Troy

Man, I wonder what it would take for me to get an author to go to some other bookseller's website and tell the people there to go by their books at AALBC? @Alion Jay why don't you link, to or even name, your own website as a place where people can link to your website?

No problem let me know if you think any of our other videos might work elsewhere on the website.

Cool Video! I just added it to my MahoganyBooks page on AALBC.

https://store.aalbc.com is part of AALBC. When I started selling books directly, a year ago, I used a company called Big Commerce to handle my shopping cart, inventory tracking, billing, invoicing, it has been great. Most other book sites that use the Big Commerce software also use the software to drive their entire website. I do not. AALBC is much more flexible in displaying book info as BC is a more generic solution designed to sell anything. AALBC's book platform is a competive advantage.

Yeah I was never a real fan of hers for this reason.

Well I'm on this mailing list with some pretty prominent elders. It does not seems like this is a scam. But you never know, government agents could be anywhere. I did not sign up, but it reminded me of your philosophy (albeit more extreme) and I thought you might it interesting.

I wonder what is different now than the 1960's, or the many other years, when there was civil unrest?

Yeah and it will last until the news cycle moves on to the next shiny object dangled in front of them. The REAL issue is will people continue to support Black-owned businesses once the media fueled hype is over?

@Pioneer1 the message below was in my in box today: "I don't understand why we just sit around and TALK. when there is a well defined STRUCTURE that makes Black Lives Matter and it is our own National Structure.We can't arrive at this far reaching destination of our lives mattering without a VEHICLE, a well thought out way to make our lives matter. We cannot logically obtain Reparations while we have not liberated ourselves. Reparations do not work well for encapsulated people. Reparations is an International matter as explained by Malcolm X and the only way to obtain COLLECTIVE reparations is that we must be a Self-determining collective, until we realize that BLACK LIVES WILL NOT MATTER. The Government, the Police Unions, the District Attorney Associations, and the Conservatives judges cannot reform themselves and we should not expect them to. We ask you to listen to the Afro-descendant Nation Confederated and our brother Ramzu Yunus when we say we must move for SELF-DETERMINATION so that we can be assured that you, I and our children and family will be safe. Self-Repair is the First Step towards full reparations. WE MUST FIRST BECOME STRONG ENOUGH TO REPLACE not only the POLICE, but the JUDGES, D.A's, Banks, Stores, Landlords and execute our Afro-descendant Right to the land and authority over it. WE ARE NOW AT 150,000 Citizens but WE WANT AND WILL OBTAIN 1 MILLION CITIZENS BEFORE THE END OF THE YEAR SO THAT WE CAN MAKE THE FINAL MOVE TOWARDS TRUE FREEDOM." We need your vote and your participation. Please register now at www.adconfederation.com

I don't disagree with your two points. The video also shows that he old guy was pushed very lightly -- with so little force most people would not have fallen. The fact that he tripped, fell, hit his head with such force that he immediately began bleeding out his ear, because he was too weak and uncoordinated to break his fall in the slightest, could not have been known by the police. Again it was just a tragic accident -- this does not rise to police brutality that is regularly leveled against Black people. Hopefully, the old guy has a speedy recovery.

Hi @Maurice Thanks so much for your business the best way to see how much it cost to ship would be to actually go through the process of placing the order. The shipping cost will be calculated and you can then decide if you'd like to place the order. If you have any difficulty or the option to ship abroad is not available let me know please -- thanks!

Thank You! @JazzBeauty Worse, still corporations, like Amazon, are exploiting the situation (Black people) for monetary gain, buying off civil rights organizations who should be calling our Amazon for the exploitation of Black people and Black businesses.

WTF!? Amazon has stooped to a new low by making this claim. To make matters FAR worse, they have the unmitigated gall to fly the Black Liberation Flag in one of their corporate offices! This is outrageous! When I saw this photo on Amazon's site (despite Boycotting Amazon I visit periodically to see what Amazon is doing with Ibram's book). Amazon is the antithesis of Black liberation which is what this flag represents. I have not taken out an ad on Twitter in years, but I took one out today -- just to highlight Amazon's hypocrisy (we will see how that works out). Sure Amazon gave out $10 million to some civil rights organizations -- which is the financial equivalent of you or I giving away penny, which we stole from the collection plate at church. Go to hell Amazon.

