Mel Hopkins

@Troy

@Cynique I recently heard (or I think I read) why some people disagree on everything... and I even pondered it and thought wow that's me. Now I can't remember LOL! As for me, I suspect Pioneer is a composite. I think more than one person writes his responses. Or Maybe there's a Pioneer1 but others chime in on his account. I'm not saying that he's "sybil" with split personalities but I look at the archive conversations at times and when I read his old responses I get the sense we are not always communicating with the same person. In fact, I quoted something he wrote and he didn't seem to remember it. There are phrases that Pioneer uses at times that gives me the feeling he's from a country/island like Guyana. I'm no expert in forensics linguistic but every now and then I'll read text and it feels either foreign or he's from a place that time forgot. But there's a pioneer from Michigan but I don't think he always responds in this forum. So maybe you disagree with him because it's your way of unmasking him. Or maybe this entry can go in my blog "careful, or you'll end up in my novel

says, Jeff Bezos in the CNBC article How Amazon founder Jeff Bezos went from the son of a teen mom to the world's richest person I'd agree. We want someone to make and serve up something to us even before we know we want it. Just the other day, I was wondering how to get a server that's cheap and easy to operate. I don't want to worry about a platform like Myspace deleting all the blog postings. I have a Google alert set for black philosophers. Or how about a catalog of business books written by black authors? Bottom line: I need a personal shopper who will cater to my consumer whims minus unsolicited pitches. Junk mail is annoying because the proprietor sends me what s/he has which may or may not have anything to do with my desires. I want someone to take the time to know what I like and offer a curated selection. Bezos intuited that we have thousands of thoughts like this in a day. He built an online business to offer whatever comes to mind. What I find exciting is we also pay for his research and development. Bezos says, in the article, he's not afraid to be wrong. You can't beat a fearless man. There's a saying: The quote, in this context, doesn't mean work with or for Amazon. Or sell your books on the website. It means to emulate the competition. And from And from Bezos own words, he runs a customer-centric business. Everything Amazon does serve the whims of the customer. Amazon has access to every book in print. If it's not in the warehouse, they will print-on-demand and send it to you and waive the shipping and handling fee. If they can't print it, they'll send a digital version to your Kindle (if you own one) or your PC. It will be lickety-split at a price that's easy on the wallet. So, how can we as independent authors, self-publishers, engineers, etc., become the reader's advocate? How can we become reader-centric booksellers? How can we help them help us help them? Can we make it easy for book lovers to acquire our books? Please post your suggestions, ideas and comments. Update: I wrote an article to discuss this post in detail. Link: melhopkinsdotcom: 5 STEPS TO FINDING A COMMUNITY FOR YOUR BOOK

Love it and the hashtag #readingblack.com - It's really easy to use when you're on social networks and espeically when you are sharing an article written by someone black about a black issues . Although the .com drops off - I still include it for the curious who will actually look for the site.

Please let us know who you are. What you'd like to accomplishment. How we can help you get the most out of this club? Provide your goals, expertise and even your expectations. Share as much or as little - and add when you feel comfortable. Thank you for being part of #readingblack.com movement and we want to make sure the movement serves us all. As for me, I read as much if not more than I write. So far, I've written, published two fiction titles and I’m working on a memoir. The former got me a full-page feature in a major business magazine; the latter is proving to be difficult to format. On the digital front, I've acquired several domain names currently valued at $10K. From those highly-coveted names, I’ve launched a personal website, a news magazine website that is growing in popularity due to the strategic alliances I’ve built with AALBC.com and PRNewswire. com I was half of a two-person start-up team who created and developed a popular lifestyle website and a weekly live 2-hour radio talk-show. With sweat-equity, and free social networks such as Myspace, Facebook, and BlogTalkRadio we built an engaged community for the website. By 2008, the Facebook page had 100K fans. We invited the most loyal fans to write for the site. In 2010, the website had a global ranking with an estimated value of about $35K. If sold, it would have been nearly 100% profit. The co-founder changed the format and pushed me out. The website lost 90% of its value after the community dwindled. Since 2002, I've consulted in Media Relations with a focus on building communities and creating strategic alliances. I've accumulated millions of dollars in earned media for myself and clients in publications with a monthly multimillion readership. Before building a media consulting business, I was responsible for corporate communications of several multimillion-dollar funded high-profile nonprofit organizations. I took those skills to work for a large customer-facing financial institution where I worked closely with marketing to handled internal communications and special projects for the Community Reinvestment Act department. As News Anchor and Managing Editor, at a CBS network affiliate, led a team of editors, photographers, reporters to produce #1 rated weekend newscast that gained 27% of market share. As AM drivetime news anchor/reporter for iHeart (formerly Clear channel) Radio Station 1170 AM WWVA acquired Associated Press credits for contributing breaking news resulting in an AP Radio Partner Award. Several national magazines and newspapers have published my features and opinions. Prior, I worked for trade book publishers, G.P. Putnam's Sons and Penguin USA (before the merger) in Special Sales, and Academic Marketing & Sales from 1987-1992. Oh, did I mention I spent 8-years flying the friendly skies for a major U.S. commercial airline?

