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 have to be this way if you have your tools at the ready. Even before the current unprecedented times (™), there was an influx of seasonal disaster fearmongering from all areas: the whole west coast looks forward to The Big One and wildfires that grow year after year; the northern Midwest has to batten down the hatches for yearly snowstorms that shut down business for days. I grew up on the Gulf Coast, where weather predictions regularly forecast a potential Cat 5 hurricane that might decimate coastal cities.