I looked at the video a couple of times. From my perspective the police clearly did not intend to cause that kind of injury to the elderly fellow. He was lightly pushed, unable to regain his footing, stumbled, fell backward, slamming he head into the pavement. the police immediately recognized the severity of the injury and did something about it. There is no way the police could have know that was gonna happen. It was a accident. If you are gonna protest you must know you may not be treated with kid gloves and there are there are going to be risks. Police have brutally treated protestors, but this was not one of those situations. The fact so many officers resigned should tell you something. When have you ever heard of officers reacting that way This is in no way comparable to sitting on someones neck, as they plead for their life, until they are dead. "wholly unjustified and utterly disgraceful." Please, this is a bit much from a governor really juicing this pandemic for all it is worth politically.

Yesterday I sold more books than I did during my best month of sales when selling as an Amazon affiliate -- just one day of sales. Sales the day before that beat yesterday! The surge in sales has been experienced by every indie bookseller I have spoken to. After this post I will spend the next 10 to 12 hours processing book orders! I went to bed too tired to process yesterdays outstanding orders -- that has never happened. Customers, thankfully have been more than understanding -- this has simply been inspiring One long term booksellers told me he has never seen anything like this in 50 years in the book business! During my brief phone conversation with this brother I got more orders than I did during the entire month of May. I could go one and describe in much more detail -- i just do not have the time. I took the morning to update and add some website content. I added a couple more bookstores to the site. I also added audiobook excerpts to the top 10 selling books on AALBC (for just the past 4 days). Most of these books are out of stock and on back order, but every customer I asked was more than happy to wait! Here are the top 10 best selling books for the month of June (so far)! How to Be an Antiracist The Fire Next Time The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness So You Want to Talk About Race Between The World And Me My Vanishing Country Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America Sister Outsider: Essays And Speeches Their Eyes Were Watching God It’s Not All Downhill from Here Thanks to all AALBC's new customers; Now have to get to work to do 🙂

There are a wide variety of factors. Much of it self-reinforcing. For example, when an author says, "You can buy my book from Amazon." Everyone in 2020 knows this. But I can't tell you how many authors I have interviewed on video that will tell my audience to buy their book from Amazon!? AALBC is the one shooting, editing, and publishin their video -- not Amazon, but their condition makes this crazy scenario possible. Still I sold book as an Amazon affiliate FAR longer than I should have. I was afraid my customers would simply stop buy book from me. That is simply not true. For example, on Tuesday I had more book sales, in one day, than I had with Amazon in my best month! Now I know the reason is that there has been a national push for readers to support indie Black booksellers because of the pandemic and the police killing of Black people. If I were an Amazon affiliate I would NOT have gotten these sales, because people want to promote Black booksellers. Probably. but I have not had time to check. I only took the time to check Kendi's How to Be an Antiracist, because I saw a surge in demand for the title. I figured the demand was due to gouging by Amazon -- which turned out to be true, but the real demand came from a people looking for books on the subject but sourced from Black booksellers. Now demand for the titles has made it impossible for any booksellers to immediately ship these book. How to Be an Antiracist, will not be available from the nation's largest distributor, Ingram, until next week! Check out want Amazon was up to yesterday: They are still engaged in predatory pricing, but they have kept the price gouging at bay, at least until the scruntiny on these titles has abated. Price gouging during a time like this is just a bad, bad look -- even the mighty Amazon is not immune to this. I see Amazon has raised the price about a buck on this book and have removed a date when the book will be in inventory. Screenshot taken June 4th 10:35 a.m. My main distributor has more than 34,000 copies on back order! This is a big number. That is the earliest the book can be sent to a customer who order it from me.

What happened to Oprah?

The graphic point was made to emphasize the fact mthe watching Rupaul does not turn heterosexual Black men into homosexuals. But you still don't agree. So now you say that white people natures are different and therefore less susceptible to being converted into a homosexual than a Black person who watches drag queens on TV. Do i understand you correctly. I don't know if whites drink more than native Americans or not, but acholism is often a function of other factors like poverty. I'm sure the consequences of genocide is a factor too.

Unfortunately @Pioneer1 it teally is not that simple. We all have to learn to live together. I don't wanna have to build a brand new community in upstate new york from scratch. We helped build and maintain communties all over the country and i want enjoy the fruit of our labor. Even if we did set up our own private community. We can't create everything we need we have to engage in trade. Suppose our community is attacked who would fight with us. What about a neigborhing community poluting our water supply? Who will enforce our laws? Man i could on and on with a million reasons why not only Black and white people need to work together, but why everyone on Earth does.

