CDBurns

You have to admit, it is entertaining! I agree that the Repubs are a mess, but the Dems are equally as shoddy, they just don't have a vocal, poorly coiffed, tan mom leading the chorus. When it all boils down I have a feeling the young San Antonio mayor/Hud guy Julian Castro will end up with the nomination and we will have Obama 2.0 and we will finally be rid of the Bush and Clinton family trees and the repubs will have to seriously retool to ever gain the White House again.

I can only shake my head at this.

Man I don't even know where to start here. I have to process this and then come back. I'm just bugged out by the fact that this dude has declared that Black Women can't keep Black Men if a White Homo comes after them. Wow!

The circle

Congrats and good luck with sales. Thanks for sharing. It's nice to see another sci-fi writer coming up. As time permits I will try to check it out in the Lending Library so you can rack up some KENP points.

I'm too through!!!!!!! Here I was looking for a Michael Jordan reference and I get Cynique straight outta meme! Picks up the dropped mic and leaves the internet! lol!

LOL! It was worth writing something just so I could check back and read Cynique's post! Thanks for the compliment and keep on rolling, I have a feeling even in death we get to watch all of this madness all over again.

I honestly don't have time to read. The books I am reading tend to deal with business, coding and SEO or other things to enhance sales. So I can't comment on this at all. I'm also reading to keep up with my wife and son and they have been reading Trilogies like Divergent and Maze Runner. I am reading the book Why Your Five Year Old Could Not Have Done That, which is about art by people like Pollack and helps me to strengthen my point that some classic art sucks, lol. I have to be honest though, I'm not reading many books of fiction.

Hi Shannon, We all feel the exact same way. I've been writing about how Social media has decimated the personal blog for pleasure and for business. That is the whole goal of what we are discussing; how to begin building better blogs. Looking at your blog, you seem to be still active and that's a good thing. I guess you are saying you aren't as active as you once were. Here is a chance for the idea I'm thinking about and I've mentioned before. AALBC has a blog platform. If Troy took the time to add those of us who are contributing to the discussion, as writers, we bring our traffic to AALBC and we have a common platform that makes AALBC more like an Examiner or Huffpost. In each of our post, if we can use our own Amazon codes for books and film, we benefit. Troy benefits with his adsense account and we all build links to our sites. I think this is really the only way to begin getting traffic to our sites consistently. Literally this is what will have to happen for any of us to see any benefits. I'm more than willing to add people who write and have really good blogs like yours.

That's funny how the narrative remains the same from Cynique, to Troy, to my story. Except in high school most of my teachers were Black. This is in Memphis though which was over 70% Black at the time. However in college I had four Black professors: 1 at the JUCO I attended and 3 at SDSU. Had I taken Black studies courses this would have been different, but I didn't. The reason I stayed in the education profession so long was because I thought it was important that I be there to represent US. I have finally come to realize that as much as I didn't learn, I could have taken it upon myself to learn more which is what I did. My thesis consisted of novels that I chose. We very rarely read anything Black authors in my MFA program outside of the traditional Hayden, Brooks, Wright, Baldwin and Hurston short stories and poems. It would have helped to have more narratives, but I eventually looked for books on my own. I guess with Black teachers this process is sped up and we gain knowledge of self much faster which also empowers us. Those are the systemic issues that Troy discusses as preventing us from being as great as we could be. However, I was always aware of the various jobs and I actually saw the people in those professions because in the 70s the rich Black folks stayed in the same hood as the poor Black folks until they didn't anymore.

I understood this without the correction. We went to school a few years apart (wink, wink) and I didn't have any Black writing teachers either. I know for a fact this shaped me in a way that made me write with a greater emphasis on Black culture. I always felt I had to relay OUR story vs just A story.

