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In the recent social awareness of Black conditions, I want to voice some observations as a Black children's book author. It's just off the top of my head, so forgive me if it turns into a rant. A Black authored, Black published, Black distributed project is unlikely to have the capital (money, network, recognition) to market itself against non-Black authored, non-Black published projects. A simple google search for Black children's books today produced ads from B&N and Urban Outfitters(!). I suppose we should be happy for Black content, but I could never hope to "outbid" those companies for ad space. Beyond that, representation is not enough. I am shocked at how often Black books are white authored, white published, white distributed. I don't want to name names, but for example, children's books like "The Story of Rap", "We Love You, Rosie", and "Jabari Jumps" (as well as dozens of others) are entirely white produced and could be misleading to readers hoping to support Black production. This is no critique of the quality of those titles in particular. I have not read them. And I am not saying a white woman cannot write about Black characters. Still, one could also argue her use of the name Jabari may be strategically designed to "take the spot" of a Black author. White voices, arguably, compound the problem by masking the lack of representation with inauthentic voices. And we are all just thankful for representation. Other issues include the tone of Black content offered. Based solely on my own research, celebrated Black children's books often seem limited to oppression narratives or (possibly condescending) self-esteem/validation guides. In this problem, Black is equated with struggle alone and forces Black voices into formulaic tropes. A politically controversial point, is the identities put to the front of Black listings. Although most of us are thankful for progress when we see Barack or Kamala ascend to well-deserved heights in government, I've witnessed debates about when one could expect a full descendant of slaves (or someone born to two Black parents) to find similar levels of success. Does America need to "ease itself in" to diversity with bi-racial Black persons or near-Black persons? This post is no referendum on any of the aforementioned books or authors. Yet, the effort to amplify Black voices in Children's literature should consider these points. The illusion of progress is frustrating because the love for (or indifference to) reading in the next generation may be formed by this generations good but short-sighted intentions. I anticipate some criticism here, but my comments are just an honest, off-the-cuff response to pricing marketing options for my own creative efforts. I simply think the obstacles are too unfair for Black creators to even try.

So many things to ask and say about this clarion call but first, 1) what qualifies as a website? 2) Does a website with an owner's domain hosted on wordpress.com (DOT COM) or blogger.com qualify for ranking? 3) Or do you need to build on wordpress.org (DOT ORG) website with separate hosting. 4) What if it's a blog with a static page plus a single entry per day... 5)

The feedback from this mailing was very illuminating. I'm going to craft a part 2 message in a few weeks taking into account some new insights: Alexa Rank Requirement I made a having an Alexa ranking a requirement to be added to the list of sites that I would monitor. About half of the suggested sites I received today for consideration did not have an Alexa rank. I suspect the person complaining about my use of Alexa had a site without an Alexa ranking. While they did not say this was the reason, I can now understand now why someone would react the way they did. Now an Alexa ranking is a very low threshold to meet but the fact is 20% of the 300 sites I have evaluated so far did not have an Alexa Rank. In fact they are still on my list of sites: https://aalbc.com/top_black_websites/top_black_sites_list.php But I have to draw a line somewhere and the Alexa rank is as good a place as any; Right now the Alexa Ranks for sites in the Top 50 range from 1,026 to 470,817 (lower is better, Google's Alexa Rank is 1, Facebook's is 3). The worst Alexa rank, for the sites with a ranking, in my database is 19,987,545. I have never see a ranking worse than 30,000,000. Having an Alexa rank is generous cutoff, but I'm open to suggestions for alternatives. While I'm the only one handling this here will need to be a cut off. I have a booksite to run after all. “I've Never Heard of Most of These Sites” This is the most common comment I've received. Indeed it is the point of this entire effort. There will be some sites you've never heard of that has produced something you will truly appreciate but never see, because it could not be found on Facebook. Facebook “Likes” Are Powerful Facebook likes are very, very powerful--for Facebook. People measure the effectiveness of their ad spend and engagement on Facebook by the number of likes they get. If does not matter if the likes do not translate in getting an email address, a sale, visitors to a website, or improved branding. Likes are the measurement tool. They are readily visible and have the added benefit of providing an ego boost. Facebook is known to holdback likes so that they are timed for maximum impact. There is i ample reason to believe that many of those Facebook Likes are fake, and one should always measure the effectiveness of those paid visitors, you might find as I did they are not very engaged visitors. Most Users Don't Visit Websites I suspect that the majority of new internet users are mobile users using social media. These types of users are much less likely to visit a website. When these users run a Google search they don't leave the Google search results page, because Google will pull answers from websites, most often Wikipedia, and present the response on the page or read it aloud. For these types of users the social media/google/Wikipedia/amazon is the internet. Demographically this is where the growth appears to be. But there is a category of users (like anyone reading this message), who wants deeper information. Like readers of books, the types of users of the web are in the minority. But like readers of books, there are enough of these types of internet users to enable independent Black owned websites to thrive. Finally Don't Forget Email In the four hours since I sent this email, several hundred extra people have visited the pages linked in my mailing. There is nothing I have ever done that has generated as much traffic as quickly from social media. Now I've had some content go "viral" and that brought thousands of additional visitors from Facebook primarily during the same period of time. But I can not ln which post will go viral and they are very rare occurrence anyway. Nothing, I've shared this year went viral, but 2017 will be the year this site see the most page views ever.