@Pioneer1, it continues to escape me why do you think this is a conspiracy against African Americans. Perhaps it is because I have never watched one and probably never will. But it seems to me that a white program, staring mostly white people would impact white people... How can this programming cause "...cause sexual confusion among AfroAmericans," when we don't even watch this stuff? PLUS one's sexual orientation is not determined by a TV program. Let me put it this way: how many more times would you, @Pioneer1 have to watch men in drag, on TV, for you to let another dude climax in your mouth?

Hey @Maurice I support my local business and if what I'm looking for is not available locally I buy online, from anyone but Amazon. Madinah, yes I see that Amazon has lowered the price (see graphic below). Amazon dynamically prices books to maximize revenue. I guess Amazon's algorithm discovered they were losing customers to other booksellers and dropped to price. Please notice that Amazon is still aggressive pushing their “free” audiobook and Kindle format. In fact the Kindle and Audiobooks buttons are the only ones that work. To buy the deeply discounted hardcover you have to click the small text below the button. The entire design and layout of the page is encourage the visitor to buy the ebook or audiobook — both published by Amazon. Because the ebook and audiobook are purely digital they both generate higher profits that a physical book. The price today ($15.35) is lower than AALBC’s price from the distributor. I would lose money if I sold the book at that price. The I don’t know what Amazon’s discount is for this book, but I know it is lower than AALBC’s. Plus, Amazon can easily afford to sell books at a loss, to eliminate competition. The elimination of competition is core to Amazon’s mission. Indeed this is the reason Wall Street funded Amazon for years while Amazon burned through money without making a profit, because they knew Amazon would ultimately become a monopoly. Yesterday I asked on of my customers why they chose to buy How to Be an Antiracist from AALBC and they replied: “This morning, I came across AALBC through a friend who posted on Instagram that she had purchased How to Be an Antiracist. She shared the name of AALBC to purchase the book from. I will continue to share AALBC & the list of bookstores on your site with others to ensure $ spent is going to Black Authors & Bookstore Owners who have written & curated books & resources.” Again, people are starting to see Amazon for the manipulative, greedy, indie-business-destroyers they are. People also recognize the added value that indie booksellers provide and are willing to pay full retail price for a book — even when Amazon tries to seduce them by selling a book below cost. Amazon screen shot (taken 6/1/20)

Why? The oligarchy has grow stronger. Racism has not gone away. The conditions that hold use back have not dissipated they have only grown stronger. I know plenty of booksellers who started selling books on the web before jeff Bezos. In fact i only started AALBC after i offered to improve the of one if those sites and they declined. None of those sites are around today and Bezos is a trillionaire. We have not changed; the rope has just been tightened around our collective necks.

That can't be true ... if so wow! Tampa has a curfew because of this whole situation.

I guess the best thing ti do @Delano is share the article from the source. If wanna share this post any if the social sharing links will work. Thanks for that.

Today I sold a few copies of Ibram X. Kendi's How to Be an Antiracist. Ibram is a critically acclaimed author who won a National Book Award in 2016 (I recorded Ibram's acceptance speech). Despite posting video and publishing a review of his latest book. I have not sold many copies of his Kendi's books. However, today I may have sold enough copies of How to Be an Antiracist for it to make my next bestsellers list. This piqued my interest; why is there increased demand of Ibram's work on the site? I decided to check Amazon and discovered that Amazon is currently charging $44 -- minimum price for a used copy! The book's price is $27 new -- Max. Amazon has 3rd party booksellers competing to sell over priced, used copies of a book that is still in print and less than a year old! How many unsophisticated book buyers will Amazon trick with this scheme? The reader is overcharged and neither the author or publisher earns a penny on these sales, but Amazon will, as usual, make money no matter what. Sure, people falsely believe Amazon sells books at the best prices, and maybe some customers feel compelled to buy overpriced books from Amazon because they are already paying 10 bucks a month for a Prime membership. But price gouging on books during a pandemic ... how low can you go? I think people are beginning to see Amazon for what they truly are. They don't care about the books, the readers, authors, or publishers. All they care about is getting paid, and on that they have executed brilliantly. (left) Amazon screen shot* (right) AALBC screen shot (taken 5/31/20) *Yeah, I know I'm breaking my own rule of not allowing links to Amazon, but in this context I think it is appropriate.