A People's Guide to Publishing

It's episode 300! 

This week on the pod, Elly, Joe, and Bernie are joined by Jelani Memory of A Kids Co! They talk about taking making your press an imprint of a larger publisher instead of just having it distributed, sticking to your mission during the process, and making your business like a cockroach (unkillable!).

Joe, Elly, and Bernie sit down with Karen Krebser, author of "Tarot Through the Witch's Year," to chat about tarot in dark times, how to reconcile your practice with your privilege, tarot spreads for diving the future of publishing, and a bit of the history of tarot.

Get a copy of Tarot Through the Witch's Year here: https://microcosmpublishing.com/catalog/books/12781

It's another throwback episode! A few years ago, Joe and Elly sat down with sales rep extraordinaire Kurtis to talk about how reps get books into stores. Learn about cover appeal, sales conferences, how store buyers see the books... and that's just the first five minutes. It's an oldie, but an eternally useful goodie of an episode!

How does a small press hire a sales rep? Do you even NEED a rep? This week on the pod, Joe and Elly talk about how Microcosm decided to work with reps, and how to find the reps that will work for you.

Chris Vega of Blue Cactus Press is back to talk common publishing misconceptions! Zoning issues, delusions of grandeur, printing—learn what makes us unique (and also just as boring as other publishers).

On Black Friday of 2024, Taylor Swift released "The Eras Tour Book" exclusively through Target. But is it a book? What's the appeal? Who is the audience? Was it unfair to cut out indie bookstores from one of the biggest releases of the year? 

Jane Friedman of "The Hot Sheet" is back with Joe and Elly to give her thoughts on book-shaped objects.

Note: This episode was recorded before the book actually released. Joe's post-release comment— "Since even diehard fans were unhappy with the quality of the book, it’s hard to Bielieve the think pieces claiming that celebrities don’t need publishers anymore."

This week, we pretend we're one of those "hang out and chat about whatever" podcasts, because it's time for Dr. Faith's long-awaited return to the pod! 

Join Dr. Faith, Joe, and Elly while they answer reader questions, her upcoming books, surviving the holidays, and more. There are always shenanigans when Dr. Faith comes around, so we hope you have as much fun as we did.

(If you're wondering what's up with the "advertisers" Joe keeps mentioning, there are multiple visual gags in the episode, and we highly recommend catching the vlog on our website at microcosm.pub/NewPodcast )

For a lot of publishers, landing a book on the New York Times Bestseller list is THE goal. How did a small press like Collective Book Studio end up with a title on the most iconic bestseller list in the US? Angela Engel from had a chance to hang out with Joe for a few minutes at a recent conference to talk tell the story.

This week on the podcast, Brooke Warner of She Writes Press and Spark Press, talks with Elly and Joe about her experience in hybrid publishing, how to tell if it's a good idea for your books, recognizing predatory publishers, and misconceptions about that particular branch of the industry.

How does a major election effect publishing sales trends? 

Jane Friedman of the Hot Sheet is back
to talk about how we're all doing, what's been selling, and what do we think that means. Plus, we touch on the differences between the aftermath of the 2016 election vs this year.