Mel Hopkins

@Maurice You are correct. I've written dozens of books. I've only published one.

@Troy "Mr. Johnson! Don't get on that ship! ...Tulsa Remote, it's... it's a cookbook!" Heh, heh, heh. Seriously, though this is so cool! Please keep a journal.

@Maurice thank you. @Troy THIS! Yes, you nailed it!

@Maurice sure, go here: https://aalbc.com/books/home.php?isbn13=9781411673144

Besides me, you @Troy, on behalf of AALBC, are the only authorized bookseller of my book (s). As a result of our ongoing friendship, I didn't have to pitch it to you and wait a long time to get a yes or no. I didn't have to contact your corporate headquarters like I did when I asked Borders, Barnes & Noble, or Booksamillion to sell my book. And I certainly didn't have to beg and plead like I did the popular bookstore in my old neighborhood only to get a "no, we'll order it from books in print if we get a request." So, I'm thankful you chose to sell my book. I didn't realize how vital your bookseller position was until after listening to a podcast that outlined the relationship between mainstream traditional publishers and booksellers. Although you don't have to warehouse the books in this digital economy - the transactional nature of bookselling is still relevant. To paraphrase, the podcaster said, the Publishing company buys books from writers that BOOKSELLERS want to buy. Publishing companies buy books from writers that booksellers want to buy. writer-publisher-bookseller Intuitively and from experience, I knew this to be factual- but to hear someone else say it aloud was a definite A-Ha moment for me. Even when the writer is the publisher - we must consider whether the bookseller wants to "buy" or "buy into" our book or not. It is the bookseller that is going to "hand-sell" our book to their audience (the readers). So it's inconsiderate to come here and post links to am*zon. am*zon is not cultivating a community to promote black books. Especially in the way the money remains in the black community. I think you must jump through some serious marketing hoops before am*zon's algorithm will promote any book. And they still take the lion's share of the royalties. For independent authors to come to this site and post am*zon links to sell their book is counterproductive. One brother illustrated it to his city council. He said - hiring police and teachers from outside of our area, paying them a good salary, with benefits and pension with our tax dollars enriches their community. But it decimates our neighborhood, leaving it in shambles. That's what we're doing when we promote am*zon. Can we please stop? Especially if we call ourselves "woke." So again, Troy, thank you for all you do for books by and for African Americans. We ain't mad at you for protecting our intellectual property.

@Troy NOPE! Clarence Thomas is hateful period. We just hate his ass the same way we hate Kavanaugh. Aside: Candace is a sellout period. I doubt she believes anything she says. She's a good looking tool and the sexist misogynists GOP appreciate good looking women period - and if they can use them to achieve a goal - they will. And they reward/pay folks well. Especially good looking smart black women. I'm sure that's true of all politicians but they don't make it a secret. If you married a white woman - I already know she'd be down for the cause. She'd be fit, fierce and fine - because you can't be slipping when you married outside your ethnic group. Since you are one of the good ones - you can't settle for less. Some of us black women have a saying - "We' glad you took him. hon'. Maybe his genes will have a chance" - Kinda like what we said about Jay Z and Beyonce when it came to the looks department. [ok that's all just awful - charge it to this sore throat I'm dealing with this morning] But I digress. That's how it works when you marry a compatible partner no matter what skin they're in. If you met my ex - you'd see how much a like we are. It's how we ended up raising successful daughters - we share similar perspectives on life. I'm also reminded of the guy from Power -Omari Hardwick (?) his wife is anglo and I swear she is more militant than I could ever be. Maybe she's more militant because she is anglo and therefore gets a pass - but still she's a roughneck when it comes to championing the Black cause and Black lives matter. I don't find anything you wrote as racist -because while you can be bigoted/prejudice you need to hold the power to be racist.

Dana Canedy, Senior Vice President and Publisher, Simon and Schuster, Inc weighs in this topic during her PBS interview.

Sheets tremor as the phone left on the bed beckons attention.

I thought so too @Troy . When you click on the tag, however, it pulls up all the tagged discussions. Please share with me how to use the tag feature. I'd like to use the tags to include topical threads.

Most of those "advances" wouldn't even allow authors to work full-time on rewrites. The only difference between traditionally published and the independent authors is the brand name. smh

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@Troy Congratulations! Overnight sensation more than 20 years in the making. I'm kidding. I congratulate you on staying the course. You don't just talk about you are about it and you were ready when the tide - scratch that, Tsunami hit! Bravo! Thank you!

@Troy us old-school Journalists believe in attribution. My copyeditor at EBONY was real old-school (she was writer/editor for Playboy back in the day) - and she checked every line of my 3800+words in those last two articles. If we couldn’t verify we took it out. All this to say, your information would have made it into the article - but unless the article was about aalbc - we wouldn’t have contacted you. We would have attributed to the article and publication we got the information. But thinking back on how she hazed me with those two articles. Never mind, Rema probably would have made me contact you!

