FAQ + Contact

Want to get in touch with us? 

First, please read the rest of this FAQ, as it answers most questions already! 

The best way to reach us is via the contact form at the top of this page.

Need help placing or managing an order or paying an invoice? 

You can reach our customer support team at support at microcosmpublishing dot com or 503-799-2698

(Note that any publishing submissions sent to this support email will be discarded—all submissions must come through our contact form and follow the guidelines in our FAQ)

Are you a retailer or librarian and need to talk to a sales rep? 

Reach our stellar sales team at sales at microcosmpublishing dot com or call 360-291-7226, option 5

Need something else?

All other inquiries, including deliveries for our Cleveland warehouse, please call (360) 291-7226 

Need to send us a fax?

We thought you'd never ask. Fax us any time, day or night, at (888) 503-0599

Click on the "Add to cart" button next to the items you want to order. You may need to choose an option from a drop-down menu first. The online ordering system calculates your total (and calculates actual shipping costs) for the order. We ship anywhere in the world. We accept credit card, PayPal, mailed-in check, money order, or well-concealed cash.

Consider signing up for a My Microcosm account as it will organize all of your information in one place! Save your login info so that you can order with it in the future, as well as creating a wishlist and tracking your orders. If you order something that we're out of, we will credit your account—and when you order again, the credit will be automatically applied!

Thank you for ordering! 

If you're looking for Underwater Ecosystems, Space Mission Analysis, or Fundamentals of Astrodynamics, you are looking for Microcosm, Inc/Microcosm Press. You can reach Julie there at 310-539-2306

When contacting us about an order, please wait at least two weeks after your order has been shipped to give it time to arrive. If it hasn't arrived, please contact us with your name and Order ID (a 6-digit number at the top of your invoice). For international orders, please wait one month after your order is sent—generally all we can tell you is when it was shipped and when it left the U.S.!

You can see the status of your orders on your My Microcosm page if you have an account.

Also, please provide an accurate email address in check-out.  We email you a shipping confirmation and tracking numbers,

Most orders are mailed out within a few days after they are received. However, we may hold an order when we know that new copies of an out-of-stock item will arrive within one week. If you order something that we're out of, we will credit your account—and when you order again, the credit will be automatically applied. 

Orders sometimes get lost in the mail. If your small domestic order is lost by the delivery carrier, we will immediately re-ship a new one. If the carrier is showing that your order was delivered but the package was stolen or has mysteriously not arrived, it's your responsibility to file a claim with the carrier (it doesn't hold much weight when we do it). Often just calling your post office will result in your package appearing the next day, even if they say they can't find it.

All of our T-shirts are made in the United States by Royal Apparel, with a few holdouts of the old American Apparel.

"Women's" cuts (chest): SM 28-30" ME 32-34" LG 36-38" XL 40-42" 2X 44-46" (waist is 20% smaller).

"Unisex" cuts (chest): XS 30-32" SM 34-36" ME 38-40" LG 42-44" XL 46-48" 2X 48-50".

All our shirts are "fitted", so they fit around the contours of your body and not like a "box" shirt. If you don't want your shirt to be tight, you should buy it a size larger than normal.  

Retail orders: We only accept exchanges if we send the wrong item or if a T-shirt does not fit properly. If we send you the wrong item or an item is missing from your package, get in touch and we'll fix our mistake. If you are exchanging an item you accidentally ordered, or a t-shirt because you ordered the wrong size, ship it back to us and include a $2 handling fee plus the cost of shipping you a new one. Due to piracy concerns, we cannot accept returns on eBooks or digital products.

Bookstore orders: We accept returns of only books that we publish, as long as the book is in good/resalable condition and still in print. After a book is listed as out of print through conventional channels, returns will only be accepted for six months. If an order arrives with items missing or damaged, notices for replacement or credit must be made within 30 days.

Gift or specialty store orders: Items are not returnable for credit unless the books are damaged or the wrong title was shipped.

