Troy

Check out the update for 2017. Unfortunately the outlook is pretty grim...

Back in March of 2011 I wrote a article attempting to raise awareness about the struggles Black Book Websites. This was in direct reaction to the unexpected and total beat down Google just gave us. as I described in this forum. I did not mention the abrupt and dramatic drop in AALBC.com's traffic from Google search because I did not yet understand that it was not my fault, and I was ashamed of my perceived failure. Again, I'd brought into the assumption that if you fail at SEO (search engine optimization) or SMM (social media Marketing) that the problem was with you. I understand today that this is not true and that excellent businesses are penalized by Google simply because they are Google's competition (this is essence of the $2.7B fine the EU levied against Google). The article, Black Book Websites Need Love Too argues about the importance of Black book websites. For over 15 years, I've maintained and shared list of other Black book websites I was a very labor intensive to publish the information because I had to look up the new information, resort the information on the webpage; it took a few hours. As a result, months would go by between updates. I was shocked when I noticed during the update I performed in March 2011 that 20% of the websites had gone away! I wrote; "... I feel it is time to emphasize why websites dedicated to Black books are just as important as physical stores. If these websites are taken for granted they too will disappear, and we will have lost another important platform for celebrating and showcasing books by and about people of African descent." The websites pictured in the graphic above were some of the most prominent Black book websites. Unfortunately my words did not seem to have much of impact. By October of 2015 I was prompted to post an article on this discussion forum, Black Book Websites Going, Going.... (Note: By 2015 I know Google subordinated my discussion forum posts to Blog posts in search engine ranking, but I wanted to leverage the power of my community. I was really very interested in working on removing our collective dependency on Google. Today, sadly, I know that goal was unrealistic, but I still have not given up--hence articles like this one to raise awareness). I updated the graphic from 4 years earlier and greyed out the all of the sites that had shut down. Fully 25% of the websites I'd been tracking had shut down including the majority of the most prominent ones I identifies 4 years earlier. Exasperated I wrote, "...I feel like I'm the only nut running around complaining. Turning into an old curmudgeon, bitching about the way things used to be... Of course I appreciate that I run one of these websites so I'm far more sensitive to this issue than most. But there are still readers out there right? Don't they miss these websites? I know I do." Today, because of the AALBC.com's upgrade, my list list of Black book websites is stored in a database and updates can actually be performed automatically, saving me hours of effort, and publishing the information in virtually realtime. I execute the process manually to check the output and look for bugs. When I ran the update yesterday (6/27/2017) I noticed that the list of sites was starting to grow thin because too many were failing to meet my minimal criteria for inclusion, which was to have an Alexa rank. Alexa (owned by Amazon), is an imperfect way to rank website. I say imperfect because unless you volunteer to give them your traffic data they can only estimate your site's traffic (I do not give them my traffic stats). I used Alexa long before Amazon purchased them to essentially capture the site that were essentially working hard enough to get the minimal amount of traffic to earn an Alexa ranking. I did not want to indiscriminately share every website the Alexa ranking also gave me an easy way to rank the websites. Previously (before 6/27/17) sites without an Alexa rank were excluded from my list. Because the list was starting to get short and because the additional exposure and link from AALBC.com might might these sites. I decided to remove the Alexa ranking restriction which resulting in the additional of more than 20 new sites to the webpage. SItes without an Alexa rank are assigned a rank of 30,000,000 (I think Alexa ranks on the top 30 million websites). I quickly discovered more than half of these newly added sites were no longer active! As far as I'm concerned we are in a crisis situation as far as our representation on the web. Now I know some people, new to the web, might say this can't be true look at the impact of "Black Twitter." If you know how to work social media you can bring attention to yourself. People who believe this have no clue what we've lost. If they believe Facebook pages are a better alternative to what had we've ve lost more culturally than I can explain... One day I hope to be able to write about how Black book websites and physical stores are thriving not just through the support from our community by through the support of those outside the community interested in learning and even supporting our culture. Check out the websites on my list, and consider placing an order from them. Sure you may need to pay a bit more, or wait a little longer to get the product than you would if you purchased it via Amazon, but you'll be making an investment in a businesses that support you, your culture and community. AALBC.com currently sells books through affiliate relationships; selling books whose orders are fulfilled by of all the major retailers, independents, and even directly through publishers and authors. AALBC.com generates commissions through most of these sales. So if you've discovered a book you think you like here please purchase it through our site. Authors, you must buy your books from indie booksellers (read this article). The more you support us the more we can (and would want) to support you. That's a no brainer right? In 2017 Black book website need lover more than ever.

