Taste is subjective and arbitrary, but still, everyone carries a certain amount of imposter syndrome, wondering if their book if any good. So this week on the pod, we take a look at what makes a book good, successful, and resonating with readers!
Get the People’s Guide to Publishing here, and the workbook here!
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When you are working on someone else’s book, there is frequent confusion about who has the final say. Many people consider the author to be the final authority on decisions. Others look to major account buyers who essentially gatekeep the book within the industry. Yet others would look to readers themselves. This week on the pod, Joe and Elly discuss these issues and how to navigate conflict when developing a book or differences of opinion emerge!
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!
Welcome to the next installment of the Bookstore Solidarity Project! Every month, we’ll be highlighting indie bookstore owners and booksellers across the country.
For October, we got to chat with Meg Wasmer, one of the co-owners of Copper Dog Books in Beverly, Massachusetts. It’s a great little store, with a strong focus on genre fiction. Horror and sci-fi fans would love their selection! (Plus, they have a slew of MIcrocosm titles.)
Your Name and Pronouns
Meg Wasmer, she/they
Tell us a little bit about the store and your community!
Beverly is the best. It’s right by Salem, but doesn’t suffer under the crush of spooky tourism in October. Our customers let me hurl tons of SFF and horror and witchy books at them but also, there are three colleges within five miles of us, so also lots of neat nonfiction.
What got you into bookselling?
The video store I worked at was closing and Borders was hiring and I knew I was good at alphabetically shelving rectangular entertainment media
What’s something about your store that you think will surprise people?
There is both a secret plushie collection and a very nice whiskey selection in the back office.
What are some of you favorite ways your community supports your store?
My favorite way that our customers support us is when they bring their friends who are visiting from out of town to see the store like they’re showing off the Crown Jewels.
What’s your current favorite book to sell customers?
The Navigating Fox by Christopher Rowe is stupidly good!
How can customers who aren’t local shop your shelves?
At Copperdogbooks.com!
Be sure to follow Copper Dog Books on Instagram and Facebook! (And check out their Bonfire store for sweet merch, including this shirt with the “best” review they got last year)
Check out Meg’s podcast interview with Joe and Elly here!
Each month we’re featuring a new indie bookstore that we operate in solidarity with. This month it’s the Raven, a classical bookstore of many reboots, owners, and iterations. The Raven is now worker-owned and specializes in supporting its local community, while providing a safe space for people in risk and a series of local and national marketing initiatives. We talk to co-owner Chris this week on the pod!
Visit The Raven Book Store’s website here!
For more from the Bookstore Solidarity Project, check out our interview about The Raven with co-owner Danny Caine here, and our podcast interview with Danny here! And snag a copy of How to Protect Bookstores and Why while you’re at it.
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!
Welcome to the next installment of the Bookstore Solidarity Project! Every month, we’ll be highlighting indie bookstore owners and booksellers across the country.
This month we’re pleased to continue chatting with Danny Caine, who you may know as the author of such awesome books and zines as How to Protect Bookstores and Why, and How to Resist Amazon and Why. We also recently had Danny as a guest on the podcast, which you can check out here.
Your Name and Pronouns:
Danny Caine, he/him
Your title at the store:
Part Owner / Buyer
Tell us a little bit about the store and your community:
The Raven Book Store has been serving Lawrence, Kansas since 1987. It opened as an all-mystery store but has since expanded into a general interest indie with a strong focus on local books to serve the needs of this midwestern college town. We have one store cat, Dashiell, whose personality is as big as his belly. We love being in Lawrence, a community that knows the value of independently-owned small businesses.
What got you into bookselling?
I got a part-time job as a Raven bookseller when I was at the University of Kansas working on my MFA. I fell in love with bookselling and the rest was history!
What’s something about your store that you think will surprise people?
20-30% of our sales are online, and much of that support comes from people who aren’t in Kansas. We’re honored and grateful to have found so many supporters across the country and around the world.
What are some of you favorite ways your community supports your store?
There’s the usual and essential stuff like attending events, preordering books, posting pictures of the store online, and stopping into the store. But we love just as much the surprises, like people bringing us newspaper clippings or customers telling us jokes.
What are some books you can’t wait for people to read?
There are too many to count! Our monthly staff picks are on our website, and they’re a great way to take the temperature of what the staff is reading.
How can customers who aren’t local shop your shelves?
