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Today I sold a few copies of Ibram X. Kendi's How to Be an Antiracist. Ibram is a critically acclaimed author who won a National Book Award in 2016 (I recorded Ibram's acceptance speech). Despite posting video and publishing a review of his latest book. I have not sold many copies of his Kendi's books. However, today I may have sold enough copies of How to Be an Antiracist for it to make my next bestsellers list. This piqued my interest; why is there increased demand of Ibram's work on the site? I decided to check Amazon and discovered that Amazon is currently charging $44 -- minimum price for a used copy! The book's price is $27 new -- Max. Amazon has 3rd party booksellers competing to sell over priced, used copies of a book that is still in print and less than a year old! How many unsophisticated book buyers will Amazon trick with this scheme? The reader is overcharged and neither the author or publisher earns a penny on these sales, but Amazon will, as usual, make money no matter what. Sure, people falsely believe Amazon sells books at the best prices, and maybe some customers feel compelled to buy overpriced books from Amazon because they are already paying 10 bucks a month for a Prime membership. But price gouging on books during a pandemic ... how low can you go? I think people are beginning to see Amazon for what they truly are. They don't care about the books, the readers, authors, or publishers. All they care about is getting paid, and on that they have executed brilliantly. (left) Amazon screen shot* (right) AALBC screen shot (taken 5/31/20) *Yeah, I know I'm breaking my own rule of not allowing links to Amazon, but in this context I think it is appropriate.

Yesterday I sold more books than I did during my best month of sales when selling as an Amazon affiliate -- just one day of sales. Sales the day before that beat yesterday! The surge in sales has been experienced by every indie bookseller I have spoken to. After this post I will spend the next 10 to 12 hours processing book orders! I went to bed too tired to process yesterdays outstanding orders -- that has never happened. Customers, thankfully have been more than understanding -- this has simply been inspiring One long term booksellers told me he has never seen anything like this in 50 years in the book business! During my brief phone conversation with this brother I got more orders than I did during the entire month of May. I could go one and describe in much more detail -- i just do not have the time. I took the morning to update and add some website content. I added a couple more bookstores to the site. I also added audiobook excerpts to the top 10 selling books on AALBC (for just the past 4 days). Most of these books are out of stock and on back order, but every customer I asked was more than happy to wait! Here are the top 10 best selling books for the month of June (so far)! How to Be an Antiracist The Fire Next Time The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness So You Want to Talk About Race Between The World And Me My Vanishing Country Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America Sister Outsider: Essays And Speeches Their Eyes Were Watching God It’s Not All Downhill from Here Thanks to all AALBC's new customers; Now have to get to work to do 🙂

Ms. Tirado is one of a number of journalists around the country who were attacked, arrested or otherwise harassed — sometimes by police and sometimes by protesters — during their coverage of the uprisings that have erupted nationwide after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/30/us/minneapolis-protests-press.html *My Note: Ms. Tirado's eye is permanently lost. ______________________________________________________________________________________ Police threw tear gas canisters into crowds of protesters demonstrating against police violence in cities across the country this weekend. ... Fort Wayne, Ind., one of those canisters hit 21-year-old Balin Brake, a weekend editor at a local television station. … fresh out of post op. I might have to have surgery for broken bones in my face within weeks to come but for now all that happened is I did end up losing my eye. This pales in comparison to the hardships aftican americans have endured for decades. Stand up for what u believe in. https://thehill.com/changing-america/respect/equality/500467-texas-journalist-loses-eye-to-tear-gas-canister-during *My Note: His eye is permanently lost! Oh no! He is NOT in the military. He, nor anyone, should have to suffer this kind of loss. This government should not harm its citizens in this way. Period. ______________________________________________________ GET THIS! 13 Years ago, a White Woman was yanked out of her car by Derek Chauvin. Guess why!? ______________________________________________ The incident "tainted every experience I've had with the police since then," Borton said. Borton, who is white, said the episode gave her a very small glimpse into how many black Americans feel about police. … It was there she learned the reason she had been stopped — going 10 miles over the speed limit. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/minneapolis-woman-recalls-run-in-with-officer-charged-in-george-floyd-killing-i-lived-to-complain/ar-BB151h3r?ocid=msedgntp *My NOte: This woman launched a complaint, a formal complaint. ANd she explains that all he received was basically a slap on the hand. IMO, Racism is a form of insanity and will negatively affect many others not intended to harm. A Florida police officer pushed a kneeling protester to the ground. Then his black colleague stepped in By Scottie Andrew, Tina Burnside and Sara Weisfeldt, CNN Updated 9:47 AM ET, Thu June 4, 2020 Fort Lauderdale Police Officer Krystal Smith points at Officer Steven Pohorence after he shoved a kneeling protester in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on Sunday, May 31. https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/03/us/florida-police-shoves-protester-suspended-trnd/index.html Jane Fonda “It’s important for white people to understand the benefit of white privilege. Talk to me about that quickly if you can,” Lemon asked her. Fonda replied: “Because we’re white, we have had privilege. Even the poorest of us have had privilege. https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/jane-fonda-george-floyd-don-lemon-interview-cnn-watch-a9543426.html

