Mel Hopkins

@Cynique , Nope! You sound like a wise woman who's witnessed a lot. And now you have the opportunity to watch this big sh*t show brought to us by a reality TV show performer. Or you can tune out too... I used to think Gil Scott Heron prophecy of " the revolution won't be televised" as something profound. Now I see it's simply because there won't be one. We're not going out with a bang...just a petering out.

Yes... because while I knew of the inequity- I didn't know of the laws that made it possible. What's worse is we haven't stopped it yet. We haven't changed our ways. We continue to vote to allow the oligarchs to take more of our rights. We haven't taken the steps prescribed in the documentary or even from the man who is a confessed economic hit man to act on it. @Troy is sounding the alarm to put an end to it by slowing down Amazon, facebook, google , apple - microsoft - what NY Times called Technology's Frightful Five ... and he posted the push back he received from doing something as simple as boycotting Amazon. Those people are extremely scary...(I was them before I had the information we have today) - So yes, I think we do need more people of every color to keep speaking up and providing solutions. These are laws being enacted that are enslaving people once again. I bet if I tracked my activities of a 24 hour period it would reveal how I'm contributing to poverty in the motherland. In fact, I know it..because I'm a huge coffee and tea drinker ...so even that simple action is aiding in the genocide of Kenyans. @Pioneer1 Question: What part shocked you? What part did you already know but decided there was nothing you could do about it? What simple action can you do to make a difference in all our lives today?

@Troy Ok this exchange is scary. But what's worse in 2008, I was an affiliate and I felt the same way as these devotees. All it took for me to wake up from my slumber was to realize that my book was selling through amazon but I wasn't getting my royalties. But yes, I think this is exactly how we became slaves. "There are none so blind as those who will not see" ...

The U.S. House of Representatives just passed their version of Senate bill which is a large tax cut bill that benefits anyone who earns more than $900,000 a year ...47 Million Americans (what's left of the middle class) are expected to be impacted ... We aren't inching towards the haves and have nots... we are there - slaves and slave masters... This documentary shows how we got there... From the dailymotion video with english subtitles " http://filmow.com/the-end-of-poverty-t71910 The End of Poverty? is a daring, thought-provoking and very timely documentary by award-winning filmmaker, Philippe Diaz, revealing that poverty is not an accident. It began with military conquest, slavery and colonization that resulted in the seizure of land, minerals and forced labor. Today, global poverty has reached new levels because of unfair debt, trade and tax policies -- in other words, wealthy countries exploiting the weaknesses of poor, developing countries. The End of Poverty? asks why today 20% of the planet's population uses 80% of its resources and consumes 30% more than the planet can regenerate? The film has been selected to over 25 international film festivals and will be released in theatres in November 2009. Directed by Philippe Diaz, produced by Cinema Libre Studio with the Robert Schalkenbach Foundation, 104mins, 2008, USA, documentary in English, Spanish, French with English Subtitles. The End of Poverty The End of Poverty"

Yes, I was just reading how others use a customized thank you to return to the website... I'm open to that as well especially since the "buy button" is on my websites. I didn't take into the account that some sell books through shopify, squareup market and gumroad and wordpress pay page but I agree it would have to be flexible enough to incorporate those options too. Plus we would want to make sure that you can verify that the book is aalbc bestseller too. I've been putting together a check list of the ways big 5 tradebook publishing companies market their books for my own use. I truly thought most indie author/publishers had access to the books that detail the activity they didn't need one more... but maybe I'll make it available too. Right now it goes back to paypal confirm - but I will create a page on my website. Then I will connect the custom thank you page via this button. But will you have the information too? How does that work? Either way you'll get your cut but I want it to be seamless accounting. -

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@Troy Absolutely they did! They are sales people supported by THE MARKETING DEPARTMENT!!! Penguin RandomHouse has several types of marketing departments. I worked in one of them (Academic Marketing and Sales) We dealt mostly with backlist titles. There was a marketing department that dealt with only adult front list titles., there was one for children's books ...et al. By the way, Trade book In-house Publicity departments and their publicists don't market books - they work with the authors and get publicity for them - (different department/different activities) There's another department in trade book publishing that is like publicity but they are speakers bureau for authors. Then there's media relations too. When I worked for G.P. Putnam's sons I worked in Special Sales. We handled the marketing and sales for institutional markets and commercial premium incentives sales...) You might think you're discovering books through Ingram - but guess how Ingram gets the info -Trade book publishing Marketing departments and marketing collateral from small presses too. Ingram even has their own marketing department which is probably who pitches and promotes to you too. Marketing is a full-time job. Don't get me started on Communication. lol - in Academic Marketing & Sales we'd produced quarterly catalog that would go to every professor on our mailing list... and then we'd look for other markets to enter. I'd write occasional copy for the catalog, but do you know my primary job was planning and setting up and attending conventions/exhibits and meetings?!!! You know that list you post about all the black book conferences/meetings. Imagine being an exhibitor at most of all the major U.S. conferences. Imagine carting around classics and backlist titles and setting up exhibits around the country... I was that person! And that's just a small part of marketing that trade book publishing companies do... See where I'm going with this? The majority of departments in Big 5 trade book publishing are marketing & sales. Editorial is a small and elite group in the Big 5. All this to say, it is the job of the publisher (big or small) to market their books. Amazon is a distribution channel no different than Ingram. If publishers are leaving it to amazon to market their books too then that's no good. Even when working with AALBC - I would expect the use of the platform and positioning of my books would be worth more than $1 per book .... I’d be grateful for yet another channel but that wouldn't stop me from marketing the heck out of my book - Right now, thank page is self-contained with the checkout ... maybe if I create a paybal button specifically for aalbc -and then you can code a customized thank you page that I can attach to it?

