Troy

Hi @richardmurray do you see the spam post an about CBD products? Can you delete it? If you don’t see it let me know.

Thanks Richard. Of course spam on your blog has increased since i blocked guest posts on the forum… 

i honestly believe someone just wants to make my life miserable.  @Pioneer1 would say it is an overt act of racism.

@richardmurray can you see the spam on your blog?  I’m just checking before i delete them.

I watched the local news yesterday and when I look at the photo all I can see is a forest fire consuming me and all of my belongings or that river over flowing it's banks an washing everything I own away...

More seriously;

I guess were are in the midst of autumnal equinox. Here in Florida that is usually heralded by a drop in the humidly, the end of the afternoon thunderstorm, and the arrival love bugs. Since the tree leaves don't change color and die here it is like the springtime.

@rosa "...with someone" is the important part. That experience would be goo alone, but great with someone.

You are giving a clinic now @Mel Hopkins. DT PollarUsed to posr here quiet regularly. He really was cranking the ebook several a year (or so it seemed).

@Mel Hopkins, I watched the video and read the article -- an interesting story. So much talent went into the GPS project over a period of decades. Today our best and brightest go to Facebook and Goldman Sachs; what a waste of talent, but I digress...

I like your advise because, you wrote, "Marketing doesn't dictate WHAT an author should write. It's just that the author should have a group in mind when they do."

An author has to, otherwise they won't sell many books because they won't know who the audience is or how to reach them. Don't believe your family will buy your book in droves -- many will want the "hook up"  

Of course many writers only write books demanded by the market, and that is perfectly fine.

Publishers often want to publish specific types of books because they have a particular aesthetic, sensiblity, mission, or are simply chasing percieved consumer demand. They then look for wrters to fit the bill.

Strife between writers and publishers arise when there is disagreement between what an author writes and perceived consumer demand. The impacts everthing from cover design, the book's title, and the editing process. Somtimes the publisher is right, but they often get it wrong -- especially when it comes to Black books. Which is why we need more culturally Black publishers, editors, and booksellers.

Very concise!

I wanna read this book! Was one actually written om this subject or was this just example?

We @richardmurray you are familiar with your story so the images have context. Without that context, at least for me, they were random, uninteresting, images.

The collage makes more sense after you read the book's excerpts. 

I can understand why sites don't allow guest posting so many abuse the privilege. It is a pain to manage.

That is interesting. Deviant Art requires creating an account to comment. Too bS they stopped allowing embedding

Hey @TSegal, did you write the article?  There was no byline.

Is Afromerica your website? 

Making money trumps (pardon the pun) serving the community everyday of the week.  Johnson made it clear the "E" stood for "entertainment," not enlightenment or education.  The reality is that it stood for enrichment, Johnson's personal enrichment, and that is the legacy of BET.

1 hour ago, richardmurray said:

it would had deleted many fiscally wealthy people's finances

You could have started and stopped right there @richardmurray

Just embedding the video:

I'm glad you took the feedback as it was intended. We can all use  Feedback.

Hi @Kween Yakini you can embed video directly by just pasting the the unshortened URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RriAEfw57W8

We need the truth for real!

Just a bit of unsolicited feedback: the background music is too loud and distracts from you piece.

Tanks for sharing this research Richard.  I went directy to the Pew Study: http://www.pewinternet.org/2018/05/31/teens-social-media-technology-2018/ 

I'm really so very glad I grew up in a world before social media.  I hate to think that I'd be walking around with a device in my hand constantly subjecting myself to bullying, pressure, and worse of all marketers.

The did not speak to very many Black people about just over 100, so I'm not too sure this survey speaks to our experience (but what is is new).

I collect similar data from my students a slightly older demographic and I think a more influential demographic.  The most surprising thing I learned speaking to my students, and this is reflected in the pew data, is how irrelevant Twitter is.  I was also surprised by how popular Instagram has become by largely copying and improving upon Snapchat.  I find the fact Facebook owns instagram troubling, but that is another story.

