CDBurns

This is MK's dad huh? Nice lineage right there.

This is a short one right here. It's only 80 pages, but it's good. Here is the ISBN: 978-1518679209 There is more than enough time to do a lot of things. I wake up really early and go to sleep at midnight. My life is pretty simple. I have a routine with my sneaker biz now so I actually have more time than I used to have, so I'm focusing on putting myself in a position where I can't be ignored anymore. I have a speech for an event called Ignite Memphis on the 23rd. I'm hoping to parlay that into more speeches and book sales. You and I are doers, but unfortunately people buy books by people who simply know the right people and they pay those same people to speak when they have no real experience at anything other than being a star which is not business experience at all. I think our time is coming though. There is going to be shift. I think people are getting tired of being used.

That book club has a nice looking little site and they are using Amazon Associates. Book clubs have to do a better job of connecting the dots. All they are missing is Adsense, but I'm sure you'll remind them of that or maybe they are reading this and will push forward turning their site into a hub for dialogue. That's why I offered to pay for that domain. I know doggone well, if you do that for multiple authors that will be a serious expense. It's definitely a good idea though.. I have to do the same as you. I have a number of sites I started for people who just couldn't get it started and I don't want to pay for those either. There should be an option in the hosting service to bill another person after signing up. I can't wait for you to read my latest book. I have a chapter titled "Get Your Ass Off of Social Media Like That" . You can tell what that will deal with. This new book is my I'm fed up with it all book. Here is the page: http://www.cbpublish.com/cbp-online-shop/f-k-speeches-inspiration-where-do-i-get-the-money-to-start/

Be warned that a search for Christopher D Burns leads to a gay porn star, lol. It's why I never registered the domain and left it out there. I just stuck with CBP. That's interesting that it was still available. Maybe one day when I become prominent enough, I will buy it from you. Yeah I like the circles and the content in the center of the page, although the words may be a bit too big. I don't envy you at all. I used to have to do this with the basketball site and I'm glad I don't have to do it anymore. Keep pushing forward. I think it looks good, but even with my info at the top, I don't like how that slider looks. A traditional banner is definitely the way to go and just as efficient I think. Those big sliders on other sites are just too big, lol.

I agree about engaging each other, that is a loss. I don't agree on the focus on video. I'm using a white board in my videos and they are more like lectures where you can take notes. I think it's all in the way you look at how the content is presented. I've got an average viewing time of 3-4 minutes which is longer than many people will stay and read my site. That's a good thing. Consider this, our culture's addiction to video stems from books. Most successful tv shows/movies were either books or graphic novels so the focus on video and images is actually keeping the book industry afloat in some instances. It's all about perspective. I'm sure you could say for "other" books not for Black books, but I'm looking at the overall industry of video not just youtube vids. YouTube is an excellent place for content and I think the idea of focusing on the perceived loss of brain cells, is the wrong way to approach this. Had I launched a YouTube when I ran my CCB sports site, I'd probably still be running that website. It was a huge mistake on my part. All of the content you have on books is perfect fodder for a video show. The more content you have the more it shows up in search and it enhances the site and creates another option for selling ads and marketing.

I think the slider is obnoxious. It's moving too fast and it's too big. I think a static ad or a traditional banner sizes ad in the header would be better. Leave the body for all of the good content or recent blog posts, so people can access the content quicker and stay on the site. I would say make the blog the home page and use the sidebars for ads, but I really like the center of the page the way it is. Some of the alignment is off, but that's to be expected when coding. The slogan at the bottom of the page is very good: Reading is Social! I like that a lot. The mustard in the background isn't bad. Hard work, but it's looking very clean.

No surprise here. Hell, ever I've started investing more time in video. It just makes sense. Even with the small amount of viewers I have the pennies are already rolling in. It just makes sense to monetize that way. Subscription is dead. I don't even understand how all of these companies packaging clothes and razors are earning investments on subscription platforms... then again I guess I know people don't like shopping at brick & mortars as much.

I know of it. They do some pretty important work in Memphis in conjunction with a few pan African styled groups. I was a mentor at the school down the street, but I haven't patronized the biz yet. On the book event, more than likely I won't go which I always say is my major flaw in my business is my lack of networking. I simply don't get out very much, but as you have already lived through, networking is ten times harder with children. Especially my children who have a host of functions to go to and we are often split in two directions. As the kids get older, my ability to network will improve. My son will be driving in a couple of years which will only leave my daughter to run to events everywhere. I will stop by eventually, but I've been saying that for a while.

