Mel Hopkins

@Del , this is my belief too - if consciousness survives - then it only stands to reason what we believe survives too. In fact, when consciousness comes into question in tv/film dramas , this seems to be the trend as well.

@Pioneer1, You must be confusing nice with kind. I'm kind to people but I'm never nice. The etymology (origin) of Nice - is not know , ignorant, stupid... while people may use it to mean Kind - I don't. I don't waste time being stupid of ignorant of people's foolishness. As for your question, the majority of black people in the United States are successful in every sense of the word. The majority (73%) of black people in the inner cities of America and the majority (80%) of black people in the suburbs are living above the poverty line. This means 20% of suburban black people and 27% of inner city black people are poor. Source: The Atlantic

I'd probably watch any Shirley MacLaine movie and while I was online tearing up folks' safe spaces today, I found "The Last Word" . If I had to guess the movie's plot - it would be moppet, (Ann’Jewel Lee ) a young black girl saves old white woman who saves young white woman (Amanda Seyfried). Yes, think #blackgirlmagic meets #greypower meets #girlpower where Shirley MacLaine plays Harriet Lauler, a retired Ad Woman working to "shape her legacy" before the last word is written on her life. Harriet decides there are "4 Essential elements to a really great obituary" The deceased should be loved by their family. The deceased should be admired by their coworkers. The deceased must have touched someone's life unexpectedly and if said person was a minority or a cripple; so much the better. And the 4th? That's the wild card. A statement of such breadth and wonder that it's the opening line in the obituary. The Last Word If "life is the sum of your choices" and best revenge is living fabulously ...WYD today? Before I drift off to sleep at night, I often wonder if I accomplished something that would get me closer to living my dreams. I did last night. I decided to embrace my angry black woman archetype. Yes, I'm a mean woman who loves unconditionally with her whole heart. I embraced that side of me yesterday. It was liberating. Now, I can live. How about you? Are you living your dreams? Or are you an extra in someone else's dream? It's your choice, of course but please have the last word. Thank you for reading. Please report typos and grammatical errors below or shoot me an email mel at melhopkins dot com. Originally posted at melhopkinsdotcom

YES!!! We're communicating now (sending and receiving)... but you do need-need a literary publicist, though Actually, you really do need a staff! MAN!!!

And he wasn't even the first man to leave the council. Tesla's Elon Musk left in June because as he said, "Climate Change is Real"....LOL

@Troy, No, I wouldn't give 500 square of my house to anyone because are people are full of sh*t. I can't even trust them not to lie to themselves. What I would do, is what I have done every day of my life. I DO NOT SUPPORT people, institutions or entities that ensure someone will be homeless, incarcerated or beat down . To be candid.. If you can't tell by now, I don't support most bullsh*t thinking or bullsh*t activities that folks participate in that have an adverse effect on our society. I don't wait until its fashionable - I live my life in a way that people or other living things aren't crushed under the weight of my decisions. Case in point, I've just learned about godaddy and their game-hunting CEO now I'm looking to extract myself from using their services. Peter Thiel founder of paypal - isn't someone I want to do business with so now I'm looking for another company (oh wait I see that's going to take me a minute) ... Those are the latest on my list - show me who you are and how you harm and you can forget about me supplying you anything. This is why I'm not impressed by anyone running around trying to take down monuments and undo what they participated in to build up over the years. Why do you think I spend so much of my time working for FREE with people who are helping themselves - because I believe in focusing on those who are looking to make a change. If we don't like results society is handing us just STOP PROPPING IT UP!

Yes, this appears to be the case with the majority of author websites. They write books so why would their individual websites attract several thousand visitors a day? If their websites were attracting several thousand visitors a day - why would they need AALBC? This is the point I'm making... find out why they would need AALBC - determine how AALBC can remove the pain-point. Facebook is providing them something they need. THIS! Yes... You found how to ease one of the pain-points!!! The self-published author with no audience is the one for your congregation - This is the group that is searching for a church home... You just have to prepare a sermon to communicate to them, the services and support (a la carte ) they would get from aalbc.com as if they were under a publishing house.