Dude, Google can squash me at any moment and AALBC.com, I'm sorry to say, will just die. There will be no publicity or coverage, no bakes sales or crowd sourcing to raise money, it will just be over. You see people believe their failure to secure traffic has to do with them not creating valuable content. The biggest factor I'd argue Google. Webmasters have to jump through every hoop Google holds up. Miss one and you're done..done! I shared this graph with you before right? I share it because it is publically available, and while the data is not 100% accurate, it is very reflective of my relative traffic over time. It is pretty clever really how they were able to plot this chart without access to my traffic. Basically this company gathers search engine results (big data stuff), and are able to derive good estimates of traffic. In my case in January 1991 my traffic dropped >75% overnight! My google revenue dropped from more than $2,000 per month to less than $200. This was the result of a google algorithm update. Companies across a wide variety of industries were simply clobbered, including many bookstores who did not know what hit them. This was before Google started placing their books in front of search engine results for queries about books. This effectively made it impossible for a book site to obtain traffic. I've seen excellent book sites come and go, sites no one remembers. My site has recovered and this year will probably be a record year for page views, but Imagine if the site was able to growth without Google slap down. I'll be the first to admit however that the site is probably much better than it would have been were it not for me jumping through Google hoops. But just today I was updating my Black Book Site database and the results were sobering--Black book sites are dropping like flies! I wrote about this in a new conversation. Black book sites have two significant problems Google controls access to book sites in exactly the same why it is described in the video above Even if you do manage to rank in search and get visitors people will only by from Amazon

The following is a reaction I received via email. I actually met this respondent, Deborah Day, during the Sacramento Black Book Festival last month. She is a bookseller, publisher, and author. Hi Troy, This is a great article and I will post it on Facebook. You are so right. We as Independent Booksellers can compete against Amazon, when we really look at all the benefits we have to offer our customers. Knowing our market and community needs, can help us greatly provide the best offer, whether it's product, price, selection or delivery to "get the business". And our market footprint should be local, national and international. And since, there are only 80 owned black books stores in the U.S., there is no threatening competition among each other. My belief is that we need to do all we can to build and protect our markets. If it is our creativity that birthed the book and the business, then we should profit the most from that effort. Yes we can write, illustrate and produce our own books and tell our own stories, but the other important factor is that we must also control the distribution. This is why our Independent Bookstores are so important online and in our communities. We need to keep our eyes on the ball and not loose our grip on this market. It's not just Amazon's dominating presence and practices eroding our market share, but there are other undercurrents online that threaten our businesses that include hate cyber attacks and corruption. Now I am not totally against Amazon, because I buy books from them too, but only if I can't get a book from the publisher or a distributer, and I need a book quickly to complete an order. But, I didn't like it when Amazon started allowing resellers to undersell publishers with the same new or used book. Because, my book, "Mindful Messages", got stolen and bootlegged on Amazon and I lost money. Now I am seeing many black authors, bypassing Amazon and selling their books direct from their own websites. Which can be successfully done with lots of social media. Like someone said, "We are who we have been waiting for." And when we have the right conscious mind, we will seek each other out to do business with one another. And we will go out of our way if need be, to support one another in sustaining black businesses. And we will recognize the importance of the full circle of exponential economics and it's impact on empowering our communities. And then and only then will it be an ever continuing reality. Deborah Day Ashay by the Bay I'd heard about bootlegging up books for year, but Amazon has really created a major platform for selling knock off products, including books. Debirah said she wanted to sue, but Amazon was not helpful at all.