You can contact us about returns via the "Send us a note" link at the top of this page.

If you purchased your ebook through our website, your checkout confirmation screen and order confirmation email will both have links to download the ebook in all available formats. You will have four chances to download each format. (If you don't see the email, please check your spam folder.)

If you are having trouble accessing your ebooks, or if there's a formatting issue with an ebook, please contact our customer service folks.

Our ebooks are DRM-free.

Microcosm specializes in nonfiction DIY (Do-It-Yourself) books, zines, and decks that focus on the reader and teach self-empowerment. The most common reason that we cannot accept a submission is because the author didn't research the other books on their shelf at their local bookstores, so their book is not differentiated in any way. 

We are interested in creators with both expertise and lived experience that fit in the following subject areas:

• Magick How To (Witchcraft, Paganism, Herbalism, and the like—also tarot and oracle decks).
• The Good Life (DIY, how-to, self-care, hands-on skills—anything from how to make or do something to parenting, mental health, and healthy relationships).
• Mythology and Lore (stories about the background that fuels today's cultural propensities).
• Scene History (what made a time and place into a unique climate for creativity, social justice, gender, sexuality, struggle, or a different way of thinking?).
• Building the Bicycle Revolution (nonfiction about the promise of the bicycle to change society with a clear, new perspective on a familiar topic).
• Queering Consent (#ownvoices erotica short stories)
• Punx (the hidden stories of the musical style that became a social movement to fix shit up).
• Comics Journalism (book-length nonfiction graphic novels that tell powerful stories. We do not pair writers with illustrators but we do perform full developmental edits for books that we publish. We'll sign a book based on your idea and portfolio alone and can help you workshop it together).
• Gift (humor, animals, fun but educational).

We look for strong visuals and a leftist orientation—further left than the Democratic party. One reviewer said that we make "Castro look right wing," because, in many ways, he was. 

We are especially seeking submissions right now about magickal how to/witchcraft, tarot or oracle decks, dogs, bicycling, comics journalism, sustainable DIY projects, parenting (especially for Black, POC, and/or queer people), reproductive rights, neurodivergence, mental health, sexual health, guidebooks, nature, survival, death, bees, games, and contributions to the Self Care Healthcare, Prison to Pamphlet, Queering Consent, and Scene History series. Our readers respond especially strongly to small, heartfelt books about a narrow interest of a self-empowering nature. We love books that help us discover interest in a new topic. Books with illustrations, photographs, or other strong graphic elements are strongly encouraged.

We do not publish work that would primarily be described as genre fiction, literary fiction, children's, cookbooks, travel writing, or memoirs. If your book contains more than 20% personal stories, we are not the right publisher for it. We do not publish poetry. We only publish fiction as part of our established Queering Consent and Bikes in Space series.

If your book does not have a reachable audience of at least 5,000 people or if the subject matter does not require 100 pages, we'd suggest submitting your proposal for a zine (in which case you can skip step two, you do not need to list comp titles).

To pitch a book (or other publication) to Microcosm, fill out our submissions form. Think about why people would buy a book like yours and what your book would do particularly well for the kind of readers who need it. Knowing why you want to write it and your honest goals will help you make decisions and us to know if we can help you get there. 

Our submissions form asks you to send us the following information:

• Tell us, in five seconds, the practical and emotional payoff for someone reading your book that makes it distinct from others on the shelf. Don't tell us a summary of your narrative (that comes later), why your book is important to you, or what you or your friends like about your book.

• In order to see if we are a good publisher for you, peruse our catalog and identify three similar titles we've recently published that would be on the same shelf as your book in a bookstore. If you can do that, it's probably a good fit. If you can't do that or you have to force it, we probably aren't the best place for you, but we wish you the best of luck and might be able to refer you elsewhere!

• State your expertise AND lived experience that make you qualified to write this book.