I have customized thank you page and I've also written thank you notes directly. Of course I would be interested in selling wholesale and I have in the past So far my I've also sold my first book through independent sellers - Just like they were Tupperware saleswomen. It was great! I got the idea from one of my readers (and friend) She liked the book so much she sold it at her job. $1.00 per book is fine-. Just as you mentioned Amazon took a lot more - and they had nothing to do with the book -other than sell it from their website (at least the sales the reported to me). I'm not losing control of my inventory again. By the way, I'll let you know when I've release "So, You Want to Be Flight Attendant : A Memoir" - I hit a production snag delayed it. * * * Troy, you know I come from a publishing marketing background so it's difficult for me to understand - someone buying another book if they don't see a book they want to buy on a website? When we sold books at Penguin - professors contacted us for specific books - not "whatever we had"... We marketed books - and that's what they asked for...so if authors/publishers market their books and sell their books on their websites - wouldn't it be because someone was interested in purchasing that book? Or are you saying that Amazon is marketing their books too? I just bought a book today - I was looking for that book - I didn't purchase a book like it ---I purchased the book I wanted to read. I got it from the publisher 's website and they had a paypal option. By the way, they didn't send me a "thank you" - they gave me the option to print my receipt. I remembered my paypal account offers the same. I'm confused by your statement. Are you saying that independent publishers/authors don't market and sell their books - like old school booksellers did back in the day? If not - then it's not Amazon or the reader that's the problem... It's the independent author/booksellers not pushing and promoting their books. That has to change too!

I rarely buy "black" books and when I do they are old books...usually out of print books. I usually learn about new titles through articles that I read . That's usually-my impetus to purchase the book. I buy based on benefits - not word of mouth. If the author or the publisher isn't selling the book, I then go straight to an online retailer. The online retailer of choice is usually amazon - unless I have a Barnes & Noble gift card. If I were to change the way I buy books , it would be based on a change in the marketplace. As an independent author, publisher and bookseller - I've decided not to sell my books through amazon. I don't see the benefit. I removed my debut novel from amazon - (and all online retailers) and my soon to be released book "So, You Want to Be A Flight Attendant" will only be available through me. I haven't decided if I'm going to release it through Lulu yet... So if anyone should boycott Amazon it should be the independent author/publishers. Buying direct from independent publisher will have a greater impact their bottom-line that it will Amazon.

AMEN! I can't even imagine someone saying "oh, yes...I want to spend the rest of my life or even a minute with you, Mr. Potty Mouth"

@Troy Oh no, that's been there. I didn't know that's what you meant. I did put up a widget for popular content and since yours is one the most popular - it's listed on the front page. I'm still bummed out about VSB... Maybe they just wanted the money and job with bennies. (oh well smh)

@CDBurns She tryin' to kill you man...that's sugar it will take you out! LOL.. Just kidding. Beautiful gesture of kindness!

Wow... something so simple... like an archive page? Ok I'll do some research and get on it! That IS what I asked myself... I got very sad too. I thought if you're getting that many visitors then why sell? It made me feel that even traffic won't help me set up a business writing.

@Troy Unfortunately that's not it.. Reading comprehension is a becoming a lost art. Most people don't even have a grasp of semiotics... I included few symbols in my novel that modern Americans would (should) have understood right away but they didn't have a clue. And my symbolism was basic - really basic! Today, people read a few words that tap them emotionally and believe they understand the composition. Recently I had to diagram a essay beginning with the conditional statement . I agree education is the key... but now we have to figure out how to help people become educated.

Thank you, Troy! Thank you for including me! And thank you for your website diagnosis. It helps out a lot! I was considering moving off the service and going over to wordpress.org hosted by godaddy but I may rethink that now. I'm not quite sure how to add those meta-tags and title tags through the wordpress. template. I do get to chat support with my subscription - so I will contact them and ask. Did you use the search feature and type in aalbc. I found about five aalbc related articles. Also I found this article through my categories. Also the link works too -am I misunderstanding? I am a beginner when it comes to html and coding.

This is my question. I can't tell if melhopkins.com is a standalone site or is ranked as wordpress.com . Or it could be because I signed up for the wordspress site before I mapped my domain. With wordpress.org - I don't think you don't get a wordpress domain in addition to your domain name. I hope I didn't make this too confusing. AND... I'm very disappointed in VSB... I thought this was a blackowned site! Edit: Here is their reasoning http://verysmartbrothas.com/why-we-joined-gizmodo-media-group-gmg-explained/

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)

So now we aren't going to use government statistics as the standard because they don't measure up to what you believe you've seen?

@Troy Are you getting that number from somewhere other than bureau of labor statistics. From this chart it looks like the highest unemployment rate for the black community was 17% and from this chart it seems participation rate makes it difficult to have unemployment rate at 50% ... Since you say I play fast and loose with the statistics, please review. I do agree with you on the jobs numbers. I don't really pay attention to them. - other than to figure out who has a steady paycheck lol... I do have a prediction - the job numbers will be high just in time for Christmas. So many contractors are needed to rebuild those states hit hard by the hurricanes.

We have to create the habit... When I saw the monthly subscription fee, a bell went off. Since it wasn't "free" I was able to consider the cost and then decide where I'd like to spend my money.

Great Minds think alike... I did that too. Troy, I write so much I forget what I've written and what are notes from a text I wrote something last year, but I forgot that I had written it . I needed to check if it was my prose or something I heard. I used the free version of grammarly last night - and had to correct my content for what felt like 50 times. I finally got an "A" but I can't do that for a manuscript - it would be too time-consuming. Grammarly is superior and its features such a checking for plagiarized documents is stellar. -Still, I'm very serious about patronizing members of our community before I go outside.