Good suggestions...I'm just worried that they aren't able to be implemented. As an example, I once made a call for writers for my blog. The requirement was the bloggers all needed their own platforms and had all of their ad revenue channels set up so that when they wrote an article that was about a book for instance, they could add their own Amazon Affiliate code. I eventually only added 1 writer and that writer has done a very good job, but consistency is the issue. I'd like to add more writers, but inevitably the writers only want to focus on their own sites. They don't realize that the real strength is in co-ops. It's why I choose to spend my social media time here on AALBC and Facebook. I feel that I have good engagement and it benefits AALBC for me to share what I know or have learned. It also benefits me to be associated with the oldest Black Lit company on the web. I enhance the pockets of the owner as opposed to just throwing away all of my equity to billionaires who sell my info. I choose Facebook because if I do well I will need to be on one of these outlets (Twitter, Facebook, Linked In, Instagram) to reach those people who don't understand the importance of visiting websites. Whew, that was a lot to say and ask you this, how does this get implemented and started?

My problem is two fold: I have the sneaker site which is where most of my original following and following back derived from, and then I have the CBP crowd where I've been following and retweeting people that are startups or bloggers, etc. So I followed a lot of people early on to create interest in my footwear company. I still need to tweet about both the shoes and the books, so I have a confusing social media platform. I'm now just looking at who adds me on Twitter and then I'm following back based on my interest level. The problem is I only interact with twitter when I share something and someone responds. I don't take the time to scroll through and retweet very often. So my engagement is very topical and without a lot of substance. I have really chosen Facebook as my primary form of social and if I didn't think it looked odd I would delete my Instagram and Twitter since I don't really interact with them. You know like I do how little I get from Social if I don't spend a ton of time on it. At least with Facebook I'm able to post pictures, links, etc and keep up with people. I simply am not interested in posting so much to the Gram and to Twitter. I do realize that the moment I get a big time cosign it won't matter what social media platform I use, I will get engagement. People only want to follow and listen to stars.

Thanks for that first hand recollection!!!! Good stuff as always.

When I was in the MFA program, my white mentor/instructor told me that I didn't need to write with a chip on my shoulder. That I had no responsibility to anything except the story. I have never learned to do this. I have always written from the experiences I've had as a Black male in America and abroad. He told me I would eventually stop writing due to my insistence on worrying about how the writing will be received or accepted. Ultimately, I guess he was right. I haven't written a book of fiction or short stores... or poems, in years. I've resorted to business writing which is less about race and more about numbers. Does a Black writer have a responsibility to shape the text to and for Black people... I think it's hard not too. Hence the lack of a Harry Potter or big crossover novel by a Black author. Then again, the lack of crossover appeal happens in every artform except music.

You are basically saying what I mean, by I don't get it. I do get it but I just don't see the value. In regard to the limitations, if you don't have 2 to 1 ratio of following to followers, you can't follow any other people once you follow 2000 and you don't have more than 1000 followers. I have attempted to follow people so I could begin engaging with them on some small biz aspects, but the system prevents me from following any more people until I have added a similar number of people. In other words, I'm stalled at 1999 following and 1212 followers. I have to dump some people to follow any new people since I don't get followers at a high rate, and I'm unwilling to pay for them. Sorry I haven't been very active lately. Did the family DC trip and all of that walking has thrown me off of my online game, lol.

I still don't really get Twitter and with the way it's setup to prevent you from following people if you don't have a reciprical amount of followers, I don't place a lot of stock into it, but I do share my articles when I blog. You nailed it though, if we simply took the time to retweet and share each other's post this would take care of itself. As it stands we will end up relying on another service that does what we should do naturally. This is good info though.

It's Napa! Anyone from Cali realizes that this is the kind of stuff that happens in Napa. It's the deep south of the Bay Area. Not surprising at all.

This new program is for those looking to publish Kindle books. I have not read through the program yet, but it strikes me as odd that you can create your own Kindle book and now Amazon is looking to actually give you an advance if they choose you for their program... which also guarantees 40 reviews right off the bat if selected along with that 1500.00 advance. Check this out: https://kindlescout.amazon.com/submit?ref_=pe_446670_147768640_ks_kdp_AugDirMail

You know I agree of course and I love the Freudian slip of "common cracker dealer".

