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Learn what you need to succeed in book publishing--and more importantly, how to determine what success means for you. Follow along with Microcosm and WorkingLit staff as they share anecdotes from our humble beginnings and huge growth, eye-opening strategies for efficiency, and unique insights built from experience (rather than conventional wisdom repeated by industry insiders), all backed up with humor, passion, and lots and lots of data. For fellow publishers, future publishers, book industry comrades, systems nerds, and other kindred spirits, this zine is packed with what you need to know about distribution, automation, data analysis, and how to blaze your own bookish path--without making our same mistakes. We're sharing our hard-won knowledge and resources to help other independent publishers and thinkers flourish, creating a more resilient future for all of us! Let's roll up our sleeves and do some book math together.
About the author
Joe Biel is a self-made autistic publisher and filmmaker who draws origins, inspiration, and methods from punk rock to sell millions of books. Biel is the founder and CEO of Microcosm Publishing, Publishers Weekly's #1 fastest-growing publisher of 2022 and #3 in 2023/2024, and WorkingLit, the software responsible for Microcosm's aforementioned success--now available for other publishers. Biel has been featured in Time, Esquire, Art of Autism, Reading Glasses, Bulletproof Radio, Spectator (Japan), G33K (Korea), and Maximum Rocknroll, as well as NPR and PBS. Biel is the author of A People's Guide to Publishing, Autism Relationships Handbook, Unfuck Your Business, Enduring Legacy of Portland's Black Panthers, and dozens more. Biel is the director of five feature films and hundreds of short films, including Aftermass: Bicycling in a Post-Critical Mass Portland, $100 & a T-Shirt, and the Groundswell series. Biel lives in Portland, OR. Elly Blue is a co-owner and the vice president of Microcosm Publishing, and the co-host of the People's Guide to Publishing podcast. Her books include Everyday Bicycling and Bikenomics, and she is the editor of the annual Bikes in Space anthology of feminist bicycle science fiction. She lives in Portland, Oregon, with her partner, their dog, and a small fleet of cargo bicycles.
