About

A short manifesto on publishing tools

Book publishing is hard work, full of risks and joys, marrying creativity and business, requiring vigorous use of the left and right sides of the brain. The results vary wildly: saved lives and changed worlds, or dusty books smothered in debt. Publishers put it all on the line, and we deserve the best possible tools and knowledge so we can serve our readers, our authors, and our own teams. We should be free to pursue our missions without being ground under the thumbs of billionaires.

We made WorkingLit to give you that freedom. Here are the tools to rise above the noise, together, to publish books that matter and conduct your business skillfully and fairly.

What does that mean in practical terms? WorkingLit is cloud-based enterprise B2B software that offers publishers an independent, responsive tool for managing title data, customers, expenses, and royalties under one roof.

How are we different? Affordability, accuracy, automation, and most important: agency. We are the only software wholly owned by book publishers, where every tool has been workshopped from our 29 years in publishing. See and control your own data and what happens to it. Everything is in your hands. You choose how to manage your business, and you are in charge of what information you share and how you share it.

WorkingLit was developed over decades by Microcosm Publishing; it enabled us to survive and thrive through two recessions and a pandemic; between 2020 and 2023 we reacted swiftly and grew 5-fold while much of the rest of the industry struggled. We’ve used it to work with distributors, to distribute our own books independently, and distribute other publishers. We use it daily to see what is working, what needs to change, and what we need to do more of.

We believe that independent publishers thrive best together, and we are offering our software at affordable rates and with hands-on support in order to raise the tide so that we can all succeed in an industry suffering from continued consolidation and hegemony.

We are constantly evolving and adding new functionality in response to our growing team of users. Come grow with us!

Who we are

Joe Biel – CEO, co-founder
Joe founded Microcosm Publishing in 1996, and led the company to be an early adopter of technology solutions, including ecommerce and, starting in 2002, custom software to run all of Microcosm’s systems, which led to the development of WorkingLit. Joe provides the product direction and publishing know-how that fuels WorkingLit to this day. Joe @ LinkedIn
Contact Joe about funding and strategic partnerships.

Elly Blue – COO, co-founder
Elly joined Microcosm in 2015, taking over management of marketing and sales, editorial… and software development. She started laying out the blueprint for WorkingLit in 2019 before being derailed for a few years by the pandemic. When she isn’t scheming to take back publishing from the dinosaurs, she’s running day-to-day operations at Microcosm. Elly @ LinkedIn
Contact Elly about publicity, events, and marketing.

Ben Parzybok – CTO
Coming from a successful exit from his last software-as-a-service company, Ben brings SaaS startup experience and technical expertise to the project. And as a published novelist, publishing is dear to his heart. Ben @ LinkedIn
Contact Ben about the product roadmap, feature requests, and integrations.

Sara Balabanlilar – Sales & Marketing Manager
Sara has spent almost ten years working in the book world, including bookselling, event organizing, design, marketing, sales, and indie publishing. She is an adamant systems person, and believes that creative people can have a healthy relationship with the numbers side of the book industry. Sara @ LinkedIn
Contact Sara about sales, marketing, and support questions.

Join our team

Are you interested in working with us to transform the publishing industry? We don’t currently have any job openings, but when we do we’ll post them first to our email list. And feel free to get in touch with creative ideas about how to work together. Contact Us

Become a member-owner

WorkingLit is in the process of becoming a member-owned co-op. Sign up for our email list or contact Us for more information.

Past team members and partners

We are standing on the shoulders of smart developers, whose combined understanding of books and coding built a solid foundation for WorkingLit. Nate Beaty built and maintains Microcosm’s legacy database software, which started it all. Ru Mehendale painstakingly created the original design and the systems that make WorkingLit work behind the scenes. Nellie McKesson laid out the infrastructure and got us started.