We’re open 24/7 at ravenbookstore.com!
Be sure to follow The Raven Book Store online on Instagram and Twitter @ravenbookstore.
Danny also has a slew of events coming up to promote How to Protect Bookstores and Why, so be sure to take a look at our events page to see if he’s coming to your town!
Check back next month for our next feature store.
If you love queer, feminist science fiction and fantasy, bicycling, and books about books, The Bicyclist’s Guide to the Galaxy, published by Microcosm in fall, 2023, will check all your boxes. Get a taste of what’s inside with this excerpt is from the story “The Wild Ride” by Shelby Schwieterman—and then get a copy of the book!
You can also read an interview with Shelby on our Kickstarter page.
Carly wasn’t upset, and she didn’t care what the other girls thought of her. She simply wanted to read her book more than she wanted to participate in some stupid sleepover, and if that made enemies for her, then so be it. What could a group of sixth grade girls do to her anyway? Gossip about her at school? Ha, like that could harm her. Carly was tough. Carly was a freaking Crystal Warrior, just like Annabeth the Quick, hero of the Shining Realm, protector of the Great Egg of Wisdom.
Carly paused under a street lamp to adjust the straps of her backpack. She had perfected the art of reading while walking back in, like, fourth grade, but doing it at night really upped the difficulty level. Her right hand ached from holding the book open and turning pages with her thumb; her left hand was slippery with sweat where it gripped the cell phone she used as a reading light. She longed for the return of her actual reading light, which had been taken away after she’d been caught too many times reading under her covers while she should have been sleeping.
The night was hot and humid for this time of year. Crickets chirped happily while toads croaked and sang, trying to outdo the little insects. Carly had been a sixth grader for almost two months now—the very least the weather could do would be to reward her with a cool, breezy night in which to walk home. It was the time of year for ghost stories and black cats and strange whispers on the wind, not for sweating through your pajamas and daydreaming about snow.
“Ugh,” Carly said to the undesirable weather. She balanced the phone on the book, wiped her sweaty palm, shook out her other hand, and then continued on.
Most people walking home from an abandoned sleepover at sometime after midnight would stick to the sidewalk. Not Carly. The empty street provided a wider, clearer path for her feet to follow while her eyes were busy finishing chapter twelve so she could get to chapter thirteen in which Annabeth breaks the other Crystal Warriors out of the dungeon so they can help her find the Great Egg, which has been stolen by the evil emperor’s dark forces.
Some people would be worried about being hit by cars, but this scene was one of Carly’s favorites, and she hadn’t seen or heard any cars since she started her walk home ten minutes ago. Some people, in Carly’s opinion, were just too cautious. How could anyone enjoy the book they were reading if they were constantly worrying about what was going on around them while they read?
Except for the occasional runaway or missing person, Carly’s town was quiet and boring. Just like Carly, according to the girls at the sleepover. Carly didn’t take it to heart. Those girls simply could not stand that they were less interesting than a book she had read a dozen times already. Her copy of The Crystal Warriors was beginning to look like it had been through as many battles as the Crystal Warriors themselves. The paperback cover was chipped and bent from being shoved into and ripped out of a backpack, a bookshelf, a desk, and a hiding place behind a different book so her teachers wouldn’t know she was reading it again instead of “expanding her horizons.” The pages were soft and feathery from dirt and oils they’d collected with each turn. Pages thirteen, eighty-six, and one hundred eighty-four were marked with fingerprints of cheese dust from Carly’s careless snacking while reading. An unfortunate blotch of spaghetti sauce graced page ninety-two, not to be confused with the actual bloodstain on page ninety-three, the result of a sudden but minor nosebleed. It was as if she had left almost as much of herself in the book as the book had left in her. Almost.
As Carly’s feet slapped the pavement, she turned the page. Chapter thirteen. Yes! Carly’s pace quickened as she followed Annabeth sneaking into Fort Marion’s hidden underground prison, subduing guards before they even realize they’re not alone. She was called Annabeth the Quick not because of her fast feet, but because of her fast thinking. She could talk her way out of trouble and talk others into trouble with fluid reasoning and endless charm. Of any character in the book, Annabeth had the best insults and the best comebacks. She was about to deliver one of her wittiest to a prison guard when—
The phone light flickered, then died, plunging Carly and her book into the thick dark of the night. Carly wiped sweat off her forehead with the back of her arm. After a few misses, she managed to tuck her phone into a pocket of her backpack. Something about the night felt wrong. Carly turned slowly in the street, searching for whatever felt so off about the darkness. She squinted, but couldn’t see the streetlight she’d passed just moments before. The only light came from the moon and stars above. Definitely too little to read by.