There are a wide variety of factors. Much of it self-reinforcing. For example, when an author says, "You can buy my book from Amazon." Everyone in 2020 knows this. But I can't tell you how many authors I have interviewed on video that will tell my audience to buy their book from Amazon!? AALBC is the one shooting, editing, and publishin their video -- not Amazon, but their condition makes this crazy scenario possible. Still I sold book as an Amazon affiliate FAR longer than I should have. I was afraid my customers would simply stop buy book from me. That is simply not true. For example, on Tuesday I had more book sales, in one day, than I had with Amazon in my best month! Now I know the reason is that there has been a national push for readers to support indie Black booksellers because of the pandemic and the police killing of Black people. If I were an Amazon affiliate I would NOT have gotten these sales, because people want to promote Black booksellers. Probably. but I have not had time to check. I only took the time to check Kendi's How to Be an Antiracist, because I saw a surge in demand for the title. I figured the demand was due to gouging by Amazon -- which turned out to be true, but the real demand came from a people looking for books on the subject but sourced from Black booksellers. Now demand for the titles has made it impossible for any booksellers to immediately ship these book. How to Be an Antiracist, will not be available from the nation's largest distributor, Ingram, until next week! Check out want Amazon was up to yesterday: They are still engaged in predatory pricing, but they have kept the price gouging at bay, at least until the scruntiny on these titles has abated. Price gouging during a time like this is just a bad, bad look -- even the mighty Amazon is not immune to this. I see Amazon has raised the price about a buck on this book and have removed a date when the book will be in inventory. Screenshot taken June 4th 10:35 a.m. My main distributor has more than 34,000 copies on back order! This is a big number. That is the earliest the book can be sent to a customer who order it from me.

@Maurice I completely missed this post. Awesome!

Hey @Maurice I support my local business and if what I'm looking for is not available locally I buy online, from anyone but Amazon. Madinah, yes I see that Amazon has lowered the price (see graphic below). Amazon dynamically prices books to maximize revenue. I guess Amazon's algorithm discovered they were losing customers to other booksellers and dropped to price. Please notice that Amazon is still aggressive pushing their “free” audiobook and Kindle format. In fact the Kindle and Audiobooks buttons are the only ones that work. To buy the deeply discounted hardcover you have to click the small text below the button. The entire design and layout of the page is encourage the visitor to buy the ebook or audiobook — both published by Amazon. Because the ebook and audiobook are purely digital they both generate higher profits that a physical book. The price today ($15.35) is lower than AALBC’s price from the distributor. I would lose money if I sold the book at that price. The I don’t know what Amazon’s discount is for this book, but I know it is lower than AALBC’s. Plus, Amazon can easily afford to sell books at a loss, to eliminate competition. The elimination of competition is core to Amazon’s mission. Indeed this is the reason Wall Street funded Amazon for years while Amazon burned through money without making a profit, because they knew Amazon would ultimately become a monopoly. Yesterday I asked on of my customers why they chose to buy How to Be an Antiracist from AALBC and they replied: “This morning, I came across AALBC through a friend who posted on Instagram that she had purchased How to Be an Antiracist. She shared the name of AALBC to purchase the book from. I will continue to share AALBC & the list of bookstores on your site with others to ensure $ spent is going to Black Authors & Bookstore Owners who have written & curated books & resources.” Again, people are starting to see Amazon for the manipulative, greedy, indie-business-destroyers they are. People also recognize the added value that indie booksellers provide and are willing to pay full retail price for a book — even when Amazon tries to seduce them by selling a book below cost. Amazon screen shot (taken 6/1/20)

@Chevdove. Just read a further review of Barracoon and it sounds like a fascinating read. I'm going to add it to my wants list.