• Tell us why you want to publish this book

• Send the outline for the structure of the entire book. For each section—Intro, Chapters, Conclusion—write the introductory paragraph for that section. Each section should open by telling the reader the main knowledge and skills that they will take from that chapter, and giving us a little color about what sort of research, science, details, and/or examples that part touches on. This exercise becomes the best frame and the opening text to each chapter. After work has been accepted, this exercise is the first step towards the editorial process. Even if we aren't right for your work, this is a good step to get your head around your book.

Specify if you would like pitch feedback.

Do not send your manuscript or any other information. The biggest problem with wading through pitches is that they are always too long. You are a writer. Demonstrate that to us with your gift for summary and brevity in your pitch. 

Be honest and substantial! We have heard every hollow and meaningless line in a book pitch. We want you to think about your proposal and deliver something that is uniquely your own after looking at everything that is out there. (Spoiler alert: There are over twenty million books out there.)

It is important to follow our submission guidelines to the letter and to do a comprehensive title analysis before submitting. Following our guidelines tells us that you can work with a team and that you've investigated and developed your book properly, just like we have to when pitching it to our distributors and reviewers. If you don't believe there are other books on the shelf similar to yours, look harder. If there truly are not, then we cannot sell your book.

If you are Black, Indigenous, a person of color, transgender, nonbinary, neurodiverse, or disabled, you are particularly encouraged to submit, as is anyone whose experiences are not well represented in the publishing world. We can't sell your book based on your identity, but we want to create equity in the publishing sphere and prioritizing marginalized voices is a way to do exactly that. 

Here are two sample (successful) pitches:

Yo, Miss is a graphic novel about a year at a second chance high school in New York City. It is similar to On The Books, Mark Twain Was Right, and Invincible Summer and is about Ms. Wilde's classroom at John V. Lindsay Wildcat Academy. Check out yomiss.com.

Street Journalist can be read in an hour and equips you to go out and cover breaking news or a feature on multiple platforms. I have worked in community reporting for over 30 years everywhere from community radio to a stringer for theNew York Times. Similar titles include Action!, Make Your Place and DIY Screenprinting.

More advice for developing your book idea:

There are over 12,000 new books published every day, so it's vital to know what's out there and be clear about what the heart of your book is. This is called title development. Good title development questions to ask yourself include:

• What is the thesis of your book that no other books are discussing and no one is thinking about in the same way?
• How do readers benefit by reading this book?
• Why would someone buy this book?
• How many books have you purchased in the past year that are similar to the way that you have envisioned this one?
• How is your book distinct from similar books that are in print?
• Have you visited your local bookstores and surveyed their selection?
• Have you researched similar books on Amazon?

If we are not able to publish your work, it's not a rejection of you or the quality of the work. It is likely that it just falls outside of our editorial guidelines and we know from experience that we are not the right place to be able to get your work to an audience. Best of luck to you and keep on doing what matters to you!

Thanks for wanting to work with us!

Thank you for wanting to support what we do!

BFF Program: Like a CSA (Community-Supported Agriculture) share that gives farmers a guarantee before their crops are harvested, our BFF's help us by paying upfront for their zines and books! Publishing our titles means we pay the printing costs before any books are sold, so every BFF gives us peace of mind. Plus, it's awesome for people to get mailed something new every month of the subscription! Check out the BFF program here.

Sliding Scale Pricing: The standby of DIY venues, museums, and house shows—pay-what-you-can prices allow people to give within their means. We don't know of any other publisher that does this, but Microcosm offers sliding scale prices for books we publish! We try to keep our books affordable, so extra dollars go a long way to keep our pricing sustainable.

Back Our Projects: We run frequent Kickstarter projects to help fund and get the word out about our books. Backing and sharing these helps us a lot. Or you can always pre-order the same books directly from us on our website, which is great, too.