“Ugh,” she said to the darkness. She’d have to walk the rest of the way without reading. Doable, but not preferable. Even the toads and crickets were mad about it. She could tell because they were unusually silent, except for a strange whirring whine from somewhere back the way she came.
As Carly stood there, perplexed, the darkness at the end of the street transitioned to a milky green glow that moved quickly toward her. The long, whining sound grew louder. Sudden wind whipped her hair around her face, obscuring her vision, making her doubt that what she was seeing was real: Within the pale green light were cyclists. Dozens of them, maybe a hundred. They moved as a unit as they sped closer. Heads down, feet pumping, wheels spinning, frames rattling, they headed right for her. Carly couldn’t tell where the riders ended and their bikes began. One figure led the pack, with the rest following in a swarm. She blinked, and they were yards away. She blinked again and they were upon her.
Cyclists zipped past, grazing her elbows and knocking her left and right. She caught a flash of yellow eyes, a glint of white teeth, an otherworldly grin. The din of at least a hundred wheels flying past was accented with manic, frenzied laughter and the smell of hot rubber.
Carly dropped to the ground in a crouch, her arms curling over her head for protection. She expected to be run over. She was faced with the entirely new reality that she might die at any time. And that time might be after midnight, in the dark, as strange glowing cyclists ran her over in the middle of the road.
This is not, she thought, how a Crystal Warrior would get killed! Her scream vibrated in her throat, more like a growl of frustration than an expression of terror. But before her growl ended, space opened up around her. The sound of bikes whizzed away down the road. She jumped to her feet and watched the herd of cyclists move farther and farther down the street, taking their glowing light with them.
For a moment, Carly was frozen with awe. Just for a moment. Soon, though, she realized something very important was missing. It wasn’t in her hands, and it wasn’t on the ground. Not even a scrap of paper or a chunk of cover remained. She checked her backpack, just to be sure. But no, it was gone.
Carly turned back toward the direction in which the herd had disappeared and shouted, “Give me back my book, you bicycle freaks!”
Want to find out what happens next? Get the book!
Every trip out of the house results in sad looks from strangers about how nobody reads anymore or how the bookstores are all gone. It’s not uncommon for us to tell people about thriving indie bookstores in their own towns and how sales at independents are up with more stores since 2007! This week on the pod, we welcome back Danny Caine to talk about his brand new book How to Protect Bookstores (and Why)!
Order your own copy of How to Protect Bookstores and Why here. (And here are Danny’s other book and zine!)
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!
For most publishers, profit and loss statements are either an afterthought, something they “don’t have time for,” or a ritualistic capitalistic enterprise that they want nothing to do with. This week on the pod, we feature an extra-long episode about how to learn from them, what they can be best utilized for, and how to sort out the information from success or failure to do it better next time.
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!
Much ink has been spilt over the illusion that big publishers have different economic models. The reality is that larger publishers benefit from scale but the economic models are the same. What does that mean? More books gets more access and streamlines costs and departments, but when it comes down to each book, well…check out this week’s episode!
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!
We got to chat with Aida Lilly, the Program Coordinator of The Word, a Storytelling Sanctuary, which organizes the annual Margins Bookselling Month.
What is The Word, a Storytelling Sanctuary?
We are a literary arts non-profit whose mission is storytelling for collective abundance. We believe in the power of storytelling, representation, and expanding models in the literary and publishing communities. Our mission is to promote voices from underserved communities and diverse backgrounds, to honor the stories of those who have faced adversity and injustice, and to provide a sanctuary space where these groups can see themselves in literature.
We host community programming and generally try to demystify the ins and outs of publishing, which is overall an opaque industry that tends towards insularity. Our major programs include: the Editor-Writer Mentorship, [margins.] Literary Conference + Book Festival, #MarginsBookselling (of course), and a host of publishing workshops and community events.
Overall, we love books and reading and the folks who dedicate their lives to the written word, and we believe that access to books and knowledge about careers in publishing (and publishing as a whole) are important.
What is #MarginsBookselling Month?
