Doing the math for publishers since 2002
Excerpted from Microcosm zine Books and Math: A Manifesto On Publishing Tools by Elly Blue, Joe Biel, and Sara Balabanlilar. Take a look at the whole zine and purchase a copy on our website. For the unprepared, every small shift in the publishing industry can feel like a disaster on the horizon. But it doesn’t … Read more
Orders and Customers Customer Classes These are different types of accounts with whom your publisher has a sales relationship. They give you money, you give them books. Whether they’re people you meet at your brick-and-mortar, distribution companies who go on to sell your books elsewhere, or something else, these customer classes add up to create … Read more
New feature alert! Do you have creators with different royalty terms depending on the region of the sale? In this video, Ben takes us through WorkingLit’s new regional sale royalty calculations. As always, this feature is available to all accounts regardless of size. It’s easy to hide away/reveal depending on whether your publishing company will … Read more
by Joe Biel, co-founder of WorkingLit A version of this post, “Why we use Math instead of AI,” is included in WorkingLit’s zine, Books and Math: A Manifesto on Publishing Tools, which is available on Microcosm’s website. There’s a lot of hubbub about how AI is going to revolutionize, well, just about everything. The trouble … Read more
At WorkingLit, we’re invested in mutually supporting independent presses so we can all succeed. One of our dear publisher accounts, Blue Cactus Press, has been on board as WorkingLit has grown. We asked Chris Vega, founder: Why indie publishing? Why WorkingLit? WorkingLit: Tell us the story of your press! Chris Vega: Blue Cactus Press is … Read more
Publishers, look into your brain and your search history. I’m sure you see any number of the following: -How to save money while still making great books-How to publish without a small loan of a million dollars-Best publisher budget ever-Books + __ = profit??? Publishing books is a remarkably complex, rewarding process, but admittedly we’re … Read more
Our dear friends at the Independent Book Publishers Association hosted us for an extremely fun, informative webinar recently. Luckily for us, they recorded the video so everyone can watch it! From IBPA’s website: “From newly-minted author publishers to established presses, traditional or hybrid, with or without a trade distributor, WorkingLit is designed for your needs. … Read more
We know, royalties can be a pain. But we refuse to let publishers keep sorting through PDFs (or even worse, filing cabinets) in search of contract details. At WorkingLit, we want to provide easy access to your creators’ contract terms and royalty payment history. No wild learning curve, no barriers to entry. Just log in … Read more
I love numbers and watching data. Nothing beats a good set of stats. And for any business owner, there’s nothing better than a good set of data about your business to help you make decisions. At my last company, we used the expression “That which is measured, improves.” I stand by that – to understand … Read more
Help us by filling out the survey at the end of this post. We’ll nerd out about it and love you forever. One of the main reasons why we built WorkingLit is to make royalty time suck less. Paying royalties is one of the more complicated tasks on a publisher’s plate, and we wanted to … Read more