My love for Microcosm is complicated, so it’s easier to love other presses where I don’t have to witness what goes on in book development! I think it’s really neat how Akashic invests revenues from Go the Fuck to Sleep into debut fiction, which is a risky category. What small presses do you love (in addition to your own)? For our books to succeed, we have to think smarter, which is almost always to the author’s advantage: 99% of our titles outsell the industry average. More importantly, we are more inclined towards innovative solutions rather than throwing money at a problem or trying to compete in very crowded ponds. The number of authors proportionate to the number of staff is much more in the author’s favor with a small press. So essentially by working with a small press an author gets a lot more time and attention. Publishing is a game of economics and scale. Many writers never consider submitting their work to a small publisher. What’s better than being the solution in the face of the problem? I now get to create the resources that I needed for literally thousands of people all over the world. I grew up as an at-risk autistic youth in a broken home. How did you get drawn into the world of small press publishing? On top of that we are in the position where we get to help shape author pitches into functional books that can continue to help readers develop meaning and purpose in their lives, changing the world around them. I’ve coped with a lot of darkness over the past 25 years and now I have a job where I get out of bed excited every single day to receive fan mail about how our books have literally saved lives. What excites you about working for a small press? Among Microcosm’s bestsellers are such titles as Make Your Place: Affordable, Sustainable Nesting Skills (106,000 copies sold), Wild Fermentation: A Cultural Guide to Do It Yourself Cultural Manipulation (45,000 copies), Zinester’s Guide to Portland (74,000 copies) and Making Stuff and Doing Things (27,000 copies).This week we check in with Joe Biel of Microcosm Publishing. They aren’t trying to turn us into a boring conventional publishing house,” he said. “Legato is the first distributor that understands us. Legato has already affected the Microcosm frontlist: “We’ve seen a 900% increase in advance sales of our frontlist,” Biel said, with a focus on the backlist coming next. Only about 5% of the company’s sales come from the bookstore market, so Biel is focused on raising its profile-and revenue-in conventional bookstores, a goal that prompted the move to Legato in 2014. It gets pre-sales up and gets fans involved,” he said.īiel has said that “the underground is bigger than the mainstream” when it comes to Microcosm titles. “Kickstarter is a movement building tool that helps you create buzz around new books. The house also regularly uses Kickstarter to fund titles. Biel was interviewed while attending the Oklahoma Bike Summit, a bicycling advocacy event, and he brought along about 150 Microcosm books to sell to the 500 attendees. The company has also been innovative in finding new markets. Today, the house has evolved into an eclectic but growing indie book publisher, publishing a range of books (and graphic novels) on alternative culture, environmentalism, history, and feminism. The house first published zines on punk rock and distributed zines, books, T-shirts, and alternative cultural manifestos to a network of retailers that include record stores, bike shops, clothing shops, and festivals. Other books coming in 2016 include Threadbare: Clothes, Sex & Trafficking by Anne Elizabeth Moore, a work of graphic nonfiction about the connections between the global fashion market and the sex trade, featuring such comics artists as Leela Corman and Ellen Lindner Urban Revolutions: A Woman’s Guide to Two-Wheeled Transportation by Emilie Bahr, a look at women and biking in Portland and The Post-structuralist Vulva Coloring Book by Meggyn Pomerleau.īiel founded Microcosm in 1996, in his bedroom. I only heard words I could not detect facial cues.” Recalling a failed marriage, years of frustration, and emotional conflict with friends and family, he said, “You know you’re different, but you don’t know why.” Biel spent three years working with a cognitive behavior specialist to learn how to “mimic neuro-typical people.” The book details Biel’s diagnosis (at the age of 32) of Asperger’s syndrome, 15 years after he founded Microcosm, and offers his story of building a company despite being “inflexible and difficult.” As he explained, “for most of my working life, my Asperger’s made it much more difficult to have relationships with my coworkers. Microcosm will release about 20 titles in 2016, including Good Trouble: Building a Successful Life and Business with Asperger’s, by Biel, a memoir and business book.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |