Black-Owned Bookstores

If you couldn't purchase a book through an independent bookseller - what stopped you? Do you have a strategy for buying from independent booksellers? How do you purchase digital books if the book is only available digitally?

THIS CODE IS NO LONGER SUPPORTED A list of Black-Owned bookstores to share for those in the #readingblack movement (a commitment to read books by Black writers and to buy those books from Black-owned bookstores). The list of bookstores, shown below may be shared on your website by adding the line of HTML code to your website. As we update our database your website will be automatically updated. You may adjust the style parameters to suit your website. <iframe src="https://aalbc.com/bookstores/readingblack_stores_share.php" padding=0 width=90% height=1000 style="border-style:none"></iframe> The code above produces this t…

You all have heard me talk about the importance of the Black Book Ecosystem Strong, and why it is so important to us as a culture to maintain our agency when it comes to determining who an how our stories are told. #readingblack is one effort and the community conversations are another. THIS Sunday, March 22, 2020, 6 - 7:30 pm Eastern, I to invite you to participate our first community conversation, “Keeping the Black Book Ecosystem Strong: Black Books in the Age of the Corona Virus.” The conversation will take place online in the form of a video conference using Zoom and will be by Paul Coates (Black Classic Press in Baltimore), Kassa…

So @Troycalled me out when I said there should be a white paper on the Black Books Ecosystem by suggesting I write it. Since I don't really have the time and feel it is important I will start an open source version of it. This post will be kind of a sounding board for the White paper and what it should be. A lot of what it will do is document what the Black Books Ecosystem is. What are its inputs and outputs? How is it quantified? How many authors are there? How many publishers? How many bookstores? How many distributors? What is its history? What are its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats? What are the trends that affect it? Any sug…

If you think certain online bookstore is a better alternative to another massive e-commerce site, think again. The following commentary is in reaction to the Black Bookstore Day conversation. We could really use a journalist to investigate this, but it highlights a common challenge: lacking platforms with the resources to conduct this type of research and explain why it matters to readers. It would be fascinating to know how much a certain online platform has earned from people who wish to support Black bookstores, on the heals of George Floyd's murder, but unintentionally ended up supporting the other business instead. For …

Marcus Books is in danger of closing its doors forever. That is, if it doesn't get funding. The San Francisco Bay Area bookstore billed as the oldest black-owned independent bookstore in the United States had to close its doors due to the Coronavirus pandemic. To cover ongoing operating expenses and costs, Folasade Adesanya set up a fundraiser in April - with a $200,000 goal. So far, the team has raised half and are reaching out for help to meet the goal. Drs. Raye and Julian Richardson founded Marcus Books in 1960 and named it after the freedom fighter and publisher Marcus Garvey. The Marcus Books family say in their appeal for funding, "At Marcus…

Here is a link to an article where I describe my 10 favorite Black-owned, brick-and-mortar bookstores.

Just copy the line of code to your website or Blog to embed the map of Black owned bookstores to your website or blog. This map is automatically updated too. <iframe src="https://www.google.com/maps/d/embed?mid=1bmEDQVy0eYrwQiQQuf5386tMqwU" width="640" height="480"></iframe>

Simply paste the code below where you would like to display the book websites. Updates to the book sites are made automatically. Once you paste the code there is nothing more you need to do. This code is optimized for mobile and can be run on a secure (https) website. The bookstore listing below uses the code provided below. Please send question to report bugs to me at troy@aalbc.com Thanks for helping to promote independent book websites! <!-- BEGIN AALBC.com CODE --> <script> if (!document.cookie || document.cookie.indexOf('AVPDCAP=') == -1) { document.write('<scr'+'ipt src="https://aalbc.advertserve.com/advertpro/servlet/view/dyna…