A People's Guide to Publishing

This week on the pod, we interview April Street, author of Women on Wheels, the fabulous story of how women shaped bicycling. Streeter had an incredible ability to jump right back into her research, recall both the executive summaries and then the most fascinating details, as well as visiting how sexism, classism, and racism were factors in cycling. 

In 2006, our friend, Richard the Roadie, asked "Hey, did you ever figure out how to do health insurance?" I explained our convoluted system of stipends at length and he said "Oh, okay, so you haven't." Fifteen years later, we have! We now provide healthcare to our staff through many bureaucratic hours of wading through locating the right people and asking the right questions. This episode is how you can too!

This week on the pod, we answer a reader question. Anyone in the bookstore or publishing industries are very concerned about being undercut on price so the tendency is to price based on Amazon. Is this a good idea? How do we combat this race to the bottom? How can bookstores and publishers set a better baseline? 

This week on the pod, we review four new zines that fell into our laps as well as lots of tangents and nonsequitors. Autism, Tulsa, Racism, corking, bicycles, Black Lives Matter, COVID, prison, books to prison!

This week on the pod we review the Audio Publishers Association numbers about growing trends in audiobook listening. What do they tell us? What does it mean? How does it impact future plans to publish a title in audio?

Two PSU professors conducted extensive scientific surveying about people's book reading habits. This week on the pod, we walk you through some of what we find interesting and notable about the results.

Last week we answered how to pitch your book and this week we received a similar, though different question. Graphic novels are a bit of a puzzle with lots of moving pieces. We tackle the mysterious process of seeing these ideas onto paper!