The Guardian newspaper (US) covers the plight of Marcus Books during the Coronavirus Pandemic in the article "Economic duress is nothing new': Can America's oldest black bookstore survive the pandemic?" by Andre' Wheeler dated Fri 15 May 2020 Wheeler references AALBC's black bookstores research in the article. "According to the African-American Literature Book Club, there were over 200 black-owned bookstores in the 90s. In 2019, the number was slightly over 120. " (Author's note: I also donate money to The Guardian )

Well, no more 'white'-washing the truth of the United States of America - coming to a bookstore in the UK and US, a book about the wrongfully imprisoned. HarperCollins Children's Books will publish Punching the Air, a YA novel about a black Muslim teen who is wrongfully sentenced to prison. (see link at the bottom) If this scenario seems familiar the book is co-authored by one of Exonerated Five, Dr Yusef Salaam, fomerly the Central Park five. The Young Adult book arrives on the shelves in September 2020 https://www.thebookseller.com/news/harpercollins-childrens-books-publish-ya-book-one-exonerated-five-1203387#

EBONY Website is back up. According to a few articles including The Root and Chicago Crusader - the Clear View Group owners they didn't mean to leave it offline for more than two days. Not sure what that means and neither article elaborated.

Marcus Books, the oldest black-owned bookstore in the San Francisco Bay Area, CA needs your help to preserve black history. Go Here for more information.

Marcus Books is in danger of closing its doors forever. That is, if it doesn't get funding. The San Francisco Bay Area bookstore billed as the oldest black-owned independent bookstore in the United States had to close its doors due to the Coronavirus pandemic. To cover ongoing operating expenses and costs, Folasade Adesanya set up a fundraiser in April - with a $200,000 goal. So far, the team has raised half and are reaching out for help to meet the goal. Drs. Raye and Julian Richardson founded Marcus Books in 1960 and named it after the freedom fighter and publisher Marcus Garvey. The Marcus Books family say in their appeal for funding, "At Marcus Books, "Black" is not a subject, a single month, or a niche; it is the universe. "Black" is not just history; it is the present and the future." To donate and preserve black history - visit gofundme.com "Marcus Books Anniversary Fundraiser" https://www.gofundme.com/f/marcus-books-anniversary-fundraiser

@Delano exactly! sadly, the non-thinkers along with "the indifferent" are the largest non-voting block in the U.S.

Welp. it's hard to save folks from "stupid." But I think I see from your perspective. Weren't you on the BTHS swim team too? If yes, that explains your position. For the rest of us, we are occasional swimmers and we know better than to try to save a drowning person. They'll take us under too.

@Troy "Like it or not, Google and Facebook are becoming the leading patrons of the news industry." Digiday, Max Willens, May 11, 2020

According to a press release dated May 10, 2020 Sovereign Noir Publications is celebrating the release of their debut Novella "Nothing but a Number" by Kayona Ebony Brown. It's the first in a series called "Of Music and Men." Sovereign Noir CEO Kameisha Jerae Hodge said of the new release, "Of Music and Men is a really dope series, both the novellas and the podcast, and it is very exciting to be a part of something that combines entrepreneurship, Black women’s perspectives, and the mindset of being a millennial in such a weird space and time. Kayona really captures the essence of presenting reality in a comedic and thoughtful way." The second in the series is also available for pre-sale on a pay-what-you-can basis at both sovereignnoir.com and ofmusicandmen.com . I made the mistake of listening to the first episode of the podcast and - Kayona's voice is soothing and hypnotizing. So be careful, if you listen, you might get hooked. https://www.sovereignnoir.com/about http://ofmusicandmen.com/

Black Voice News won a $100,000 Facebook grant that is geared to supporting newsrooms during COVID-19 pandemic. According to Facebook's grant page, the "Facebook Journalism Project’s relief fund for local news" is granting an additional $100 million to support journalism during the pandemic. This is in addition to the $300 million grant initiative to support journalism around the world. So far, 200 news organizations have received funding from the local news fund. According to the Black Voice News Community News article , Dr. Paulette Brown-Hinds, publisher said "The grant will allow our team to build on our current reporting on the economic impact of COVID-19 on our community as well as help build our growing interest in data journalism and digital mapping.” If you also write for a newspaper you can learn more about the Facebook Journalism Project by visiting https://www.facebook.com/journalismproject .

Welp, @Troy that's too bad - they are going to get run over.

@Troy Propaganda is sneaky like that - but I don’t “trust” most things I read or hear in the mainstream. It is all leads to me - I’ve been chasing down stories for so long - it’s second nature for me to follow up each claim. Check out my story “Guess Who” when you get a chance. It’s all theories as far as I’m concern - I just look for angles on how we can use the “news” to our benefit.