Troy

Here are all the authors of, African descent, who have been selected for both Oprah’s Book Clubs since 1996

@FerociousKitty!!!! Man it is so nice to see your name again. It is also heart warming to read that you developed good friendship as a result of meeting here. @Cynique actually posted regularly here up until last year. Part of the reason she bowed, I believe, out was the disappearance of voices like yours. The days of indie forums have dimmed as the hugh corporate voices increasing control our voices and audience. It is actually for that reason I have dropped all of my personal social accounts on social media and only post links to this site from social. At the end of the day, even sites like AALBC can't survive without the active engagement and patronage of people. I got divorced, but other than that my family is doing is doing well. AALBC had a record year on several levels in 2019. The only weakness has been the discussion forums, but I continue to hold out hope as people become increasingly disillusioned with social media and understand that we have to support our platforms.

I stumbled across Mary Walker's Story in an article on Black Enterprise's website. walker was born enslaved free during the Civil War (around the age of 15) and ultimately learned to read at the age of 116 -- starting when she was 114. There is a children's book about Walkers Life: The Oldest Student: How Mary Walker Learned to Read by Rita Lorraine Hubbard, Illustrated by Oge Mora

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).

AALBC Bestselling Books December 2019: Children’s books, which on our list includes everything from board books to YA novels, continues to dominate sales.

@Chevdove Again, I don't read anything else on Lipstick Alley besides their book forum. So all that you an the guest wrote may be true about the other areas -- I just would not know. Keep in mind my first post was met by ridicule by some but a as a vetern forum poster I knew not to take it personally. Since then all of my posts have been taken seriously. But I stand by the statement that it is a powerful platform. Show me another Black-owned (or focused) discussion forum that gets as much engagement. I would love to find others. They have fallen a notch in my Black-owned website rankings.

"Guest I was banned from LSA rece" I exchanged email with Condi two years ago and she says the site is Black owned and I will take her at the word until there is stronger evidence to counter this. I do see that the trademark of the name "Lipstick Alley" is owned by Verve hosting INC. This may be a Black owned company. You may be perfectly correct about the site from your perspective, the celebrity gossip, "IG thots," "black men dating interracially," and the stuff you mentioned don't interest me, so I don't read that stuff on the site. I participate in Lipstick Alley's Book Alley Forum. I posted there yesterday about the free eBook give-away for Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God. The post was viewed more times and got more engagement than the exact same post I made here -- They have a powerful discussion forum and I'm not aware of anything else like it on the web. If there are other Black-owned discussion forums that you are aware of please share them here and I will spread the word. Please consider creating an account here so that I don't have to approve your every post.

Listen to an Interview of AALBC.com’s Founder and Webmaster, Troy D. Johnson with by E. Ethelbert Miller host of the “On The Margin” radio program which airs on WPFW’s 89.3 FM, Washington D.C. Your browser does not support the audio element. E. Ethelbert Miller is actually an accomplished and critically acclaimed poet who I have admired over the years. I ran into him at a party last year and he told me how important the work I was doing is. I was floored because I wasn't even sure if he knew much about me. I was honored that he invited on his radio show. I'm not sure how I come across on these interviews. Honestly, I don't even have the guts to listen to it. I've asked some people to provide feedback, but it is a big ask since the interview is an hour long -- thought it felt like 5 minutes to me. If any one has any critical comments I'm open to them, so please share them here.

Zora Neale Hurston was born on this day in 1891. To commemorate the anniversary of her birth Amistad Books has made available and ebook version of Hurston’s master work, Their Eyes Were Watching God. This offer is only valid today January 7, 2020.

Thanks @Maurice! I just ordered the document.

In the 22 years of running a discussion forum. I have never had two outages which have lasted more a day in three month period. The Details On Saturday afternoon while waiting for a flight I decided to upgrade the discussion forum's website software using my cell phone. Now a few years ago this would have been unthinkable, but today I can do quite a bit from my cell phone -- even some development. Unfortunately, during the upgrade my firewall halted the upgrade because it did not recognize my IP Address -- a great security measure, which requires me to whitelist the IP address I'm currently using. The problem is my cell phone, for some reason, would not properly display the screen which would allow me to whitelist the ip address I was currently using, so the upgrade could not be completed until I got back home and get technical support from the vendor. Sometimes I feel like the effort to keep this forum running is really not worth it... most people really do prefer the big corporate social media sites. I see successful forums like Lipstick Alley doing well so it gives me hope.