Right on!

No problem at all and I definitely know the saying but Bush doesn't, lol. Good luck

Okay, you definitely went the wrong route with that. Once you had your books edited then your first stop could have been Lulu.com or Createspace. You also had at your disposal a company named Lightning Source that works in direct relationship with Ingram and gives you the potential to place your book every where. More important is that if your book was released and you have the time and energy (which you will still need when you get a traditional book deal) you could have set your website up to take orders before making a single book which means that any thing you made would have been profit. We do a yearbook for our kids every year on Lulu. We homeschool our kids. The yearbook is Full Gloss Color and typically between 50 to 100 pages. The price ranges from 13-20 dollars per book to produce and we only make a limited amount for family to show them what the kids are doing. Our priced is based on 8 pictures per page full color from digital files. If we made 50 copies the price would drop considerably. In short, you definitely got jobbed by that company. A gloss children's book with 60 pages and as few pages as with illustrations that you had saddle stitched should only be about 7-11 bucks a book. That's not an exaggeration but a very good estimation. Using Lulu you would not have spent a dime up front. As you continue to pursue an agent, you should rewrite your business plan and look at an arrangement with Troy and with bloggers of books (which are hard to find these days) and then look at your local schools and build your business around using either Lulu, Createspace or Lightning Source... in that order. If your book is good enough all schools have funds available under Title 1 and they can purchase class sets. You can literally sell your books to the grade level and set up a day with the author event which teachers would die to have because it takes one day of teacher planning away from them and gives them a break, lol. Either way it goes, I definitely wish you luck on the next step.

I guess that definitely is the point isn't it. It's unfortunate though because he sold a ton of records as the old Kanye and they were very good records. The dude seems to be regressing to stay relevant. Ol Mike Myers has got the old man weight going!

That's interesting that your price was so high. What service did you use? I understand wanting an agent to submit the book for you to publishers, but be aware that the timeline of publication increases tremendously for your book if it is picked up. I hope it works out and Troy is the man for delivering all of that information. This board is much better than spending all day on Facebook. Good stuff everyone.

I wish you luck with the traditional route of publishing. I'm sure has a link somewhere on the site to the Black pack literary agents. If you get to frustrated submitting, go the self publishing route. Just make sure you have a hell of a plan when you start.

Right, I didn't post it to take a shot at the destruction of Katrina... I posted it because it is hands down one of the funniest things I'd ever seen on television that wasn't intended to be funny. The Kanye today is a far cry from this young guy above. This guy could have changed the world. The new guy... not so much.

I will leave this here since Troy said something similar. lol

I don't know about paying writers... It's hard enough to build a consistent user base, but add on to that paying writers and you drain what few funds a business can obtain. I'm stating here clearly that the only time pay should be considered is in the event of a very big article (viral) article. If the author understands pings, and backlinks they will see the benefit in creating content here and on their own sites. Also everyone wants to charge the small business, but they are more than willing to write for bigger, richer sites without requesting any money. In regard to uniqueness you're right. One of the most visited articles on CBP was the http://www.cbpublish.com/business-of-lipstick-and-cockroaches/ post I did on Shark Tank and the Lip Bar. That article was up for a few months and then all of a sudden I had visits from all over the net. It was great! Did it turn into repeat visits? No, but it did create a spike. With enough of those type of articles a site can grow pretty fast.

Cynique said what I was thinking about you Troy and the hype around the anti-White Star Wars, lol. Cynique Stephon Marbury (Coney Island's finest) recently called Michael Jordan on the lack of interest Jordan has always shown in supporting Black movements and his complete lack of empathy in the deaths caused from his shoes. http://thegrio.com/2015/10/07/stephon-marbury-starburys-jordan-greedy-affordable/ Everyone in hoops knows Jordan is an asshole. I make my living from the guy though so I don't have a lot of room to condemn him. I did know that Mrs. Lucas was a sister, but I had no idea she was that accomplished and never thought to research or look her up. Thanks for that information. I just told my wife that our part of town has wing shops and a rib shop, but nothing as nice as a Sylvia's like Troy discussed. It's like we don't even study culinary arts and open restaurants. We just throw something together and wait for people to support us because we are black. In this part of town there isn't one book store or art gallery. While in the hipster parts of town there are an abundance of small bookstores, coffee shops and art galleries. I guess it shows where our interests lies.