Wealthy white people don't care about this. The aspire to own the teams. We aspire the work for them. While the issue was raised as a racial one. It is really one of class (it always is). Poor white people locked out of factory jobs, farm jobs, and now the NBA. No one really cares. Jerry West clearly doesn't. This is why Trump is appealing to poor whites; he give voice to their rage,

The attorney Margrethe Vestager is my new hero. While 3 Billion dollars is chump change to Google. It is a step in the right direct and U.S. regulators really should be ashamed of themselves. They have been pathetically inadequate for failing to act on this at all. I guess that is because Google owns American politicians. The video below sums up the problem quite succinctly. Y'all know I've been complaining about for years.

Librarian of Congress (Carla Hayden) Names Tracy K. Smith Poet Laureate Press Contact: Jennifer Gavin (202) 707-1940 Public Contact: Robert Casper (202) 707-1308 Website: Poetry at the Library of Congress Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden today announced the appointment of Tracy K. Smith as the Library’s 22nd Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry for 2017-2018. Smith will take up her duties in the fall, opening the Library’s annual literary season in September with a reading of her work in the Coolidge Auditorium. Smith, a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and a professor at Princeton University, succeeds Juan Felipe Herrera as Poet Laureate. “It gives me great pleasure to appoint Tracy K. Smith, a poet of searching,” Hayden said. “Her work travels the world and takes on its voices; brings history and memory to life; calls on the power of literature as well as science, religion and pop culture. With directness and deftness, she contends with the heavens or plumbs our inner depths—all to better understand what makes us most human.” “I am profoundly honored,” Smith said. “As someone who has been sustained by poems and poets, I understand the powerful and necessary role poetry can play in sustaining a rich inner life and fostering a mindful, empathic and resourceful culture. I am eager to share the good news of poetry with readers and future readers across this marvelously diverse country.” Smith joins a long line of distinguished poets who have served in the position, including Juan Felipe Herrera, Charles Wright, Natasha Trethewey, Philip Levine, W.S. Merwin, Kay Ryan, Charles Simic, Donald Hall, Ted Kooser, Louise Glück, Billy Collins, Stanley Kunitz, Robert Pinsky, Robert Hass and Rita Dove. The new Poet Laureate is the author of three books of poetry, including “Life on Mars” (2011), winner of the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry; “Duende” (2007), winner of the 2006 James Laughlin Award and the 2008 Essence Literary Award; and “The Body’s Question” (2003), winner of the Cave Canem Poetry Prize. Smith is also the author of a memoir, “Ordinary Light” (2015), a finalist for the 2015 National Book Award in nonfiction and selected as a notable book by the New York Times and the Washington Post. For her poetry, Smith has received a Rona Jaffe Writers Award and a Whiting Award. In 2014, the Academy of American Poets awarded her with the Academy Fellowship, given to one poet each year to recognize distinguished poetic achievement. In 2016, she won the 16th annual Robert Creeley Award and was awarded Columbia University’s Medal for Excellence. In the Pulitzer Prize citation for “Life on Mars,” judges lauded its “bold, skillful poems, taking readers into the universe and moving them to an authentic mix of joy and pain." Toi Derricotte, poet and Academy of American Poets chancellor, said “the surfaces of a Tracy K. Smith poem are beautiful and serene, but underneath, there is always a sense of an unknown vastness. Her poems take the risk of inviting us to imagine, as the poet does, what it is to travel in another person’s shoes.” Born in Falmouth, Massachusetts in 1972, and raised in Fairfield, California, Tracy K. Smith earned a B.A. in English and American literature and Afro-American studies from Harvard University and an M.F.A. in creative writing from Columbia University. From 1997 to 1999, she was a Stegner Fellow in poetry at Stanford University. Smith has taught at Medgar Evers College of the City University of New York, at the University of Pittsburgh and at Columbia University. She is currently the Roger S. Berlind ’52 Professor in the Humanities and director of the creative writing program at Princeton University. Background of the Laureateship The Library of Congress Poetry and Literature Center is the home of the Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry, a position that has existed since 1937, when Archer M. Huntington endowed the Chair of Poetry at the Library. Since then, many of the nation’s most eminent poets have served as Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress and, after the passage of Public Law 99-194 (Dec. 20, 1985), as Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry—a position which the law states “is equivalent to that of Poet Laureate of the United States.” During his or her term, the Poet Laureate seeks to raise the national consciousness to a greater appreciation of the reading and writing of poetry. The Library keeps to a minimum the specific duties required of the Poet Laureate, who opens the literary season in the fall and closes it in the spring. In recent years, Laureates have initiated poetry projects that broaden the audiences for poetry. For more information on the Poet Laureate and the Poetry and Literature Center, visit loc.gov/poetry/. Consultants in Poetry and Poets Laureate Consultants in Poetry and their terms of service can be found at loc.gov/poetry/laureate-2011-present.html. To learn more about Poet Laureate projects, visit loc.gov/poetry/laureate-projects.html. The Library of Congress is the world’s largest library, offering access to the creative record of the United States—and extensive materials from around the world—both on site and online. It is the main research arm of the U.S. Congress and the home of the U.S. Copyright Office. Explore collections, reference services and other programs and plan a visit at loc.gov, access the official site for U.S. federal legislative information at congress.gov, and register creative works of authorship at copyright.gov. ### The other Black “Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry” (the official title) were Rita Dove (1993–1995, 1999–2000), Natasha Trethewey (2012–2014), Gwendolyn Brooks (1985–1986), and Robert Hayden (1976–1978).

