Troy

dude everybody knows no one looks anything like they do, I’m real life, like they do on the cover of a fashion magazine. How old is that photo anyway? You are lusting after a 20-year-fantasy, Omar recommend the film. Oh then i must go see it right away 😉 yeah it seems like her would be a lot more certain about potential wife #1. The excuse about being an activist as a reason for not having lived with or being married to a woman did not wash, as every CIS gendered male activist has a wife — certainly by the time they were Umar’s age. There is another reason.

I'm surprised you feel that way -- I would have assumed you liked them thick not lookin' like a prepubescent boy.

(@nels @Cynique) Oh my. ROTFLMBAO!

@Pioneer1 I don't know, but I believe the books were inventory. The rare stuff is probably at the U of Chicago or wherever Haki's, Brooks, etc all papers are stored. True. Apparently, they feel they need the money. What makes you think they are a multi-million dollar business? I don't think they are... That does not mean anything. Ingram distributes my book.

I hope he was not thinking that, 'cause you don't again street cred bi*ch slapping a smaller weaker dude in front of your masters. I usually don't care about celebrity BS and I don't know these guys but the slap angered me on multiple levels. I did not know Jada had a relationship with Tupac, but Tupac has been dead for decades -- surely he must be over it. Didn't Will pay some gay dude in a film? I seem to remember him jumping out of a bed naked with some other naked white boy. Will does not seem like a guy who cares about being perceived as soft. Did he ever "wear the dress?" 😉

Dear Friends, Last year marked our 55th anniversary in the publishing business. We are very proud to have built the oldest, independent, continuously operating Black publishing company in the nation. In October, we celebrated with gusto and invited our supporters, friends, authors and family to our headquarters to commemorate with us. The winter season is traditionally busy for us as we fill holiday orders for the Kwanzaa and Christmas gift giving season. This year however, our efforts were dampened when a water pipe burst beneath our building on a Friday night and quickly flooded the entire basement. Unfortunately, the flooded area housed the major portion of Third World Press’ backlist as well as front-listed books. Our loss has been overwhelming and financially crippling. Our lost inventory consisted of many of our best sellers and included books by Gwendolyn Brooks, Chancellor Williams, Adelaide Sanford, Fred Hord, Diane Turner, Thabiti Lewis, John Henrik Clarke, Herb Boyd, Edmund W. Gordon, Angela Jackson, Useni Eugene Perkins, Jacqueline Bryant, Keith Gilyard, Jacob H. Carruthers, Amiri Baraka, Sonia Sanchez, Christine List, Haki R. Madhubuti and, and many others. To say that we are devastated is an understatement. We desperately need your help. The considerable dollar amount of our loss is approximately $95,000 based upon damaged books, furniture, computers, bookshelves, workers’ regular and overtime pay for clean-up and the relocation of salvageable books to the first floor. We were forced to close the last two weeks of December and the first week of January, thereby losing sales for the year-end holidays and fundraising. These activities make up over one quarter of our annual revenue. If we are to survive this catastrophe, we earnestly need your help. We have a 501C3 status and your donations are tax deductible within the full extent of the law. No contribution is too small. Thank you for your thoughtfulness and generosity during this trying time. Sincerely, Haki R. Madhubuti on behalf of the Third World Press Foundation Staff and Volunteers Click to DONATE

I’ll see it at some point myself … can you stream it for free yet? To me it did not make a difference whether it was staged or not. Either way it was a stupid decision.

An interesting idea that I would not be surprised is true. while it may not require a Phd, i don’t think it is obvious to most people that the national debt is a construct. I, and I assume most, thought the national debt was like the debt of a household it or a local municipality — you had to spend less than you took in or you had to borrow to make up the difference. i think if the media started by explaining this difference the public would care a lot less about the national debt.

Actually there are tools that do this. The software that runs your blog and these discussion forums were built by a different company and i do not control how the software works. There maybe a setting to change how much of the status displays, but I’ll have to put some effort into doing it.

Thanks Rodney! where do i send the check? Seriously, post that review on AALBC, amazon, and social media if you use any of those platforms. 🙂

that sounds cynical even for you 😉 but is fodder for another thread… I’ll check this out too. I have a small telescope not much better that a good pair of binoculars but if i can grab a shot I’ll post it here.

Word.

