“They would buy a thousand books at a time.” Distributors call this underground network the “parallel gift market”-a bookselling ecosystem that most publishers don’t tap. “It has slowed down a bit, but for a while, our biggest account was a taco stand in Tokyo,” said Biel. The publisher keeps a database with around 600 in-business record stores that would be willing to sell books, in addition to a number of other more unexpected locations. The publisher has built its own network of record stores, gift shops, grocery stores, and other non-traditional bookselling locations that Biel calls the “underground” of bookselling. Biel estimates that PGW only handled between 10% to 25% of Microcosm’s distribution over the years, and Amazon only accounted for 1% of the publishers’ net sales. Since the beginning, Microcosm has always controlled the lion’s share of its own distribution. Its bestselling titles include Make Your Place: Affordable, Sustainable Nesting Skills by Raleigh Briggs (150,000 copies in print since 2007), Unfuck Your Brain (33,000 copies in print since 2017), and the Henry & Glenn Forever indie comics series by Tom Neely (150,000 copies in print since 2010), and more than 125,000 copies of Portland guidebooks. Microcosm has sold over three million books and zines. As part of its new distribution arrangement, Microcosm will work with regional sales representatives throughout the U.S.: Fujii Associates in the Midwest, Como Sales on the East Coast, and Book Travelers West in the Northwest. We're not as drunk or dirty as we used to be.“Now our warehouse is adjacent to our offices which is really convenient for every level,” said Biel. We have a staff, we have relationships in the industry that send our books to places we wouldn't have dreamed we could walk into ourselves. Now we have contracts instead of handshakes, a warehouse instead of a fanny pack full of zines. We set out to save ourselves from not caring, but out there in the margins we've found communities worth always doing it better for. We've brought our brightly colored books to infoshops, zine fests, media summits, bicycle conferences, parks, street corners, house shows, dirty bars, allnight coffeeshops, art museums, and every corner of the mainstream where we can clear away a little space to set up shop. Microcosm emphasizes skill-building, showing hidden histories, and fostering creativity through challenging conventional publishing wisdom with books and zines about DIY skills, food, bicycling, gender, self-care, and social justice.Microcosm has lived in milk crates, in closets, in a mud room, in a windowless basement, in a church, and under a desk at a major credit card company. Portland's most colorful, authentic, and empowering publishing house and distributor, Microcosm Publishing equips readers to make positive changes in their lives and in the world around them. Because pursuing your meaning and purpose depends on keeping track of the details! A great resource for visual thinkers note-takers and anyone without a photographic memory this little book will help keep your visions on track and hold you accountable to your goals. Plan out your publishing empire from mission to budgets with this workbook companion to Joe Biel's A People's Guide to Publishing. People's Guide to Publishing: Building a Successful, Sustainable, Meaningful Book Business From the Ground Up
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