No, of course not. Whites are focused on things that matter more, getting educated, building and maintaining wealth. They leave the entertaining to Negros and foreigners. Have you attended a professional basketball game lately. it is a sea of whiteness. Especially in the seats where you can actually see the game. The owners, who are virtually all white American men, are interested in winning and they take the best players. They don't care what color they are or where they are from. Professional athletics is perhaps only place in America, where talent matters most. Unfortunately professional athletics, entertainment in general, is viewed by Black people as the best way to become wealthy. A poor kid from the Dominican Republic and come here and play baseball--he doesn't even have to be able to speak English--and become a millionaire. We used to have a lot of Black Americans playing baseball. Why not inquire about a quota for Black baseball, Ice Hockey, or Tennis Players? Don't worry white folks will be fine, even when the NBA has nothing but foreign players in it.

Rhonda, I'm afraid there simply are not enough people who think like you. CBC may be saved, but unless something changes in our collective consciousness the remaining CBCs across the country will fold. 20 Years ago NYC had several Black owned book stores. Now Black books are sold in the streets of NYC (and even that business has contracted in recent years). So it is the street or Amazon.

Del, I agree 100% on the lets stop doing the stuff we don't need--I don't even care how we arrive at the conclusion it that is the outcome. I do know almost every major city I visited recently, Tampa, Sacremanto, Altanta, DMV, New York, Charlotte is buried in traffic. In places like Tampa, everyone drives humongous vehicles all by themselves. If we changed our collective behavior I think the population would not be much of a factor.

No it is not your imagination. Facebook actually announced that they have eliminated organic reach for brands. While I was able to use the coupon. I still can not access the AALBC.com Facebook page. This morning I tried to open to post a photo about the summer but advertisement special and I simply could not do it... I suspect the may have put my content on ice, so to speak, since I have not used it in so long to save resources for pages that are accessed more frequently. I can't even get angry about this problem, because I don't even care...