@ProfD i think it is a gender thing women find it interesting, men generally don’t. maybe it is because girls are accustomed to the whole princesses narrative…

Yeah Michelle’s book would have be a good gift. For customers I’d buy them from Amazon for the steep discount 😉

Wow @Chevdove I had not considered the decrease in the "Black" books could be the result of resources directed to "diverse" or "BIPOC" books where Black is often lumped into with Indigenous, white female, gay, transgender -- everything but white male. I don't have any data to support or refute this idea, but it is an interesting one to consider. @Pioneer1 to your point. I track books in three broad categories Fiction, Nonfiction, and poetry and while all categories were lower. The Nonfiction category saw the largest decline. If you look at our current bestsellers list only 2 were published this year and those 2 books were independently published. The number of nonfiction titles in my database also peaked in 2015. Looking a little deeper there was a surge in Black children's books which started in 2017 but seems to have ended in 2022. Children's books are down 33% from the 2020 peak.

Spare is probably the biggest book to come out this year -- bigger than Michelle Obama's The Light We Carry: Overcoming in Uncertain Times and that was a humongous book! By "Big Book" I mean a book it a multimillion-dollar advance payment to the author and millions spent on marketing. Generally, these bo]ig books would be a boon for booksellers, but... The book retails for $36, but Amazon is selling it for $22.42 (which just about equals my wholesale discount. Michelle Obama's book is still discounted 48% Amazon! This is much lower than my wholesale discount and about what I can get the book for it I purchased it directly from the publisher. I'd lose money if I sold the book at Amazon's discount with free shipping. It is a classic loss leader strategy -- take a loss on a popular product and make it up on the other stuff, with higher profit margins that customers buy. Of course, the result of this is that AALBC sold less than a handful of copies of one of the biggest Black book of the year. One of my customers was my elderly aunt you wanted the book but also wants to support my business. It might sound counterintuitive but books by the Obama's don't help AALBC's sales at all due to Amazon's steep discounts. The point of the post actually is, as a bookseller, should I try to sell these big books that Amazon discounts so deeply? There is a loose association with Blackness given Harry's "Bi-racial" wife. I also know a lot of Black women have an interest in this subject. I also completely understand why someone would by Spare and The Light We Carry from Amazon, with the shipping readers will save at least $20 buying from Amazon -- with Amazon's "free" shipping.

Define “success” in this context @Delano does it mean even more riches for Mark Z, does it mean it will benefit society, or something else? i think there is a point where people will start to push back on computer interaction. In much the same way ebooks rose in popularity then plateaued. The metaverse will have some societal benefit but will not get as widely adopted as Facebook itself. If Facebook manages to secure a monopoly on the metaverse. Mark will get richer and society as a whole, net-net will be harmed.

@Cynique I was wondering where you dug that one up. So I see it comes full circle 😉 I did not see that photo because I did not read the Still No House Speak... conversation -- that whole subject interested me about as much as all the hullabaloo over Prince Harry -- i.e. not in the least 🙂

Not to take sides but that was a funny photo. Not that pioneer’s are not funny too, but i just did not expect that from Cynique 🤣

No, it is not, and that is my point. Our personal experiences are different. Also, you assume your personal experiences are the same universally. I do not. A football team roster is almost twice the size, a football team is a lot more expensive to field, and there are FAR fewer game football games played to generate revenue. So relative to baseball they may be paid very well. But I’m no expert…

i have not double checked but i think the U.S. test scores are down relative to other countries. I can say with a very high level of certainty there has not been A proportional decline. I bet there are more authors. It has never been easier to publish a book, so there probably are more published books but they were published by individuals. The books I’m really talking about are published by the larger presses. Distribution is no longer a problem if you publish with Amazon, Ingram, or any POD publisher that deals with Ingram. I’m just trying to understand why there are fewer books in my store for 2022. My initial instinct is to assume there were fewer of them published. I just don’t have anything to corroborate that assumption.

I believe the data does support this 🙂 But if the dramatic drop is true, it would need to be explained by something with a more immediate effect.

I’m sure that is part of it too, and the NFL is doing everything to exploit that. The NFL are brilliant marketers. They have turned the Super Bowl into a marketing bonanza people literally tune in to watch the commercials and half time show. The game is almost incidental. perhaps, but does that does not make you any less cool, just hard to live with 😉

Now that is an interesting point. Why do you think that is? Maybe the NFL owners are smarter when it comes to making money? I always felt they should pull up stakes and create their own league, but that will never happen for a variety of reasons You do, but that is what makes you so cool 🙂

Thanks for that @Stefan Your story explains the importance of books in a meaningful way. I will reference your comments when I share information about the book (after I get my copy). Ginzburg's book was first published over 60 years ago and is kept in print by Black Classic Press. They too understand the importance of books even obscure and old ones. 100 Years of Lynchings by Ralph Ginzburg Publication Date: Nov 22, 1996 List Price: $14.95 Format: Paperback, 270 pages Classification: Nonfiction ISBN13: 9780933121188 Imprint: Black Classic Press