You published a book! Congrats! But… now what? How do you get your book in stores and libraries? Smoke signals? Pigeons? The answer is, as always, both simpler and more complex than you would think.
Get the People’s Guide to Publishing here, and the workbook here!
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Craig Rosebraugh, author of “Burning Rage of a Dying Planet: The FBI vs. the Earth Liberation Front” sits down with us to talk about how he became the spokesperson for the ELF, the FBI faking a book deal to gain intel, and publishing controversial materials.
Check out Craig’s book on our website.
Here’s a link to a (free) NYT article about Craig and the FBI.
Get the People’s Guide to Publishing here, and the workbook here!
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Disabled Witchcraft: 90 Rituals for Limited-Spoon Practitioners is a one-of-a-kind approach to truly accessible magickal practices with a solid dose of humor and heart. The author, beloved Microcosm editor Kandi Zeller, shares some of her favorite reads and companion titles for her groundbreaking book. Check out Kandi’s recommendations below!
Shop the list, read an excerpt from Disabled Witchcraft, or order your copy today—shipping from us now, available everywhere September 17!
Do Not Pet: How to Become a Service Dog by Joe Biel and Gerta Oparaku Egy
Ruby, a service dog who gave author Joe Biel mobility, health, and companionship through the most difficult years of their life, had many things to learn during her humble beginnings. This comic details the process for training a medical alert service dog, as well as other types of service dogs, the responsibility of their handlers for these lessons, and how these incredible dogs learn their skills. Service dogs are heartwarming signs of success as well as each one is a thrilling story of a successful struggle for basic human rights, and a powerful lesson in what humans and dogs can achieve by working together.
Unfuck Your Boundaries: Build Better Relationships Through Consent, Communication, and Expressing Your Needs by Dr. Faith G. Harper
In this book, bestselling author Dr. Faith Harper offers a full understanding of issues of boundaries and consent, how we can communicate and listen more effectively, and how to survive and move on from situations where our boundaries are violated. Along the way, you’ll learn when and how to effectively say “no” (and “yes”), troubleshoot conflict, recognize abuse, and respect your own and others’ boundaries like a pro. You’ll be amazed at how much these skills improve your relationships with friends, strangers, coworkers, and loved ones.
A Pocket Guide to Tarot Card Archetypes: When You Don’t Want to Carry Around a Library by Abbi Clark
This pocket-sized guide to tarot archetypes will save you the difficulty of carrying around your whole library of reference texts for convenience while conducting readings on the go. With a guide to choosing the right deck for you, suggestions for when and where to perform readings, instructions for your basic three-card draw, and the commonly accepted meanings of different elements in the Major and Minor Arcana, this little zine is a perfect companion to any tarot deck, and can provide novice tarot readers and more experienced practitioners alike with a handy reference.
The Practical Witch’s Almanac 2024: Rebel Wisdom by Friday Gladheart
The essential core of witchcraft is wisdom and change. We’ve always been rebellious and defiant, and our own traditions are not exempt from challenge. Delve into iconic witchcraft traditions like the utterance of “blessed be” and the influential Wiccan Rede, exploring their origins and relevance today. This introspective journey isn’t just about history; it’s an empowering quest. It challenges you to assess these traditions’ place in your craft. Embrace, adapt, or boldly defy these customs—this edition empowers you to shape your craft’s evolution on your terms as you travel your unique spiritual path.
Utopian Witch: Solarpunk Magick to Fight Climate Change and Save the World by Justine Norton-Kertson
Drawing on the natural connections between modern paganism and the literary, artistic, and activist movement known as solarpunk, Norton-Kertson provides meditations and correspondences for developing a spiritual practice rooted in nature, the Sun, and a powerful belief in our ability to build a better world. Readers will also find a host of spells to use in the fight against climate change, fascism, and inequality. These politically conscious magickal practices forge a new spiritual praxis to guide us as we work together to envision and create the future we want to see.
Welcome to the next installment of the Bookstore Solidarity Project! Every month, we’ll be highlighting indie bookstore owners and booksellers across the country (and beyond!)
After a little break in July for Zine Month, we are BACK with a new store for the Project!
Meet Spoke & Word Books, one of our local indies right nearby in Milwaukie (Oregon, not Wisconsin.) We got to chat with store owner Cierra on the podcast recently about all things bookselling and community, and here’s our other interview with them about the store itself!
