There was a noticeable shift in the type of reading material offered, since most stock is "hurts" and "remainders" sold at half retail price or less. In September 2008, Microcosm opened a new retail store in the Buckman neighborhood of southeast Portland. They rarely purchase advertising, and rely more heavily on the people who appreciate their craft independently passing out their catalogs in their respective towns. Incorporating the tactics of early punk record labels and a DIY approach, Microcosm uses guerrilla styled tactics for promoting their titles unlike most publishers of equal size. Many of the items offered are not available easily elsewhere on the web or otherwise. There is a particular focus towards images and artwork celebrating bicycles and radical politics. They are responsible for many of the recent zine/book hybrid aesthetics and zines that have fancier covers or design aesthetics such as multiple color screenprints, letterpress, or offset printing. In 2006, the Utne Reader described Microcosm as an "esteemed Portland, Oregon-based publisher and distributor of zines, books, pamphlets, DVDs, and other fun stuff." Microcosm is heralded in the zine community as an entity that, for better or worse, has brought zines into a larger consciousness in the new millennium, after former mainstream interest has largely subsided. The operation grew significantly over the years, and in March 2007 moved its mail order operation to Bloomington, Indiana.
How does that make sense? I don’t understand it.Beginning in 1996 with only Joe Biel doing part time mail order out of a bedroom in Cleveland, Ohio, Microcosm moved to Portland, OR in 1999.
“I see publishers competing dollar for dollar to get very limited shelf space. He wonders why not more publishers try to explore the “underground” market. “We grow year over year, every year,” said Biel, noting that sales are up 52% this year. “The book actually does the thing that it’s supposed to do-bring his zine to a new audience, rather than making the same people buy it again as a book.” “We sold thousands and thousands of those zines,” said Biel.
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Most recently, his team has been hand-selling How To Talk To Your Cat About Gun Safety by Zachary Auburn, a Penguin Random House author who got his start making zines with Microcosm. To this day, the publisher still hand-picks a few titles to sell. “Self-distribution through quality independent bookstores, zine shops, and non-traditional venues allows us to avoid the ‘books as units of product’ mode that pervades much of the industry.”īiel also became a mini-distributor as he traveled with Microcosm’s zines and book and over the years, Microcosm distributed books from other publishers that ranged from mental health to sustainable living to punk rock. “An enthusiastic music shop or comic store can be a better partner than a large, indifferent chain,” said Kristine Anstine, Microcosm’s major accounts sales manager, who spent two decades at Last Gasp Books before joining Microcosm. “They would buy a thousand books at a time.” Distributors call this underground network the “parallel gift market”-a bookselling ecosystem that most publishers don’t tap. “It has slowed down a bit, but for a while, our biggest account was a taco stand in Tokyo,” said Biel. The publisher keeps a database with around 600 in-business record stores that would be willing to sell books, in addition to a number of other more unexpected locations. The publisher has built its own network of record stores, gift shops, grocery stores, and other non-traditional bookselling locations that Biel calls the “underground” of bookselling. Biel estimates that PGW only handled between 10% to 25% of Microcosm’s distribution over the years, and Amazon only accounted for 1% of the publishers’ net sales. Since the beginning, Microcosm has always controlled the lion’s share of its own distribution.
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Its bestselling titles include Make Your Place: Affordable, Sustainable Nesting Skills by Raleigh Briggs (150,000 copies in print since 2007), Unfuck Your Brain (33,000 copies in print since 2017), and the Henry & Glenn Forever indie comics series by Tom Neely (150,000 copies in print since 2010), and more than 125,000 copies of Portland guidebooks. Microcosm has sold over three million books and zines.
As part of its new distribution arrangement, Microcosm will work with regional sales representatives throughout the U.S.: Fujii Associates in the Midwest, Como Sales on the East Coast, and Book Travelers West in the Northwest. “Now our warehouse is adjacent to our offices which is really convenient for every level,” said Biel.