Troy

I'm reading a few books but am primarily focused on Evil Never Sleeps: Tales of Light and Darkness, by Robert Fleming. Robert is one of America’s most accomplished writers. He has written poetry, novels, nonfiction articles, and has reviewed over 60 books for AALBC. His work spans over 40 years. It seems to me that writers like Robert should be better known, but he is just your run of the mill late-middle-aged Black man {yawn}. He’s not Caribbean or African, he’s not LGBT, he does not have a white parent, he can’t rap or dunk a basketball, he wasn’t gang banger or previously incarcerated. He is the kind of writer that I always complain about being ignored by the mainstream media. Robert's accomplishments will never go viral on twitter despite his significant contributions to our literature.

Who was Ebony's target market? The Black masses? As opposed to the Bkack bougouise? @Delano you mean JPC not EMO right?

I know he is the POTUS and all, but I'll never understand why people give a flying f*ck what 45 has to say on twitter on anywhere else. We use to call it “poppin' shit.” If you get upset or bent out of shape everytime someone pops some shit you'll never be very happy and the shit talker will just target you because that is how he has fun. Bitchin' and moanin' about what 45 says is not gonna stop him; in fact it will fire him up and keep him going. People crying over his silly comments is what fuels him and his base. We really need to concern ourselves with his actions. Unless he croaks first 45 will serve out his term (sorry @Delano), and he is very likely to win a second. Unfortunately, some of my twitter followers also follow 45 and seemingly comment on his every post -- so now I have to see 45 tweets when I react to a comment on a link I've posted. I'm going to have to actually unfriend some otherwise cool people just to avoid seeing these dumb tweets. On a positive note the US Government managed to fine Facebook 5 Billion dollars. Of course this is just the cost of doing business for Facebook and will have no impact until they throw Mark and his ilk in prison for their crimes. And to think we have Brothers doing time for doing nothing at all -- guilty of being poor.

A "What you are reading thread" has not been created in sometime. Please @Maurice, feel free to start a new one!

Why couldn't it last? This story would make a good documentary or book.

Yeah I like Kamala. She got that good hair 😉

Buddy we've been down this road: We'll describe Bkack women as seeking white standards of beauty due to centuries of indoctrination. The women will say it has nothing to with indoctrination, or self hate it is a matter of choice. Women are free to style their hair anyway they please and men have no say in the matter. We'll argue that position is a direct consequence of being oppressed by Europeans for hundreds of years. This notion will be rejected on the basis that men are clueless and even argue if some women choose straight blond weaves/wigs it is because this is what Black men want. We'll attempt to soften our approach and explain that Black women's natural hair is beautiful and that they even more beautiful went they style their hair naturally. The ladies will reject this as well citing how natural styles are not accepted in the work place and most brothers, if they are honest, really don't want their women sporting natural styles. Meanwhile the Koreans who own the beauty supply stores grow rich in our communities and Black women are more stressed today than in the 50s...

Mel these writers intended to get paid, but Ebony apparently could not or would not pay them. The writers were robbed it is not their faults that they were not paid. This happens all the time. None of the articles I read, which all seem to be copied from the same source, failed mention that EMO failed to pay for the magazine. Apparently none of the reporters bothered to t3ead the liquidation petition. The quote, from the article I linked to says; “EMO is unaffected by the Chapter 7 bankruptcy announcement regarding the dissolution of JPC. EMO is not able to comment further and is not familiar with the facts or events of the JPC business.” If EMO did not pay JPC, then this quote is a lie. Man you can't really trust anything you read on the web... thanks for the elucidation. EMO's failure to pay JPC is an important detail. Now Mel, how is EMO getting off the hook for not paying JPC?

50% off. Please share the info. Regarding everything else. Ok.

Yeah PW obviously copied the image from Amazon's site. PW was just being lazy.

Good find @Maurice. did you read the comments from their About Us Page: After celebrating 50 years of achievement in 2016 the directors of New Beacon Books recognised that New Beacon bookshop, as it was currently organised, was not economically viable. The modern book industry with new ways of buying and reading books like Amazon and Kindle and the formation of super publishers and distributors was killing independent specialist bookshops like New Beacon. Very few of the bookshops who started when we did like Bogle L’Ouverture (Walter Rodney Bookshop) or Head Start had not survived to today. The directors took the decision to close New Beacon Bookshop in February 2017. They calculated that it would take a while to clear stock and reorganise the bookshop. At the beginning of 2017 a group which included Janice Durham (director) Michael La Rose (director and John’s son) , Renaldo La Rose (John’s grandson) and his wife Vanessa La Rose decided they would attempt to keep New Beacon Bookshop going. The individuals came together as the New Beacon Development Group. Calling on volunteers and voluntary work, in the New Beacon tradition, the group reopened the bookshop (temporarily) from Wednesday to Saturday between 1.30pm and 6pm in February 2017. The remit of the group is to make New Beacon Bookshop survive and explore a new economic model to sustain its survival and raise New Beacon’s profile for a new generation of the public including activists, students, educationalist, parents and children. It is an interesting collection of titles on their nonfiction page. They lead with two books by Charlamagne tha God. The subtitle the published used on the book Barracoon, "The Last Slave," is just wrong. There was no last slave. If there was one they would have been enslaved in Texas. I wonder why it was made different that the subtitle used in the States, The Story of the Last “Black Cargo”? I Justed Added New Beacon Books to my Bookstore database. I'm gonna expand it beyond the United States.