You know I'm cheap so I won't pay Fiverr, Five of anything, lol. Seriously that's a great tool for people and definitely takes less time than sitting and learning to use your software. Excellent heads up.

"there wasn't an equal playing field but it was close" is what I said. I remember at one point rocking Jazzy Joyce, Sweet T, Finesse & Synquis, Salt & Pepa, Mrs. Melody, Queen Latifah, MC Lyte, Oaktown 357, JJ Fad... there were a lot more women rappers in the 80s, and early 90s. Even Angie Stone, the singer, was a part of the original Sugarhill Records. There were a fair amount of women in the game and they could battle with the guys. When I say close I don't mean that it was exactly equal, but women definitely had a presence. What did happen at that time was that every crew had a female counterpart or participant. This basically remained the way things were until the last ten years or so. Even Jay Z had Foxy Brown and Biggie had Lil Kim and Master P had Mia X. They were no where near as strong as the female emcees were in the past... Today though that female voice is basically non existent and the females involved are basically saying the same things as men... so where is the balance? There isn't any and well, there never has been. When we look at music from the past the attacks on women were very rare, actually non-existent. There wasn't any music that attacked women. Even Marvin Gaye's Hear My Dear album was supposed to be garbage to fulfill the divorce but he was so talented it still came out and became a classic. The attack of women in song didn't happen until Hip-Hop so Cynique is right.

I actually didn't intend for you to run it. I took a few minutes to create one as an example. I have to wonder though if people are going to have a problem making their own banners and get scared away from doing so because they don't know how. I am going to make more banners and upload them of course, but just for those who don't have a lot of expertise I will add this explanation of how I made the banner up there with just the tools on this computer and not Adobe products: 1. Open Microsoft Publisher to a blank page 2. Once it's open use the shapes button on the tool bar to create your square or rectangle. Make the rectangle according to your ruler bar at the top about 10 inches long and 10 2 inches tall 3. Use the word art feature to create the words, or if you have a picture then fill the rectangle with the picture and then add the word art. 4. Once you come up with the ad copy then you can select all on the page and right click the items choose Save as picture, and select png, jpg, or gif. 5. Once the pic is saved then go into Microsoft Office Picture Manager 6. Go to crop and you can then reduce the size to 728x90 or whatever shape you decided to use. I hope this helps out a bit.

Well you know I own all of my ISBNs because I was running the publishing company through Lightning Source. Using your own ISBNs limits the distribution of your book through Createspace. Amazon wants to control the ISBNs of books produced by them. My book isn't available to libraries through this system and as I've said it doesn't show up on any of the other websites at all. If I could begin generating more sales I would immediately move back to Lightning Source since then my book would be in Ingrams and be distributed on B&N and other platforms. But as it stands, I won't do so until I begin to sell more books.

On the whole I agree with the statement about the misogynistic nature of Hip-Hop. However as with all aspects of life, it takes two to tango and this mistreatment of women was gradual. For the first decade of Hip-Hop there wasn't an equal playing field but it was close. It wasn't until right around 88-89 that Hip-Hop began to change into the abusive music it has become. As a matter of fact, Ice Cube made it a point to bring on Yo-Yo who created the IBWC (Intelligent Black Women's Coalition) at the same time that Queen Latifah headed up the her record label and created the song U.N.I.T.Y addressing the constant barrage of calling women bitches and mistreating them. The unfortunate situation was that mainstream Hip-Hop continued it's onslaught and as gangsta rap began to fade, southern Hip-Hop and Masta P and Cash Money came on to the scene with ridiculous infectious songs that women danced to these songs instead of fighting against it. I mean, women danced to "Girl you look good, why don't you back that azz up!" There has been a degradation in the mainstream since that hasn't slowed down for 20 years. Whatever power Hip-Hop had when the Message and White Lines and Fight The Power was made has been pushed to the back by the mainstream garbage that takes the lead in the community. As I've said though, as the music goes, so do the people and the music hasn't done shit in 30 years in the Black community and look at where we are.