I happen to think the outrage is phony and meant to build up interest from a market that doesn't actually go to see Star Wars. In other words, you can have a ridiculously successful movie if Black people decide to get behind it to "offset" racial bias. It's all in the machine Troy. It's all in the machine. That "Do The White Thing" skit is bananas. With gentrification rampant throughout every city this scene is actually playing out every where. It's disheartening, but necessary for a city to survive. The black areas of cities are so untogether they can't attract the type of businesses that will allow the area to develop. Blacks don't even have the foresight to develop their own restaurants outside of wing shops. So here in Memphis you actually have suburb areas with middle class Blacks doing very well, but only chain restaurants. To get a taste of locally owned restaurants you have to travel to the hipster areas in Memphis. There aren't any art galleries, book stores, nothing in these black suburbs. Who can blame White people for moving back into areas that have historical significance that the people who created that area fail to support?

Talk about an accomplished author/person in Robert Fleming! He's the kind of guy that you probably just want to sit in a jazz club with and talk music all day. I think you have to keep the social sharing buttons on the site, because they do create temporary spikes. The traffic that comes from it is not consistent, but one person may stay and browse. Adding the social buttons will enable those temporary browsers to share which is what everyone has become used to doing in this new internet world of social media. As far as reviews on Black books here is a link to a few of them: http://www.cbpublish.com/business-get-sht-done-how-to-stop-quitting-and-start-succeeding/ http://www.cbpublish.com/the-bond-more-than-a-review/ http://www.cbpublish.com/i-want-you-to-shut-the-fck-up-admiration-not-a-review/ Not a black book, but in the realm: http://www.cbpublish.com/honky-another-quirky-book-review/ http://www.cbpublish.com/a-review-on-pimpin-and-business-yep/ http://www.cbpublish.com/greens-by-bennie-herron-a-poetry-interpretationreview-its-never-simple/ http://www.cbpublish.com/disintegration-the-splintering-of-black-america-an-analysis/ You can take them all. I have a lot of film reviews as well. When it comes to content I've been loading up for years. I've just been waiting on the world to catch up with me. Film: http://www.cbpublish.com/night-catches-us-a-review/ http://www.cbpublish.com/i-will-follow-contemplation/ http://www.cbpublish.com/what-did-you-do-on-summer-break-a-review/ http://www.cbpublish.com/the-butler-on-mlk-day/ http://www.cbpublish.com/a-huey-p-newton-story-a-quick-review/ Not Black but in the realm: http://www.cbpublish.com/rabbit-hole-a-review/ http://www.cbpublish.com/for-colored-girls-a-review/ http://www.cbpublish.com/commentary-and-thoughts-on-the-film-skin/ Oh and I still think that the creation of user accounts for your writers would really simplify your job... (Am I saying something you already know? Probably, lol). This is why I've pretty much stuck with Wordpress as my CMS. I can add users and they can log in and write at anytime the choose. I only have one writer, but even he has started doing film reviews. I would hate to have to migrate all of your content and I think that's what you are doing, so I hope you will have user accounts for your writers.

Checked out the wix site and saw that you have a couple of books on Createspace. https://www.createspace.com/5432964 You definitely want to share that since everything here is indexed on Google and can be discovered in searches.

I don't know if the "women from the past" pic is meant to be funny, but the lady from carnival is one helluva woman from the past, lol. Very cool how you basically casted your film. Way to manifest your book into a film. Good luck with the project!

This is what I've said about users who come from Facebook, they always return right back to Facebook within seconds. So even your CTR is deceptive if you aren't measuring it the way you are. Is there anything you want me to do with my page right now? I saw the book review link at the bottom of the page. I have a few black book, book reviews that are ready to go. Social media is wicked, wicked tool. Right now if you aren't there, you miss interaction with people, but spending time there doesn't help you profit anything. I'm already seeing the benefits of launching my Youtube station and I barely have any visitors. My job next is to get those videos on some biz websites and other places. Not just Social Media. Like you said, the time is better invested in building up individual websites. The problem is reciprocity.

That's me up there I forgot to log in.

I'm not sure. I'm typically good at copy but I don't know what to write. That's been my problem forever is trying to figure out what to pitch and sell to readers. On that question you asked me on Facebook, I would have to guess that 50 people clicked through on that link? It would be good to know. I think DT Trice is awesome and an incredible writer, btw.