@Troy, This means you don't NEED a publicist. No one has convinced you how it can be worth the expense. Since you've paid for other things on this that relate to this site it's because you've made the connection between the value and your money.

One of the fertile ones! Yep... that's me hahaha:D

I wish for you MANY MANY MANY MORE!!! <3

@Cynique , thank you for sharing I think I had a similar for reaction. When I thought of what I wrote about compassion... I realized I'd gone searching for compassion because I was mean to others. But at the same time, I have (or had) this need for people to like me. But then I realized I'm hard on others because I'm so hard on myself. I beat myself up for falling short of my personal goals. I got it twisted. Whereas I thought I was learning compassion for others, it hit me that I needed to learn to be compassionate with myself. I think that is the key to being naturally easy with others.

Exactly. This is why I ask "WHY" should we care. If we don't care about each other now. "Or even try very hard to care" What is the impetus to care. And clearly pain and suffering isn't enough. It's not like we all don't know what you've mentioned already exist. We've existed this way for the last 2, 017 years. Probably more if I add in Before Common Era - But only the strong survive... So while I read your words, and was almost tempted to put a like on it - my other side says there has to be a reason why we should care ...and pain and suffering ain't it. We know there's a lot of pain and suffering -and that hasn't moved us to do anything before?. So there has to be another reason to care...THE WHY is what I want to know. I have a feeling, though, it has nothing to do with equity or making people comfortable. We've built and contributed to this society and we sure didn't care enough to make sure it wouldn't be one that crushes the spirit. Sure there a lot people sitting in prison but they didn't just get rounded up one day like it was an internment camp. Incarcerating a large number of society happens when no one cares. I know one black man who isn't in there thanks to me... I don't run away from jury duty. I get called regularly because I VOTE in every election. But I digress. We're at the precipice, and now some are crying "we will not be replaced" while others are looking for "women to save them", while others are looking for "us to support each other." I think the real reason "Why" is because there's a huge shift underway -and there's a lot of uncertainty, people are scared shitless and NOW they want support.

I hope you get enough responses. Then you'll be able to collect information on what authors really want and need. There are different stages and different needs for each of those stages in the business of writing.. It stands to reason if authors don't currently use the aalbc.com platform ,as you mentioned, then they don't have the need to use it... Therefore, the survey questions become "As an author, WHY don't you use AALBC.com services... You can even provide reasons + other as options. I think you'll get a better understanding of where there's a disconnect. And there's a disconnect, if like you said As for me, AALBC boost my name ranking on google but that ranking doesn't draw people to my website. My links and features on website about aalbc - get visitors to my wordpress.org site "TheLeadStory.org " but my referrals and traffic come from other sites such a baidu, and tessgerritsen's website and a few other popular website where I've made comments. Now when I threw up a page on facebook - traffic to my website literally increased overnight. I didn't even visit facebook - I just used the publicize feature on wordpress and it posted my blog posts in my feed. If we are looking at marketing efficiency - I don't even have to connect to any other website but facebook to increase traffic to my personal platform. It's an active choice to post my work on my aalbc profile as I would facebook but there's no traffic from my aalbc profile page post returning to my website... So If this is what other midlist nonbest-selling authors are experiencing too - then I can see why it's easier to have their books posted here, advertised here and let the readers peruse the page like a catalogue...but for authors to go further than advertising . It then eats away at a chunk of time we could be writing. Best -selling authors don't need to participate here and the rest of us selling a few books may be able to get better visibility elsewhere. So this is why I mentioned find out WHY "authors, simply don't take of the platform"

@Pioneer1 I made my statement. How you respond is your business. Just like I mentioned about being average, the choice is always yours. Oh, and I'm never nice. I don't waste my time on it. @Troy , Why?