Getting the Word Out: Unlike major book publishers, we don't have a large budget for promotions and we rarely pay for ads. In keeping our books cheap, we almost forgo the luxury of having a promotions department entirely! The cheapest way to help us out is telling folks about Microcosm and distributing catalogs (just drop us a line letting us know you want to).

You can also stay up to date on what we're doing by subscribing to our weekly email newsletter.

We don't write grants or push tax-free contributions, so we instead keep things at the grassroots level. We sincerely appreciate any help you all can throw down in any way! To find out more about how our money is spent, check out our yearly financial reports.

Microcosm distributes like-minded presses and books that we can sell alongside our own publishing because the thematics and editorial vision are compatible. We maintain direct relationships with 12,937 brick and mortar retailers all over the globe as well as major (and minor) wholesalers and library fulfillment jobbers.

Want to work with us? If you are a publisher seeking distribution, start by taking a look at our core subjects and areas of publishing under How do I submit a manuscript? 

To pitch your press or publications to Microcosm for distribution, fill out our submissions form with the following information:

• Tell us, in five seconds, the practical and emotional payoff for someone reading your books that makes them distinct from others on the shelf. Don't tell us a summary of your narrative, that your authors are famous, or why your books are important to you or what you or your friends like about the books. 

• In order to see if we are a good distributor for you, peruse our catalog and identify three similar titles we've recently published that would sell well alongside yours or be on the same shelf as your books in a bookstore. If you cannot do that or have to force it, we probably aren't a good fit.

• State your expertise and lived experience that make you qualified as a publisher.

• Tell us why you publish these books. Focus on why people buy books like yours and what your books do particularly well for the kind of readers who love them. 

• Send us your list of your key titles and successes that you've had with them. Where do you think there is untapped potential that we could help you reach? Who has distributed you previously? What worked? What didn't? 

• For each of your books to succeed, it must successfully displace another book from the shelf at hundreds or thousands of retailers or bring books to retailers that are currently not offering them. What is the unique value proposition of each of your books that would make thousands of retailers inclined to do this? 

Specify if you would like pitch feedback.

Be honest and substantive! We have heard every hollow and meaningless line in a pitch. We want you to think about your proposal and deliver something that is uniquely your own after looking at everything that is out there. (Spoiler alert: There are over twenty million books out there.)

Please follow our submission guidelines to the letter and to do a comprehensive title analysis before submitting. Following our guidelines tells us that you can work with our team and that you've investigated and understand where your books fit into existing ecosystems. If you don't believe there are other books on the shelf similar to yours, look harder. If there truly are not, then we cannot sell your books because we can't shoehorn them into retailers.

If you are Black, Indigenous, a person of color, transgender, nonbinary, neurodiverse, or disabled, you are particularly encouraged to submit, as is anyone whose experiences are not well represented in the publishing world. We can't sell your books based on your identity, but we want to create equity in the publishing sphere and prioritizing marginalized voices is a way to do exactly that. 

More development questions to ask yourself as you complete this pitch:

• What is the mission of your publishing that no other publisher could successfully imitate if they tried?
• How do readers benefit by reading your books?
• Why would someone buy your books over the many on the shelf next to them?
• What stores have you already created a successful relationship with?
• What has been the most insightful feedback that you've received from retailers?

The most common reason that we cannot accept a press for distribution is because we lack the necessary relationships, credibility, and core competencies for those categories. Distribution is not a one-size-fits-all solution and we sometimes know from experience that we are not the right place to be able to get your work to the audience that desperately needs it. but we wish you the best of luck and might be able to refer you elsewhere!

Thanks for wanting to work with us and please keep doing the work that matters! To pitch here's our submissions form again. 

Thank you so much for wanting to join our team! 

We post all our jobs listings on our blog, newsletter, and social media accounts.

We do not keep unsolicited resumes on file . . . we actually don't consider resumes or cover letters at all when we are hiring, because we don't think they are a helpful way to get to know someone's capabilities.