Well I'm glad you contributed FAS I'll tag @Chevdove and @Mel Hopkins to that they see your comments. As far as Black girls being influenced by non-black images of beauty. They don't have to come into direct contact with these images to be influenced by them Between TV, physical advertisements, and social media. They are inundated with images that reject Black beauty in favor of eurocentric standards. Of course Mel and Chevdove will disagree citing themselves as example to the contrary. People who grew up before TV's were in everyone's hand did not have to deal with the stress these images caused and if they grew up in a segregated community this tyope of stress was virtually nonexistent. Sure, Black people in the 50's may have had to deal with issues of skin color within our community, but that was probably not as bad as trying to keep with up with the impossible to maintain hair, clothing, and weight standards while some other corporations are selling you food to make you fatter and depressing wages so that you can't afford the clothing and salon some corporations makes you feel compelled to go to. It is no wonder white folks are OD'ing on Oxycodone. @Pioneer1 yeah I changed my mind. I also see that you liked my last post -- you really have changed since Cynique left :-)

I don't fundamental disagree with anything you just wrote @Pioneer1 my point deal with the relative level of stress experiences by Black teens today compared to Black kids in the 60s. Would you rather be a kid in the 1950s jim crow south or be a kid today living today in ATL, Charlotte, or Austin? Who do you think had more stress? Now I can see white teens being more stressed today than they were in the 50s but Black kids I dunno know. Of course there are exceptions. I know, for example, it was much more stressful for me growing up surrounded by crime, drugs, and crooked cops, than it would have been for some kid growing up in the 50s in the segregated south. A kid who had no reason to engage with white folks. Who never needed to lock a door, enjoyed fresh air, and fresh food. Now that I think more about it, I can see where the average kid today might be under more stress than I was or a kid or one from my parent's generation. I did not have to worry about social media, I was not the target of aggressive marketers trying to get me to buy everything (marketing to children was only just starting) , I did not have to worry about global warming, obesity, AIDS, terrorism, etc...

@Pioneer1 you can't see why your use of race is so problematic. Because I'm not (try not to be) so fixed on race I concerned about a person's skin color -- something which they have no control over. I do, however, consider their ethnicity or cultural -- which is independent of skin color. From my vantage point Cynique is as "Black" as they come. Given what you wrote about ethnicity we are probably in agreement that Cynique is "Black," or "Afro-American." if you prefer. As far as Cynique being racially Black the question is irrelevant to me as there is no race. You believe in race, so it is important to you. You asked @Maurice if he was "Black." Given your understanding of "Black" means, what you are really asking him is what is his skin color. My question to you is what difference does it make? How does his skin color inform your understanding of who he is or what he believes. Why can't what he writes serve that purpose?

Penguin has published 50 books in the Penguin Modern series, all short complications of essays from a variety of popular writers. There is one for Audre Lorde. The title of Lorde's book, “Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House”, is a quote I use often to help explain why tools like Twitter and Facebook, despite the type to the contrary, can never serve as a tool for our liberation. The Arab Spring is a good example. Interestingly, none of them are available from my distributor? It is hard to believe the largest publisher to ever exist (until Amazon over takes them), Penguin Random House would give Amazon exclusive rights to sell the books in this series. Perhaps these titles were pubbed for foreign readers, though right now Amazon seems to be the online domestic (US) selling of the books in the series. Do you recall how you discovered this book, @Maurice?

Hey @Maurice I'm doing the same thing. I'm going to allow my Amazon prime account to lapse as well. They got over on me this year with the auto renewal. Plus my kids (grown) who share my account will probably not be very happy :-) I share one's HBO account and another's Hulu. But I pay for CBS all Access so I might still have some leverage. I was unaware of Dark Days by James Baldwin, and I just added it to the site. Here is the problem. I can get the book from my distributor so drop shipping (having the distributor ship to the customer on my behalf), for me, is not possible, so I can't sell the book directly -- unless I buy directly from the publisher, which is not practical for me. B&N.com isn't even selling the book. How else can one buy this book?

Hey @Pioneer1 now that Cynique is no longer here, I feel more comfortable publically asking this question: Does Cynique past your test of being "Black?"