Your name and pronouns?
Cierra Cook (they/them)
Tell us a little bit about the store and your community.
Spoke & Word Books is a new and used community bookshop in Milwaukie, just on the outskirts of Portland, OR.
We’re in historic downtown Milwaukie, which has been a pretty quiet area for a few years. There are some exciting new businesses that’ve opened in the last year or so, including a waste free shop and a new local cafe and grocery. We’re so excited to be a part of a resurgence of activity in downtown Milwaukie. Every community deserves a local bookshop that can curate a selection that serves them specifically.
While we have a broad scope as a community bookshop, including new, used, and children’s, we have a particular focus on genre fiction and queer interest, especially romance. When I was growing up I didn’t see myself in any of the books that were available to me, and now our mission is to make sure everyone has access to books where they can see themselves represented joyfully.
What got you into bookselling?
I started Spoke & Word Books as a pop-up shop, and it operated without a permanent location for about a year and a half before we transitioned to a brick and mortar. The idea for a bookstore came when I was doom scrolling towards the end of the pandemic. I remember feeling so lonely and discouraged, and scrolling endlessly online to try and find something good. One night I realized that I could DO SOMETHING good, since it seemed so hard for me to find a lot of positive things happening in my community at the time. I started Spoke & Word Books from my basement, selling new and used books at pop-up events and community festivals once COVID restrictions began to ease up.
It was honestly the perfect time to start a community based business like this. We had all gone through the collective trauma of COVID and the social justice awakening of 2020, and so many of us were looking for community.
A large part of what we do at the bookstore now is intentional community building. We host 2-3 events a week, including standard bookclubs and storytimes, but also oddball events like a release party for Taylor Swift’s new album, craft nights, and a 90’s Sleepover Party just for fun.
People can buy a book literally anywhere, but our goal is to create authentic connection and community that can’t be replaced by a tech company.
How did you choose your store’s name?
My husband actually came up with the name Spoke & Word Books. He refurbishes old mountain bikes into gravel bikes, and so Spoke & Word is a combination of each of our passions- biking and reading! It has another meaning as well- one of our earliest ways of explaining what kinds of books we wanted to carry was “books people talk about”. We are drawn to books that help drive discussion and community, whether that’s a book about how to get engaged in your local government (Democracy in Retrograde), or the latest spicy romance (The Pairing).
What’s something about your store that you think will surprise people?
In addition to running our bookshop, I’m also a City Councilor in my small city. I think a lot of us came out of 2020 realizing that our time is limited, and that there’s no better time than now to do the work that is important to you. In both my work at the bookshop and as City Councilor, the most important part of the job is making connections and supporting our community.
What are some of you favorite ways your community supports your store?
We have an incredible community of readers who have made our store what it is. Our customer support us by sharing reviews and recommending us to their friends, as well as donating books for our used inventory. We just launched a membership program in July that has already had a HUGE impact on our ability to stay solvent. The Milwaukie community has been so wonderfully supportive of the shop, and I’m grateful literally every day I get to come to work.
What are two books you can’t wait for people to read, or your current favorite handsells?
The Pairing by Casey McQuiston literally came out the day that I’m writing this, and it’s my favorite book of 2024, hands down. McQuiston is the absolute GOAT of romance, and The Pairing is their best work. It’s about two chaotic bisexuals rampaging through Europe on a food and wine tour, and would be my first recommendation for someone who thinks they don’t like romance (and anyone else too!). In addition to being just categorically one of the best written romances of all time (fight me), one of the main characters of The Pairing is non-binary, and their relationship to their gender and sexuality made me feel so seen. Beautifully written, deliciously queer, and just plain lovely.
I’m also really loving talking to folks about Democracy in Retrograde by Sami Sage and Emily Amick. So many of my customers have been anxious, frustrated, and scared about the presidential election this year. Democracy in Retrograde is part civic engagement primer, part self-help book, and helps people get past the anxiety of the national political landscape and learn how to engage where they can actually make a profound difference- in their local communities. We’re hosting a book club for this book, and my hope is that folks leave with a new inspiration and practical tools for getting involved in their local school board, city, or county leadership.
How can customers who aren’t local shop your shelves and support you?