Our internship program is not currently active. We loved getting to teach and work with interns for many years, but going mostly remote during the pandemic plus a few years of massive growth meant we could no longer provide a quality educational experience. If we ever start it up again, we'll tell the world.

If you're looking to learn more about the publishing industry, we've still got some great resources for you. Check out Joe's book A People's Guide to Publishing, which tells you exactly how we do things here at Microcosm. You may also enjoy our weekly podcast by the same name, which has six years' worth of episodes covering hundreds of publishing topics. 

Microcosm is a distributor as well as a publisher, and we offer a broad catalog of books and zines from other publishers. Everything in our catalog is available at wholesale pricing. As of January 1, 2019 we proudly self-distribute our books! 

The minimum wholesale order on our website is $100. To find wholesale prices for items, go to any product page and click on the "wholesale" button on the right, underneath "Add to Cart" and "Add to Wishlist". If you sign up for a My Microcosm account, it will keep track of your purchase history and invoices.

If you order something that we're out of, we will credit your account—and when you order again, the credit will be automatically applied. 

If you are a U.S.-based business, after two pre-paid orders, we can offer Net 30 terms (in which you pay 30 days after placing the order). Please specify "Net 30, 3rd order" in your order notes.

Items are generally sold as non-returnable unless they are damaged or arrangements have been made ahead of time. Returns are made for Microcosm credit only. 

If you're a bookstore in the U.S. talk to your local rep: Como (Atlantic/Southeast), Abraham Associates (Midwest/Midsouth), Imprint Group (Formerly Book Travelers West) (West/Pacific), and Bob Barnett (TX, OK, LA, AR) 

If you're in the U.K. or Europe, we are distributed by Turnaround. In Canada, we are distributed by UTP and sold by Manda Group. Contact Global Publishers Group regarding sales in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Australia, and New Zealand. Contact us regarding sales in the Caribbean, South and Central America, Stores in these countries (including Australia and much of Europe) can order on Faire.

If you are a bookstore in the U.S., this is the discount schedule for our published titles:

• 1 - 9 units (mixed), 40% discount, customer pays shipping
• 10+ units (mixed), 45% discount, free media mail shipping
• 15+ units (mixed), 46% discount, free media mail shipping
• 50+ units (mixed), 50% discount, free media mail shipping
• 100+ units (mixed), 52% discount, free media mail shipping

Distributed titles are sold at 40% and customers pay shipping. 

Bookstores: We are now on Batch for Books. Contact us if you want to learn more. 

Libraries: We offer a 40% discount on orders over $100. You may also buy our books and zines from Ingram and our books from Baker & Taylor and Bookazine. 

If you are a gift shop in the U.S. or a specialty business such as a grocery store, day spa/salon, record store, nursery, dispensary, etc., the discount for our published titles is: 

• 1 - 29 units (mixed), 40%, customer pays shipping
• 30+ units (mixed), 50%, free media mail shipping

Most of our distributed catalog is available at 40% discount (and we cannot ship those free). All gift sales are non-returnable. 

Gift and Specialty accounts may order on our website or contact sales@microcosmpublishing.com for assistance.

Our books, zines, and many of our sidelines are also available on Faire.

Federal government and military-related orgs may order through Military Family Books. 

If you order 24 or more of our titles, you can request one of our free display racks (pictured to the right) to put on your counter. Just include it in your order notes. You can also purchase a pre-pack selection of a certain kind of titles, like the Urban Homesteader display pack, Henry & Glenn's Endless Love pack, Bike Shop pack, Record Store pack, or the Cookbook pack. If you're touring with a band and want to add books and zines to your merch table, we also have a pack for you.

If you have sales-related questions not answered here or need assistance placing an order, you may contact us at sales@microcosmpublishing.com or 360-291-7226. 