@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?

@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?

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?

@David Covin Thank you. Troy gave you an excellent introduction! I didn't think of asking this before attempting to answer @Bill 's question. But it helps to know who are the stakeholders and how the strategies will help. For those of us who are readers only - the strategies might not be helpful unless we construct them with readers in mind. Thank you again for your response.

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

@Troy Ouch!!!

Also, it's the publisher's unique selling proposition - I know from that one line, their authors are from the motherland.. That's powerful marketing lol

And how about Cal-Exit? Rural California decided to break off from the urban part of California to declare its independence. In doing so, they've formed New California which founders hope will eventually achieve statehood Then a small earthquake hit.

Reason #777 why I rarely write for free - and definitely not on a third-party platform (well except for AALBC.com). Huffington Post's Editor in Chief Lydia Polgreen announced today the contributors platform is now history. You read right. All those Huffpost bloggers, some starting back in 2005, found out today "the HuffPost blogging platform is no more. In its place, Huffpost Opinion and HuffPost personal. Writers will have to pitch ideas to get inches on the platform now. But at least they will be paid for their work. Polgreen also announced they will be hiring staff writers too. Rest of the story can be found on the Huffington Post By Lydia Polgreen If I wanted to hear more of the same programming, I'd watch national network news. But I don't. I want to hear/read diverse thoughts. I want others to challenge and stimulate my thoughts and beliefs . I don't want to get stuck in an echo chamber. So let's hear it for yet another reason, reason #1 we need to maintain our own platforms, share our thoughts and link to each other... RIP HUFF POST CONTRIBUTORS BLOGS.

@Troy aren't those the words from the publisher of The Mantle? If yes, it seems then those words should remain. It makes a strong statement. If those are your words, then :eek: ....

Academic Marketing & Sales Did you know there are many associations that host about 352,300* conferences and meetings that are attended by professionals who can make purchasing decisions, such as making a wholesale purchases of your book? Conference exhibiting is another way to knock on a backdoor market to reach your readers. If you’re only exhibiting your books at book conventions you’re missing out on quite a few opportunities. Source: MARKETING YOUR BOOKS TO THE ACADEMIC COMMUNITY

@Pioneer1 I did NOT ignore your comment! I didn't respond to it. If you read my remarks in that thread you'll see I was on another tangent. When I did return, my reference was in agreement with Troy's statement -because I had noticed the same in learning. I realized that if I can teach a subject then my comprehension of the subject is solid. By the way, REALLY Pioneer? Hate Black Men? Are you serious?

@Delano that was a typo... I will go correct it now... @Pioneer1 I don't remember joining in on that discussion between you and Cynique.. I remember your discussion with @Cynique being more nuanced.

@Delano You can't. Without comprehending a subject you can't explain it. You can only give facts and details.

"If you can't explain it, you don't know it. If you can't teach it, you need to go back and learn it..."

@Farai Caldwell and all members , Welcome! I've already noticed a change in my behavior when it comes to #ReadingBlack I enjoy reading business, science , metaphysics etc - and prior to this club I would wait for recommendations through feature articles that I read... Now I'm actually searching for the genre and determining if it is written by African-Americans and/or for African-Americans. So if any of our members have published books in the aforementioned genres - please send me (melhopkins (at) theleadstory (dot) net ) an image of the book cover, a summary or book blurb/summary and preferably a buy link I will add it to my website's bookstore and my blog posts, if it's native to the subject. Thank You!

3. Think Like an Editorial Director - and curate and create News your audience can use. Even if you have one name on your mailing list treat that one person like she represents 1,000 subscribers because she does if we can depend on exponential growth. Sometimes good content could be related to your book's subject matter - especially if you're an expert. Other times you may have to think beyond your book and really know what your customers need. For example, @CDBurns runs a website with the tagline "in-depth sneaker info. http://arch-usa.com/ I haven't sign up for his mailing list but I do follow him and his conversation on disqus. Chris Burns designs,and runs his shoe business but he also has his own publishing arm to the business too. Burns is ahead of the curve. Major Brands are now just realizing that they need a media department. I thought about him when writing this post because just yesterday, he told me about Brooks running shoes and their partnership with Black Girls Run. I'm not a sneaker head but his information appeals to me. This means when I think of sneakers, I remember him. You connecting with your audience through your expertise means they will remember you too.

Are you collecting sales, likes or customers? One thing that soured me on selling books through amazondotcom and even luludotcom was both companies had information on those who purchased my books that I didn't have. Not knowing my customers put me at a disadvantage. It meant that when I had a new book they might like I had to wait until Amazon or lulu got around to telling them. What if I just wanted to keep in touch? I'm a firm believer in KIT Marketing (Keep in Touch Marketing) I also couldn't reach out to them to find out what they liked about my book...( knowing what customers like helps you to create more of it.) \ All this to say; 2. if you haven't already started, It's time to build your own mailing list.