Leaderboard

Hi, I think it all depends on how much time, effort, and money you're willing to put into promoting your book. Amazon can sell books, but only if someone knows about it and is looking for it. If you're going to do an effective job of promoting your book, you will outsell Amazon, unless you get on the best-seller lists, and if you do that, you really don't need Amazon. The best kind of promoting is face-to-face, person-to-person, identifying specific markets and developing ways to reach them. For Black authors, Black book clubs are probably the most important sites to reach. Black librarians can also help. If you're able to identify book stores, Black book clubs, and you are willing and able to go to them, hold readings, signings, and get the word out about your book, you are likely to do well. Getting book reviews on sites where people can see them is also important. Big publishers send their authors on the road, because that is the best way to reach people who will learn about the books and buy them. Localized interviews are important - radio, television - anyway you can expose people to your book. I don't think there's any silver bullet. If there were, we'd all be selling so many books that we'd run out of paper to print them on. In many ways the art of selling Black books is terra incognita, the unknown. We're all trying to discover it, and if we can share information and support each other, we may find ways to do just that.

@A.J. Williams Keep grinding and diversify.... Your book is intellectual property and you have to treat it that way. What you're giving amazon is the right to copy your book and you pay them for the right. I'm not a fan of that business model. Unlike a traditional publishing company that pays you for the right to copy... you are paying amazon for the right to copy your book and sell it - and give you 10 percent. WHY? When you look at it from that perspective does it seem right?

good ideas.

@A.J. Williams ask those who gave you great reviews to buy at wholesale a minimum of 5 copies to handsell at the retail price. They make money and they also get the word out about your book. Amazon or barnes and noble don't know your book so how can they give it more exposure than those who have read it and believe in it?

Great cover. I'd say if you can get your book into Barnes & Noble that's a good place to be.

Hi @A.J. Williams Welcome! One thing I have learned about Amazon is this : first and foremost it was a book cataloging system in its first incarnation. This means if your title has an ISBN you may not have a say as to whether your book is sold through amazon. But Is your book digital or print?

Hello! My name is A.J. Williams, an actor, director, and playwright new to the site and the thread! I am also an author who has released his first novel last year, and I have been doing signings and promoting my website on social media but I'm still looking for different ways to expand. Also weighing the benefits of Amazon against selling on my own!

@Mel Hopkins, I'm a systems engineer, aspiring to increase community effectiveness through the kind of amazing engineering Troy's done at AALBC -- structuring from basic mechanisms instead of accepting Others' self-serving bundles. @Troy, Yes, it's a very tough nut to crack ... not just reader conveniences, but "affiliate" incentives too.

Thank you, and I appreciate the information you shared.

Hi, I'm a writer, a reader, and a publisher.

@Bill, Amazon has the global capital markets at their disposal. They could acquire investors while not showing a profit for years. Organizations like AALBC.com do not have that insurmountable advantage. My best hope is that this platform and help create the "careful discussion among the potential benefactors/market-constructors," for it is in our self interest on so many levels. Without the massive and ongoing infusion of cash, that Amazon enjoys, how do we compete? I believe we compete by providing a service readers desire that Amazon can not provide. Some authors like @Mel Hopkins, simply do not make her books available for sale on Amazon. I know others who do the same. I appreciate and understand why many authors are not willing to embargo Amazon. Alternatively, authors can directly sell signed copies or sell their books at a price lower than what Amazon offers. These are two easy things authors and publishers can do to compete -- while earning more per book sold. However, as you suggest, we'd still have to contend with Amazon's one-click ordering bolstered by the loyalty created with their Prime membership. This is a tough nut to crack, while many readers are motivated by the spirit of #readingblack, most need more of an incentive. Any ideas?

@Troy, A pass-through commission mechanism sounds great! (nontrivial setup notwithstanding) At least conceptually, that would favor the ideal of an "ecosystem of shared work, responsibility, and rewards" ... while meeting the user demand for simplicity. Any mention of Amazon must surely acknowledge their first distinction: extreme investment in tools and infrastructure to make the extreme convenience of their customer experience mindlessly/effortlessly feed their empire. Seriously competing surely means carefully examining/costing those infrastructure-investment options, even if they aren't taken. You know what a huge range of tools is possible; the "pass-through commission mechanism" seems a smart investment in that class. Surely the broad class merits careful discussion among the potential benefactors/market-constructors. All, Can you summarize for an industry newbie ... Is the industry model of Author=Writer+Publisher+InventoryManager coming to fully dominate niche-market publishing? ... and does that favor a division of labor with firms like AALBC doing the Marketing/CustomerAcquisition part in exchange for a pass-through commission?

Yes there are a variety of both technical and colloquial uses for the word "Gang." Were you simply providing more information or was there a point you were interested in making? Funny your post brought to mind the debate here between Information and knowledge. You posted a lot of information about the word gang, but it would have been more interesting to read what knowledge you, personally, were attempting to convey.

How Independent Bookstores Have Thrived in Spite of Amazon.com Ryan Raffaelli set out to discover how independent bookstores managed to survive and even thrive in spite of competition from Amazon and other online retailers. His initial findings reveal how much consumers still value community and personal contact.

I figured it would be easier to put the videos up. In the words of the Borg on Star Trek, resistance is futile. Amazon is a machine on track to do a trillion dollars. You can either get on the ship or face certain death unless you have a website that is garnering a ridiculous amount of traffic daily. I got so pissed about this I did an entire series scolding the consumer. It's a no win situation. No one is going to abandon Amazon and doing so there would have to be a machine in place that could keep people coming back and incorporate the ease of zero to one click buying and quite frankly black folks don't want to leave their credit card info with anyone except Amazon and Apple.

This discussion goes so much deeper. Amazon with the Echo is integrating itself so deeply into our lives that we don't even recognize that they are putting a listening device into our homes that allows us the ability to order with our voice, completely removing the barrier of "one click" which Amazon is famous for. By getting rid of this last barrier they become the perfect impulse buy business. It's to the extent now that people simply trust that Amazon has the best price and will buy items without researching anything. You can't compete and the tragic part of this is that to earn 1 million dollars Amazon needs a fraction of the people it takes Wal-Mart to make a million dollars. Amazon and companies like Facebook and Google kill jobs. They don't make a product and they sell a service so making money requires fewer people which in turns kills our economy in the long term and there is literally nothing we can do about it. Amazon is predicted to become a Trillion dollar business by 2025. They currently control over 50% of all online transactions. They are the most efficient company in history and they provide their shareholders zero dividends, yet people keep buying based on the potential and promise of Amazon. In the next few years they will begin to build brick and mortar locations and fully integrate themselves into every aspect of our lives and we are welcoming them in via Echo and keeping our credit card numbers on file. It's amazing... and I'm officially researching L2 and data companies way too much.

Merry Christmas.