Warehouse Walkthrough

November 26, 2024

Take a little tour through Microcosm’s Cleveland digs!

What happens at a Microcosm warehouse? Come along for a walkthrough of the Cleveland buildings with us for a behind-the-scenes peek at what running an independent press and distro really looks like.

Pallets of books get delivered to our well-marked dock and are received into our system.

We wait for construction to finish.

We fix leaks using the things we have around.

We put away tons of zines.

We make space for new deliveries…

…and plan ahead for the next several years.

Thanks so much for coming along! As the hustle and bustle of the holiday season sets in and orders are rolling out the door, these spaces and our small crew of dedicated, rad staff in them every day are what keep the books, zines, gifts, and resources flowing. We couldn’t do it without you!

—Your friends at Cleveland MCP

Microcosm expands Cleveland warehousing operation

September 03, 2024

Microcosm Publishing has purchased the building adjacent to their Cleveland, OH warehouse, where construction is currently underway to connect the two buildings. This major project will double Microcosm’s warehousing capacity, as well as create an additional sales capacity of $5 million per year to serve the needs of Microcosm’s vertically-integrated publishing and distribution operation, which earned their recognition in 2022, 2023, and 2024 as a Publishers Weekly Fastest Growing Publisher.

Microcosm launches custom shipping boxes

September 02, 2024

Microcosm has created its own custom shipping boxes, featuring a spoof of a certain Seattle-based company’s logo and images of several employees’ cats, produced by International Paper based in Memphis, Tennessee. Microcosm regularly receives feedback from its bookstore customers praising its warehouse shippers’ packing skills, so it only seemed right to get boxes to match their acumen—and to express Microcosm’s cheeky and fiercely independent ethos anywhere its books are sent.

Cleveland warehouse manager Drew shares the new boxes

Microcosm boxes and Dr. Faith titles seen at Fabulosa Books on CBS News.

Maybe you even glimpsed our new boxes (and a few of our titles!) in the recent CBS Weekend News piece on fighting book bans, featuring the amazing Fabulosa Books.

Says Microcosm founder Joe Biel, “We created custom boxes, and the paper plant we’d been working with in Oregon refused to print our anti-Amazon artwork. Our number one customer complaint was our use of boxes from ULINE—a company that doesn’t align with our values anyway—so we switched to custom boxes that are of a superior quality in celebration of how many booksellers praise our warehouse employees’ box-packing superpowers.”

Biel and Microcosm vice president Elly Blue discuss the decision making, design, and Oregon vs. Ohio politics behind the new boxes in this recent episode of Microcosm’s People’s Guide to Publishing podcast.