Hi @Andi I see the kickstarter campaign has now ended, and it received one $1 pledge. I am interested in what yiu think abiut that mode of fundraising. Seems these crowd funding sites are not nearly as popular as they once were.

Im not sure how I missed this post.

@Delano this post, despite the engagement does not help AALBC at all. The whole benefit goes to Facebook, because as of this morning only 37 people visited this link from Facebook and none of the visitors commented here. As of this morning only 39 people watched the youtube video clip. Essentially all of the engagement benefited facebook. Again, this is why I believe Facebook should compensated people who create the engagement on their platform I may have also harmed by brand; one of the commenters said that they almost unfollowed the site. I thought about replying, but decided against it. If someone would consider rejecting everything that I have done, because I shared a quote from one person, that they disagreed with, that person should not be following AALBC anyway. I read more of the comments. Someone wrote where were are all of Obama's critics like West and Smiley, why are they not criticizing Trump? People liked the statement? Tavis basically lost his platform and West has as been hyper-critical of Trump to suggest that West was only critical of Obama is just stupid and ignorant. Nowadays, I share a couple of links per week on Facebook. Facebook does not give those posts much visibility. It is funny Facebook showed this post 10 times more than my average post (see chart below). Facebook knew this post would stoke an emotional reaction encouraging engagement on their website, so they showed it to more people. You see the problem with the way Facebook works? Content producers see the nature of the of the posts that get the most engagement, then they create more content like it. Over time social media becomes biased to toward content like this. Not one person agreed with Anderson's quote or was even sympathetic to it. This creates the impression that all of my followers are rabid Obama worshipers. Anyone familiar with just discussion forum knows some people, including myself, has been critical of Obama. People make demonstrably false statements about Anderson, then others react to the false statements as if they were true, which makes the lie true -- this is how fake news is born No one probed deeper in the the statement or tried to understand why it was made. Facebook makes it easy not to do this

This was one of the responses posted on twitter. I read an article that Black people are disproportionately represented on twitter. That is too bad. I'm not sure what I need to do to get people to engage on this site; 65 people have visited this post in the last hour, but no one has commented. In the past hour 191 people on Facebook have followed the link, commented, shared, or liked/loved a comment. On twitter the engagement was far less 106 Impressions, 2 and 1 of each of the following (Replies, Retweets, Likes, and Detail expands). Both platforms are prompting me to pay to promote the posts. I don't paid to promote on social anymore -- I'm sure they hold back on showing my posts to my followers, holding my posts hostage, in an effort to bribe me to pay so that more of my followers can see the links I've shared...

One of the books that was suggested (via Facebook, SMH) was Other People’s Skin: Four Novellas by Tracy Price-Thompson and Taressa Stovall. Elizabeth Atkins, a contributor to the book, said colorism is more of an issue for Women, because women are judged more on their appearance than men. That is probably true, but I bet a dark skinned Black man -- especially a big one -- would probably disagree. These Brothers in just treated worse on every level -- especially by the criminal justice system.

“Barack Obama Didn’t Do a Darn Thing For Black People.” —Dr. Claud Anderson Cornel West expressed this sentiment throughout Obama’s Presidency despite aggressively campaigning for Obama. Black folks vilified West for his unrelenting critique of Obama. I wonder how history will record Obama's presidency vis-a-vis Black Americans. You can watch the complete interview here.

While researching this subject I found this video which discusses Wallace Thurman's novel The Blacker the Berry. It is interesting how Black families -- like my own -- where family members are all colors of the human skin color spectrum from passing for white to being blue black. The video below discusses Thurman's novel and colorism in general.

I'm building content around the issue of colorism and am looking for more books on the subject. Please reply with any books you might know about. Are there any books that discuss this issue from a Black man's perspective? Surely there must be some.

@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.

Those were fine words; I hope they turn out to be true @Delano. I find sense a change for the better. I see Aubrey Doris is a numerologist, do you know him?

Thanks Mel!

I just finished listening to Donny Hathaway's Everything is Everything. It just just good tune builds up a tension and releases it. The lyric, "I hear voices" makes me think Hathaway was yelling us something.

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

The principals of Kwanza are sound, but principals alone are insufficient to effect change. Shoot, the Golden Rule would work if people would adhere to it.