#MarginsBookselling Month is a celebration of bookstores owned and managed by and for BIPOC, LGBTQIAP2S+, disabled, and neurodiverse communities and of booksellers who identify from these communities as well. This is a community collaboration coordinated by The Word. Booksellers are on the frontline of the industry, and we want to celebrate and uplift them!
It’s a month of spreading joy and awareness of these wonderful stores and booksellers and a way of thanking them for doing the important work they do. There’s more to being a community bookstore than just selling books, and these stores exemplify the extraordinary efforts of bookstores and booksellers actively trying to improve the lives of those in their communities.
You can check out all the bookstores in The Word’s #MarginsBookselling network by checking out the interactive map here.
What inspired it?
Inequity is clearly visible in our industry, from the books being published to the demographics of employees in publishing itself. We recognize that books and bookstores are more than just sales and retail, and we see the power of indie bookstores. Diversely-owned bookstores are especially important to marginalized communities, and also to publishing at large. They can provide a third space and safe space to hold and share stories from BIPOC, LGBTQIA2S+, disabled and neurodiverse communities. Bookstores that center marginalized communities provide both shelter and education.
Likewise booksellers are part of the foundation of this industry. They know what books their community members need and are looking for. Indie bookstore sales matter to their community, and to publishing as a whole. It is booksellers who know what recommendations are relevant to their area and specific customers, and those recommendations can have massive impact, especially for authors that aren’t established, “big” names. Passionate booksellers and bookstores change lives for their customers and for the authors that fill their shelves.
There are not enough spaces where we celebrate this work and take time to learn from it. #MarginsBookselling Month is a chance to shine that spotlight and to give our cohort of bookstores and booksellers a chance to do what each does best, while also getting to know each other in community.
What’s so great about indie bookstores? Why focus on them?
We love bookstore stops on every road trip we take! We cherish open mic nights at our local stores. We can’t resist stopping in for a coffee even if our TBR piles are never-ending and we swore we wouldn’t buy another book today.
Reading is its own sort of magic. Books can be gates, windows, mirrors, doors, escape, comfort. Indie bookstores and booksellers can have a few minutes of conversation with someone and help them find entire new worlds to learn about, to love, or to live in.
Real people will always understand us better than algorithms. And indie bookstores are plugged into the communities they serve in ways that are unmatched by other industry retailers.
What has surprised you the most in the last few years of #MarginsBookselling Month?
It is beautiful to see the members of this community lift each other up and create an atmosphere of abundance where there is room for everyone. In many spaces, retail especially, there is often an enmity toward anything perceived as “competition” –and that has not been present at all in this environment. Everyone is always excited to celebrate each other! It’s definitely become a team of its own, and we love all the love!
How can people get involved and support The Word and #MarginsBookselling Month?
There are numerous ways to be involved:
Support #MarginsBookselling bookstores every month. Learn who they are. Spend some time with them, and see how happy they’ll be to fill your shelves with books you’d never find on your own, and are support systems that can help you find connection and community.
If you don’t have a #MarginsBookselling store near you that you can visit in-person, check out the interactive #MarginsBookselling Map, and support these stores by shopping online, either through their own website or on Bookshop.org. If you’re an audiobook listener, you can support your local or favorite #MarginsBookselling store by choosing them as your supported store on Libro.fm.
Additionally, here are a few great ways to get involved with The Word’s #MarginsBookselling Month:
What are two books you think everyone should read right now?
We love Mariame Kaba–everyone should check out her titles! And, of course, National Book Award and Pulitzer Finalist The Man Who Could Move Clouds by Ingrid Rojas Contreras. Ingrid is a wonderful human who we were thrilled to collaborate with last year’s #MarginsBookselling Month, celebration and said:
“The Word is doing the labor that matters most — uplifting BIPOC booksellers and giving the floor to authors and writers who are writing from the margins. What happens when the margin takes centerstage? I feel a new literature and culture emerges, one that can define and tell of what has gone ignored or untold before. I am so thrilled to be joining The Word’s Writers’ Circle and look forward to supporting their mission.”
We’re grateful to Aida to take the time to answer our questions! If you want to learn more about The Word, their social media handles are:
This is the first installment of the year-long Bookstore Solidarity Project, where we’re featuring indie bookstores and the people that love them. Want to learn more about supporting bookstores in your community? Check out How to Protect Bookstores and Why by Danny Caine!