Community Book Center, cultural hub of black community, fighting to stay open BY KATY RECKDAHL | Special to The New Orleans Advocate, June 10, 2017 This article is worth reading because it speaks to the fight many are activity engaged in to serve our communities from a cultural perspective. If we all a profit driven corporations from outside our community do this on our behalf we are lost as a people and will suffer more than we already do. This article really raises the question I asked in another post about the viability of a book store focused on Black books; are they desired by enough people in the Black community to make it a available business? The photo below, of the book store's owner Vera Warren_Williams, was taken by Advocate Staff photographer Scott Threlkeld.

It is also worth mentioning that I also emailed this question to every bookseller, online and offline, for whom I have contact information (over 100 people). I'd hoped to get some feedback from them, but I guess I have to post this on Facebook to get a response. Maybe that last bit was a little snide, but that is what it feels like lately... Still, I refuse to post what I wrote on Facebook to get a reaction. We simply can not achieve Black unity and empowerment on the platforms of those who oppress us. Mel, There was much more Blogging going on 10 years ago. The challenges are numerous but the biggest one is acquiring the engagement to make effort required to run a Blog worth it. It is difficult to justify the time and energy if no one reads the blog or buys the books recommended.... But, it would be helpful to hear from a bookseller, who operates a physical store, what they think of your idea, which seems like perfectly sound advice. However please define for our lurking readers what you mean by, "news hook."

Deadline for submissions to the 2017 Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence is August 15, 2017 The Gaines Award honors rising African-American Fiction authors in recognition of Louisiana native Ernest Gaines’ extraordinary contribution to the literary world. Submission may be novels or short-story collections published in 2017, as well as Galleys for 2017 publications. Submissions will be judged by a 5-judge national literary panel. The winner, to be announced in November, will receive the $10,000 award at a ceremony in January sponsored by the Baton Rouge Area Foundation. This event honors work honors both the winning author and Mr. Gaines. Visit www.ernestjgainesaward.org for information on criteria, entrance forms, previous winners and more.

?!! Del you are incorrigible. I wrote, "Dude I know that math. I don't have to prove it to you, because I know what I wrote is correct." You wrote in reaction, "You are avoiding doing the calculation because you don't know how..." This is the definition of calling me a liar. This is not hyperbole. It is a simple statement of fact. I might even be offended it I thought you were truly malicious with ill intent. You are trying really hard not to understand my simple analogy and are introducing unnecessary complexity, for reasons that escape me.. Del the odds of flipping a coin 100 times and getting 75 heads is possible, but the probability is not 75%, This is intuitively obvious to a high school student, so understanding how to calculate the probability was both unnecessary and irrelevant to understanding the point I was making. I can't believe you held onto that little tidbit for so many years. At the end of the day I believe man-made climate change is something we need to do something about today. All you efforts to disparage my reasoning ability, intellect, and honesty are not going to change this. Again we'll have to agree to disagree on this.

Hi @Pioneer1, thanks for the heads up about Truth Book Store. They are in my database: https://aalbc.com/bookstores/store.php?store_name=The Truth Bookstore but I've never visited the store. Do you know what year the store closed? During the peak there were perhaps several hundred independently owned Black book stores. Harlem had several, now we have none,.the closest one is Sister's Uptown and many consider it outside of harlem. Maybe Black people simply do not value indie Black-owned bookstores--at least now enough for them to survive as viable business, as I discussed here. Despite being named Literary Activist of the Year, I'm not getting rich over here. The DMV (DC, MD, VA) had had a very popular and successful chain of Black owned bookstores called Karibu. Authors Carl Weber owned a chain of stores too. , Neither are in operation today. Again it is not clear to me, based upon our collective behavior, that Black people actually want a Black owned bookstore--let alone a chain. White folks can go to any obscure little town and find an indie bookseller, sure they will have Colin Whitehead's book and a few others, but that is about it. We have to go to Amazon to get everything else...

