmentation at Microcosm, and I had assumed that coffee shops would mostly be what we classify as Specialty accounts: places with a deep expertise in one topic, looking to share new facets of that topic through books and zines. In this case, books about coffee and tea, how to make it, its growing regions, coffee culture, etc. 

A few of our cafe bestsellers

But actually, our data revealed that coffee shops tend to buy more in line with stores we classify as Gift: places that use books to convey a vibe. Our top bestsellers to these accounts, by a wiiiide margin, are the coloring books My Vag and Stoner Babes. One store owner, Katie Prinsen of the gorgeously curated Prince Coffee here in Portland, spelled out why: “Atmosphere and vibe are key in any coffeeshop,” she explained during a panel on merchandising. She aims for her shelves to “look like beautiful art” and believes that “books are in line with a perfect morning coffee experience.” I couldn’t agree more!

Interestingly, most of the cafe owners and buyers I spoke with at the trade show don’t sell books yet—and they assumed the same thing I did, that their customers would just want books about coffee. It’s easy to think of themselves as running a specialty store, and surely some of them are, with people coming in to sample different blends, do cuppings, and gain a coffee education. But I suspect that most would do better thinking of themselves as gift stores, or even something more akin to a bookstore (yet another market channel!)—places where customer purchases are driven by the atmosphere.

Our Walking with Ramona makes an appearance in the convention center’s Magic Box!

I know when I go to a coffeeshop I love, it’s because they’ve created a welcoming place to talk with friends or have a moment of calm to reflect on my day (or take a break from reflecting on my day). I’m almost never thinking about coffee, except to enjoy my beverage. The last thing I bought from a coffeeshop was a branded sticker that said “Keep it local!” from the aptly named Kind Coffee, where I keep coming back because they always effusively compliment my dog. 

I came away from Coffee Fest with a caffeine buzz and an appreciation for the basic kindness of people who go into this industry built on creating hospitable third places. I also came away thinking in new ways about “stores that don’t normally carry books,” which make up the majority of our customer base. I wonder how many of them we could better serve by inviting them to think of themselves as a different type of store than they usually do. It’s so easy to put ourselves, and each other, into boxes; and so glorious to have the moment of connection when a customer lights up, seeing something on your shelves that they didn’t even realize they wanted. 

Want to keep learning along with me? I’m going to a garden show next and am excited to share whatever insights grow from that fertile ground! Stay tuned right here.

“The Bookshelf and Beyond” Microcosm Spring ’25 Spectacular | A People’s Guide to Publishing Podcast

We tried a new thing!

Marketing Manager Abby (hi) recently did a presentation for some of our store and library customers, featuring some of our new titles, old favorites, and insights on what The People are buying these days. Elly also joined us for a few minutes to run through our fun new buying portal for stores. It was a good time. We might even do it again!

(If you want to skip the cool new portal and get straight to the books, jump to 8ish minutes in!)

Prefer an audio experience? Listen to the episode on your favorite podcast app.
Get the People’s Guide to Publishing here, and the workbook here!
Want to stay up to date on new podcast episodes and happenings at Microcosm? Subscribe to our newsletter!

How Do Tariffs Affect Canadian Publishers? w/ Kim Werker | A People’s Guide to Publishing

Tariffs! We’ve talked a lot about how they affect American bookstores and publishers. But what has the impact been for our neighbors to the North? Our friend Kim Werker of Nine Ten Publications sat down with us to talk about being a niche publisher in Canada, how knowing who you are makes you a better publisher, and of course, tariffs.

Prefer an audio experience? Listen to the episode on your favorite podcast app.
Get the People’s Guide to Publishing here, and the workbook here!
Want to stay up to date on new podcast episodes and happenings at Microcosm? Subscribe to our newsletter!

How can publishers lower information barriers? w/ Jelani Memory | A People’s Guide to Publishing

Publishing a book can feel like this insurmountable wall that you have to climb over while also screaming that your writing is valid. How can publishers make it more accessible to writers, from submitting a manuscript to marketing? Jelani Memory of A Kid’s Co is back to talk about it!

Prefer an audio experience? Listen to the episode on your favorite podcast app.
Get the People’s Guide to Publishing here, and the workbook here!
Want to stay up to date on new podcast episodes and happenings at Microcosm? Subscribe to our newsletter!

How Should Authors Market Their Books? w/ Jane Friedman | A People’s Guide to Publishing

Does author marketing have an impact on sales? Can you move the needle yourself, or do you need to rely on your publisher for all of your marketing and outreach? There is a lot of conflicting information out there, and Jane Friedman of the Hot Sheet is back on the pod this week to talk it out with us.

Prefer an audio experience? Listen to the episode on your favorite podcast app.
Get the People’s Guide to Publishing here, and the workbook here!
Want to stay up to date on new podcast episodes and happenings at Microcosm? Subscribe to our newsletter!

Marketing Your Book | A People’s Guide to Publishing Podcast

How do you “make your books get found” (as Joe puts it)? This week it’s a throwback to Joe and Elly chatting about marketing your book, search engine optimization, good description writing, and more. If you like this one, check back soon for a deeper dive into marketing talk!

Prefer an audio experience? Listen to the episode on your favorite podcast app.
Get the People’s Guide to Publishing here, and the workbook here!
Want to stay up to date on new podcast episodes and happenings at Microcosm? Subscribe to our newsletter!

Ben Snakepit Returns to the Snake Pit in 2025 | A People’s Guide to Publishing

Every day for 25 years, Ben Snakepit has drawn a simple, 3 panel comic about his day. There’s no overarching plot or theme, just Ben answering the question “what did you do today?” But answering that question daily for half his life (and collecting them in volumes) has led to insights about himself, the world, and what it means to live each day.

This week on the podcast, Ben joins Joe and Elly to talk about the comic, punk life, and how the scene has changed.

Check out all the Snake Pit comics here.

Prefer an audio experience? Listen to the episode on your favorite podcast app.
Get the People’s Guide to Publishing here, and the workbook here!
Want to stay up to date on new podcast episodes and happenings at Microcosm? Subscribe to our newsletter!