Microcosm, an independent publishing house in Portland, announced in July 2018 in Publishers Weekly that it will be taking back control over its distribution for the press. The book and zine publisher, which was previously distributed by PGW/Ingram, decided to keep distribution efforts in-house and off the shelves of the large chains, starting in 2019. In the spirit of self-distribution, as inspired by Microcosm, here are some tips for hand-to-hand sales in publishing.
publishing
Fanfiction: Is This Online Community the New Writer’s Workshop?
By Maegan O’Brion
Why does everything someone writes have to be entirely original anyway? Writing is fun and it’s a craft one must practice to master.
Puzzling Together a Book’s Interior
By Bryn Kristi
The first step was to pick a font; this was not an easy task as there are literally millions of fonts out there. Luckily I was restricted to choosing from the hundreds that Ooligan already has the rights to. So I browsed through hundreds of fonts, tried out a couple dozen, printed out eight, then finally sent in five.
Finding Your Voice on BookTube
By Monica Hay @monicathewriter
If you’re interested in making videos about books, or even talking about your writing process on Youtube, BookTube a great place to build a platform and market yourself. It’s interactive in ways that other platforms aren’t because watching videos is overall more intimate than reading a Twitter post. Additionally, vlogging is becoming increasingly popular.
Celebrating Action: How Ooligan is Responding to Crisis
By Monique Vieu
We need to be setting an example for future publishers—to strive for imperative community-building values that promote action and advocacy. If we’re not giving back to the communities that allow us to thrive, exciting children about books, helping provide them with the resources they need, promoting literacy, and, more importantly, giving them characters they can connect to on a deep and personal level and live their lives by—then what are we doing?
Exploring Video Games and Interactive Media in Publishing
By Faith Muñoz @fmunoz247
A whole generation of children is learning to read from a screen rather than a book. What could this mean for the future of the publishing industry? For one, it means we can no longer ignore the influence of ereaders, audiobooks, interactive reading apps, and video games on future and current readers.