Joe Biel is a self-made autistic publisher who draws origins, inspiration, and methods from punk rock to sell millions of books. Biel is the founder and CEO of Microcosm Publishing, Publishers Weekly's #1 fastest-growing publisher of 2022 and #3 in 2023/2024, and WorkingLit, the software responsible for Microcosm's aforementioned success--now available for other publishers. Biel has been featured in Time, Esquire, Art of Autism, Reading Glasses, Bulletproof Radio, Spectator (Japan), G33K (Korea), and Maximum Rocknroll, as well as NPR and PBS. Biel is the author of A People's Guide to Publishing, Autism Relationships Handbook, Unfuck Your Business, Enduring Legacy of Portland's Black Panthers, and dozens more. Biel is the director of five feature films, including Aftermass: Bicycling in a Post-Critical Mass Portland, $100 & a T-Shirt, and hundreds of short films. Biel lives in Portland, OR. Ymani Wince is an entrepreneur, literacy worker and writer from St. Louis, MO. She is the founder and creator of The Noir Bookshop, a bookstore turned community minded mission. Wince is passionate about Black history and heritage, eliminating book deserts, and all things diy publishing. Through Noir Print Co, Wince's publishing vertical, storytelling and community memory keeping are at the forefront. Her creative practice incorporates zine making to tell stories of family and presence. Wince's writing has been featured in the Washington Post, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Riverfront Times, Manrepeller and several others. When she's not writing or promoting literature, you can find her browsing through books, or spending time with her little dog, Riesling.

Publisher: Microcosm Publishing

Pub date: 2026-01-05

Length: 192 pages