My Facebook coupon popped up again today and performance was better this morning and I was able to use it. Facebook is slick; the coupon was for $10, but they prepopulated the ad with $11. It was not worth the effort to figure out how to remove the extra dollar. If the ad is approved I'll let you know how it performs. The image was posted on my Business page (where I was prompted to use the coupon) where is got 8 Likes, no shares, and no comments. The image was also posted on my personal page where is got 94 likes, 4 shares, and 14 comments. The photo was posted on the 23rd of June and since then and 22 people have clicked on the link. Those visitors looked at an average of 4 pages on their visits. Which is a bit higher that the site wide average for the same period. Almost all of those visitors were using a mobile device (your site must be optimized for mobile). I suspect all of the visitors came from the posting on the personal page.

You are being dense because the point was was making was completely lost onyou. and the fact that I made up and example was perfectly fine. So now you are are calling me a liar. Does that too make you feel good about yourself? It does not phase me. I've been called worse by better Did you forget I have the entire freaking Internet at my disposal? Your reasoning escapes me but puts you in great company Del, including the likes of "45." Carry on Bruh...

Yeah I see the author is based in the Caribbean, but the word is so infrequently used in that context I'm surprised the Amsterdam news ran it. Maybe it is a new trend.

Del I believe you are being deliberately dense. That is why the numbers I selected and my explanation of them make no sense to you. My analogy would be obvious to anyone because the math required to understand it trivial. Continue trying to cloak and obfuscate your nonexistent arguments under the guise of superior knowledge of numbers. I'm sure you've helped enlighten many others to become climate change deniersers using that tactic.

Dude I know that math. I don't have to prove it to you, because I know what I wrote is correct. YOU dredged some comment I made 4 years ago to demonstrate that I don't understand the probability of a coin toss. You've failed to show what wrote was wrong and now you are probing the technical minutiae and grasping for straws It is a desperation move and entirely unnecessary. I made an analogy and it valid as it stands. Sure I made up the numbers I could have as just as easily said just because you flip a coin once and it lands on heads does not mean that it will always land on heads. But the would be obvious. Sometime we observe a high frequency of some event and assume that is the way it always is. I chose 75 because it may be less obvious to some. Here is my take on what you are doing @Delano: Lets say you are from Ecuador where the average temperature does not change very much over the course of the year. You go to Chicago for the first time and spend Dec, Jan and Feb there. You diligently take the temperature every day and conclude that is the weather is the same all year round confident because you sampled a full 25% of the year's weather. The reasons why this is wrong are obvious to everyone except to you, You have no concept of how the northern hemispheres get more daylight during the summer months. All you have is your dataset and a prodigious knowledge of statistics. You draw comfort and even a perverse satisfaction in knowing something noone else can comprehend. Not only is everyone less critical, and unable to think for themselves, they are arrogant in this position--not even showing the slightest interest discussing your data. When they try to explain why the temperatures vary much more over the course of a year in Chicago than they do in Ecuador, you ask them to prove it why this happens, they say they can't they believe the scientists. You say to yourself, "What naive fools these mortal are..." What is your underlying motivation? Are you trying to prove you are smarter, therefore better qualified to draw a better conclusion regarding climate change?

Dude, you brought up something from 4 years ago that you said I was wrong about. I did not recall the incident. You found the what I wrote and shared it. I read it did not see anything incorrect. I asked you again to tell me what is wrong and you wanna play 20 questions. Since you pulled the quote out of context I don't know what point I was trying to make. I can only divine from you around about way of answering my questions that you are suggesting that the implication behind this statement is false; "...if you flipped a coin 100 times and got heads 75 times it would be false for you to say there is a 75% chance of getting heads on a coin toss." I can only presume the point I was making is that if observe something you can not draw conclusions about the general case. You or Pioneer were probably referencing some personal anecdote and extending it to the general population, which is flawed logic but a natural thing for people to do. Again, what did I write that was wrong?

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Russia's impact on our election is not Obama's fault; Russia is to blame. Now we can argue about what an appropriate response should have been, but we both know virtually anything Obama would have done would have been twisted by the other party and the Trump campaign, or thwarted by the Republican House and Senate.

Del, stop it. Explain the problem with the statement. Is the probability of getting a head on a coin toss 75%. Yes or No?