Hey @whitfrazier thanks for sharing this video. I have added it to the Harlem Mosaics page and to your profile page. BTW copy this version of your book cover: https://aalbc.com/books/bookcover.php?isbn13=9781539967767 the one you shared above has the "copyrighted material" on the image that Amazon like to put on book covers -- as if they hold the copyright. I'm even surprised a company like PW.

I just read that Ebony and Jet Magazines may be terminated. The company that owns the magazine has fired the entire online staff and owed a couple hundred grand to freelance writers going back to 2017 (@Mel Hopkins you were lucky to be paid). This is completely separate from the bankruptcy of Johnson Publishing. Have Black people really stopped reading print publications, or is it that they are not getting the publications that they want to read? I stopped subscribing to Ebony long ago. I got tired of seeing celebrity fluff. The magazine stopped speaking to me and social media does a much better job with the celebrity stuff anyway. This was not always true. I published a post about an article from Ebony back in 1963 and it was sublime. If the published articles like regularly I would absolutely subscribe and sell subscriptions to the magazines on this site. Do articles like the, ones from 1960s written by writers like John A. Williams, that appeal to readers like me, not have large enough of an audience to be published by magazines like Jet any longer? Maybe Magazines no longer have the funding to invest in talented writers and lose money while they build an audience. One problem many of our business have is that if we can't afford to not make a profit for a couple of years while building our businesses, we have no chance of surviving. We have to be profitable out of the gate and few of our business have the luxury of starting that way. The old adage applies; “It takes money to make money.”

Hi @thatwritingchic and @thatwritingchic your account is approved 🙂 you appear to have two. If you add an avatar to tbe one yiu plan to use, I'll delete the other to avoid confusion. Your bio is interesting. You know as an entrepreneur I ever asked myself most of those questions. The ones I should have asked, I did not consider until it was too late.

Every little bit helps. Readers must patronize the business they are interested in seeing not just survive, but thrive. Far too many of us, who express an interest Black books don't support the business that produce Black books. Instead we invest of money in Amazon a business that has clearly demonstrated that all they want is our money and if they have to obliterate every Black-owned publisher, printer, or bookseller to do it they will. I'm part of been part of the problem too, but working hard to correct that.

@Mel Hopkins I missed replying to your message. Sure most publishers large and small will sell directly to consumers, but this is a not a practice they generally promote. They typically sell at full retail and charge for shipping. This is so that they do not directly compete with wholesalers, distributors, and of course bookseller.s Direct to consumer sales is not a part of a publisher's business model. Of course self-publishers are almost completely dependent on direct to consumer sales, as they are not publishers in the traditional sense. If I buy a book from, say, PRH I'd get a 50% discount. If I buy the same book from Ingram I get a 40% discount African World books . Of course bigger retailers command better terms. If I do a signing with an author for a single book I will normally order books directly from the publisher. However, If I need several titles I will order from a distributor because I can get books from multiple publishers in a single order. Of course this is another reason authors who sell exclusively through Amazon hurts themselves, because I can't not easily sell their books. @Maurice of course you are not alone. Amazon's monopoly on the sale of Black books makes this the case. Sure, today you can buy the most popular titles on Amazon at a price below my booksellers discount. When Michelle Obama's book, Becoming first came out Amazon was discounting it at something like 60% or more (much less than my discount as a bookseller!), couple that with free next day shipping and you have a deal no bookseller can compete with. Amazon can afford to lose money on the sale of any book. Wall street will continue to fund them and the government will ensure they can operate as a monopoly with total impunity. Sure you do. But the "market place" is full of booksellers who HAVE to sell their books on Amazon since readers are trained to go directly to Amazon to look for rare or hard to find books -- choosing Amazon even before they go to a search engine (google screwed this up)! As a result, booksellers are forced to sell on Amazon. Since Amazon takes a cut of every 3rd party sale and forcing bookseller to pay for visibility, I'll leave it to you to figure out if you are getting a better price for a book now that Amazon is involved. I won't even get into the bootlegging of books on Amazon... If Amazon can't put you out of business they'll just buy you like they purchased AbeBooks effectively controlling librarything, shelfari and already owning Goodreads, etc, etc. Again as booksellers are forced out of business choice, diversity, and even availability of books go down. Any student of business also knows that monopolies forces prices to go up and profit to authors and publishers to go down. Of course there aren't, and this is a the tragedy.

Hi @Florenza Lee I'm sorry I missed this post when you first make it -- probably because of the holiday I have just added your event to our calendar: https://aalbc.com/events/index.php?st=Virginia#The+Hampton+Roads+Indie+Author+Book+Festival+and+Fundraiser Judging by the list of authors you are off to a great start!

She actually smiled at me too 🙂 it would not be a stretch to call her "petite." @Maurice oh, it will defintely show in England (welcome to the forum).

There era of strong Black-owned media companies is ending. What era is beginning?