If you're looking for Underwater Ecosystems, Space Mission Analysis, Space Mission Engineering, or Fundamentals of Astrodynamics, you are looking for Microcosm, Inc/Microcosm Press. You can reach Julie there at 310-538-2306

To borrow the words of Chris Landry, "Zines are the best expression of the d.i.y. ethics of the punk rock subculture. While bands can be co-opted into the mainstream and the music scene continues to be male-dominated and increasingly a-political, zines have been keeping it true. Zines take the profit and fame motive out of artistic expression and focus on communication, expression and community for their own sake. Zines are the one truly democratic art form. Zine writers are the most important writers in the world."

To borrow the words of Aaron Cometbus, "You can put out a fanzine and you can reach all kinds of fuckin' people for really cheap and you can do a novel and there's no way that you can get to as many people in the same way. Fanzines are, in a way, the perfect form. You can get your fanzine, if you hustle, to bookstores, record stores, maybe even magazine stands. I've had it on sale at toy stores. You can sell it at shows. It's not at all limited to shows and to punk culture. You can sell a book to a record store but it doesn't cross formats in the same way. So in many ways I think that the fanzine is the ultimate and better than a regular magazine too. It really can appeal to all kinds of people."

Check out our press page!

As an independent company, Microcosm doesn't have to please owners or shareholders. Our owners don't keep any profits besides wages. We have no financial backers, parent company, investors, or shadow partners. All of our money is raised the old fashioned way—by people who support our books!

Every dollar goes back into the organization and new publishing projects. We choose not to be a 501(c)3 because such an organization requires outside management. Publishing is not a profitable industry so we've needed to be clever to support our staff and operate sustainably. Our staff start at a higher pay rate than the average starting wage in New York City publishing and all financial surplus is distributed into staff wages based on cost of living and merit. 

Instead, we put all our profits back into the company, publishing more books that advance our mission, financing our own growth, and sharing profits equally amongst all our workers.

This project was built on the hard work of everyone who orders from us, volunteered here, or stuck around for gainful employment. We wouldn't be where we are today without you.

In the interest of transparency and helping others understand our industry and what we do, we publish our annual financial reports.

Part of Microcosm's mission statement is to empower people through the information and resources we provide. One obvious way that people are disenfranchised is by a lack of money. Some people exist on a small budget to focus on activities that they deem vital—like radical activism. Others are caught up in institutional poverty and have no choice in the matter. As a way of catering to these circumstances, we've always offered our titles at the lowest prices possible. And over the last fifteen years we've had many of our own financial hardships.

Many people have suggested that since our prices are so low, raising our prices would be an obvious way to solve our problem. So we've come to a compromise—the sliding scale pricing structure. You determine what you can afford to pay for most of the books that we publish. As a result, we are able to pay royalties to our authors, offer lower prices to those who cannot afford as much as they'd like, and continue to serve our mission statement of making new materials available at the lowest prices possible.

We have rights available in most countries and languages for most of our titles. We employ rights and subrights agents and can share PDF or paper book samples to interested publishers or agents. If you are interested in licensing rights for some of our title(s), please get in touch via our contact form.

Our website is tested and coded for Mozilla Firefox, which we recommend for web browsing. It's faster, less buggy, safer, and more frequently updated than Internet Explorer. Our site should also work well on Google Chrome, Apple Safari, and Opera.

If you find a bug or data problem on our website, please report it (you can just send us a note) so we can figure out what's going on and fix it.

If you haven't received an email from us that you expect, such as an account activation, ebook download links, or shipping confirmation, please check your spam folder before reaching out to us! 

We do! Many libraries and educators order from us already.

Librarians, you can order our published titles via your usual channels. You can also get our published and distributed titles directly from us—contact us about setting up net-30 terms or a standing order. We offer a 40% discount to library customers with a $100 minimum order. 

If you're an educator who would like to use one of our published titles as a text, contact us to arrange a desk copy!

We're happy to sell bulk copies of our books to your company or agency (for instance, bicycle books for a wellness program, or a local or topical interest book an as employee gift or incentive). We can also do custom editions of many of our books. Contact our sales department to learn more.