My students have suggested to me that I use Instagram to market AALBC.com.  This is something that I have, believe it or not, decided to try.  The most difficult thing in this process for me was installing instagram on my phone.  I'm completely against having social media apps installed on my phone, but for the sake of learning I decided to experiment with Instagram.

Interestingly, I'm not finding the application particularly intuitive.  the concept of, and how to create a "story," is not really clear to me. But I'll learn.  If a 13-year-old can do is so can I.  I've always had an instagram account; I just never used it, so I'm starting out with over 1,000 followers. In additional to learning the application I'm trying to build up my fan base which I'm largely doing by following others.  I'll probably look into using a bot to amp up my followers but I wanna learn more about the system first.

Below is are the results of a surveys with my students over the last three semesters.  I allowed students to pick their two favorite social media platforms, unlike Pew I did not have them select from a list, so I discovered platforms I never heard of.  The frequency of use of these platforms too small to have an individual column and are included in the "other" category.  For the spring 2018 semester more than 50% of my students said Facebook or Instagram were their favorite social media platforms. 

Interesting subject.

The "shovel" metaphor holds true and illustrates the problem with unbridled capitalism -- you know when the only incentive is to make money -- the way it is practiced in the United States.

So I can become rich by doing anything from hosting pedophila websites to making the plastic crack vials. At the corporate level, selling toxic securities or cigarettes.  It is all the same thing. The human consequences are not important at all...

On 5/3/2018 at 10:31 AM, Mel Hopkins said:

it is a lot easier to turn humans into robots than it will be for Artificial Intelligence to reach the level of humanity

I never heard this before, but it is a brilliant observation.

That would pretty much be anyone with a smart phone.

Even tbe senior citizen with all those plastic rewards card attached to their keyring.

It is hard not to freely share your information. 

Please share the link to your youtube channel or post a video.

I bet that would sound good read too.

@Kalexander2, what did I say about Coates that Angela Davis would disagree with?  Keep in mind and I made not attempt to assess Coates himself, just that Black media had nothing to do with his meteoric rise to fame and fortune.

I just saw Davis speak a few weeks ago.  She strikes me as a great woman. 

A few year ago a shot a shot video at the NAtional Black Writers Conference (I used a small digital camera and was a some distance, but it came out alright).

@Kalexander2, you replied less than an hour after I posted--that is very responsive!  Even if you took a few days it would be cool.  No one expects an immediate response.  

Hey, are you in the Middle East?  I'm joking, but you say it a lot, so much it makes me wonder why you do it....

The suggestion that money influence the NY Times review process would not surprise me.  Anything that important is always gamed.  I would not put too much faith in HuffPo either.  I know more than one writer who took money from an advertiser for a mention in an article, and the "advertisement" was treated as if it were pure journalism.  The same goes for Amazon reviews.  Many authors will provide incentives for favorable reviews on Amazon.

All of this is why booksellers, trusted reviewers, and coverage by Black media is so important.  But again, these things are sorely lacking in the Black community.  This makes it much more difficult for readers to learn about the books they will enjoy the most.   This is what I mean by reaching the reader. 

The writer should not be the entity most responsible for the selling their own books, indeed most are poorly suited for this task.  Those authors who are best (or most aggressive) don't always have the best books.  Can you see Toni Morrison going into a beauty parlor selling her books or standing behind a table at some obscure book fair trying to sell Beloved?  A Ta-Nehisi Coates would still be an obscure writer were it not for The Atlantic. 

Sadly, I don't think Black people could provide a platform for a Coates or Morrison to rise to prominence.  It is what we call the white cosign which enabled their fantastic level of success and prominence. Sure the Black properties that remain promote these writers, but gain they had not impact on their success.  

The white co-sign is rarely given to African-American who are not from Africa/Caribbean, gay, mixed race (look at the NY Times list with that lense).  

The impotence of the Black community to determine which books and writers are is something I would like help change.

I also agree that it absolutely starts with us.  Amazon damn sure ain't gonna do it.