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@Delano, thanks for sharing this article man! How did you discover this article? These guys completely understand what is at stake. I wish this message reached the masses. As these huge companies have come to dominate the Internet, “they have caused a variety of problems of which we are only now beginning to become aware,” he explained. Echoing something Rupert Murdoch said last week, he identified one of these problems as the tech giants’ failure to pay for the content on their platforms. “They claim they are merely distributing information. But the fact that they are near-monopoly distributors makes them public utilities, and should subject them to more stringent regulations, aimed at preserving competition, innovation, and fair and open universal access.” In economic terms, Soros suggested, the tech giants were making excessive profits and stifling innovation. And their behavior was also causing larger social and political problems. Social-media companies “deliberately engineer addiction to the services they provide,” he noted. “This can be very harmful, particularly for adolescents.” In this sense, tech companies were similar to casinos that “have developed techniques to hook gamblers to the point where they gamble away all their money, even money they don’t have.” It wasn’t merely a matter of “distraction” or “addiction,” Soros went on. Social-media companies “are inducing people to give up their autonomy. . . . It takes a real effort to assert and defend what John Stuart Mill called ‘the freedom of mind.’ There is a possibility that, once lost, people who grow up in the digital age will have difficulty in regaining it. This may have far-reaching political consequences. People without the freedom of mind can be easily manipulated.”

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@A.J. Williams glad to have you here! Please share your bookselling strategies with us here too...you're an actor which means you have to sell yourself daily. So you'd be surprised how many good marketing ideas you have that will sell your book. If you want traffic to your website - set up a blogger website and link it to your website ... see if flamesofretribution.blogspot.com is available and set up a google group too for black women superheroes that link to your book and website. Also, with your subject matter - you probably wanr to write (blog about) about vigilantism in mainstream media - there's currently a show called black lightening on the CW channel - and last night they had a scene where roland martin appears and says something like "why are black superheroes called vigilante and white superheroes called heroes and saviors.".. You can tap into the superheroine vibe with your character... you can start marketing your book as the black woman superhero - and write about her and otheron your blog - and share on social media too. Just a thought...

@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?

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.

@Bill Welcome to #readingblack.com Are you a reader, Indie Publisher, author,-independent publisher? Excuse me if you've answered this already.