You can support Spoke & Word Books by shopping online at www.spokeandwordbooks.com! We can ship books straight to your home through our partnership with bookshop.org!
Anything else you’d like to share?
Thank you so much for the opportunity to share! <3<3<3
Be sure to follow Spoke & Word on their Instagram, Facebook, and Tiktok, and listen to their podcast episode here!
You can read our other Bookstore Solidarity Project posts here!
And click here to get a copy of How to Protect Bookstores and Why.
This month for the #BookstoreSolidarityProject, we hung out with Cierra, owner of Portland-local bookstore Spoke & Word! We talked about bookselling, strategic romance and genre placement, and how much of a fan Joe’s doctor is of them.
Prefer an audio experience? Listen to the episode on your favorite podcast app.
Get the People’s Guide to Publishing here, and the workbook here!
Want to stay up to date on new podcast episodes and happenings at Microcosm? Subscribe to our newsletter!
Make It Last: Sustainably and Affordably Preserving What We Love is an illustrated guide to clothes and food and home. Raleigh Briggs bridges the gap between life in a disposable culture and the basic skills needed to save money and live more sustainably.
This book teaches you how to extend the lives of the things you love by repairing clothing, preserving home-grown food, and even repairing your kitchen sink and making your own soap. Briggs takes her longtime commitment to community building through the DIY movement and shares her valuable experience with the reader through a conversational tone in her hand-drawn and -illustrated guide.
The Utne Reader described Raleigh’s work as “A forceful antidote to the cheapening of thrift culture: a meticulously hand-lettered, pint-size volume. When you raise your fist against the values that derailed our economy, lift this book in it.” Now you can save money and save the planet while saving your prized possessions!
Read on for an excerpt of Make It Last: Sustainably and Affordably Preserving What We Love by Raleigh Briggs, now available for preorder from our site or from your local bookseller. Out everywhere 10/22/24.
(more…)Magick is all around us and should be for everyone. But the practices in many witchcraft books can be difficult for many of us to perform due to chronic illnesses, sensory issues, allergies, or other disabilities—and the financial limitations that often go hand in hand with them.
In this guide, disabled witch Kandi Zeller sets out to change that. Through 90 inclusive (and sometimes spicy) magickal rituals designed for witches with disabilities of all kinds—especially the invisible ones—Disabled Witchcraft lays out a truly accessible magickal practice with a solid dose of humor and heart. If your spoons (aka available energy and executive function) are limited on any given day, that doesn’t need to be a hindrance to following your spiritual path. From guidance on using crystals for nervous-system regulation to tarot readings for spoonies to laying a curse upon unjust health systems, you’ll find practical tools to harness the magick of your disabilities, fight both ableism and capitalism, and embrace a more expansive version of the path.
Read on for an excerpt of Disabled Witchcraft: 90 Rituals for Limited-Spoon Practitioners by Kandi Zeller, now available for preorder from our site or from your local bookseller. Out everywhere 9/17/24.
(more…)Boxes— they make the book world go round. Why do we have such strong opinions on boxes (and where we get them from)? Why is there a cat on ours? This week on the podcast, let us deliver the good word and show off our new boxes.
Prefer an audio experience? Listen to the episode on your favorite podcast app.
Get the People’s Guide to Publishing here, and the workbook here!
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What is hybrid publishing? What is it a hybrid between?
Halfway between traditional publishing and service providing, hybrid publishers have come to mean a lot of things—from a rebranded vanity publishing to a co-investment model with superior royalties, and it’s often difficult to tell the difference until you are familiar with the players involved. This week Jane Friedman tackles these difficult questions.
Prefer an audio experience? Listen to the episode on your favorite podcast app.
Get the People’s Guide to Publishing here, and the workbook here!
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Ten years later, the greatest love story every told is back. Featuring an extensive interview with Tom Neely and Justin Hall, we take a deep look at “punk rock Bert and Ernie” where our anti-heroes celebrate toxic masculinity in full color for the first time. Is that Stephen King performing a pet funeral? Is that a joke about Lemmy? How many comic sight gags can you spot in 32 pages? Justin takes a deep look at how his comic students don’t know who Henry Rollins or Glenn Danzig are but can appreciate the book’s queer themes and social commentary.
Get the People’s Guide to Publishing here, and the workbook here!
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