Troy

I got my hand slapped again by Google this morning. I was warned that I was serving Google ads on pages without content. My initial reaction is always frustration when I get these nastygrams from Google, because these notices generally preempt anything I had planned work on. In this case I was not aware that I had any pages without content. After checking out the sample link provide I discovered the types of pages Google does not like; Basically if someone runs a query on my website and there are not results you end up with a page that says no results. Check out the results page on "Flying Pigs," you see here since the query returns no results (well it may return this page now). Google does not wants ads served on this pages. For my website I think this is a mistake, for the ads still have value there. Basically I have to created new templates which excludes google ads for my search pages and my 404 error pages. Fortunately, this did not take very long. While I was creating the new header, I also took the time to redesign the search bar which looks a lot nicer now:

THE Angela Benson! Thanks for sharing information about your latest book ,which I just added to our website: http://aalbc.com/books/bookinfo.php?isbn13=9781533583512 Seems I was missing profile for you, but I remedied that as well http://aalbc.com/authors/author.php?author_name=Angela+Benson You actually dropped off my radar for a minute, but I see you've come back strong. Were you trying to paste the image of your book's cover?

Beverly that has been my strategy with Facebook for sometime now. This article may give your more insight into why I have taken this approach.

Hi @Ray Hollar-Gregory, I would not describe what you are doing as “shameless,” because sharing information about one’s book is one of the purposes of this website. So if you are going to take the time to do plug your book, do it in such a way that it might actual pique someone’s interest. I say this not just for your benefit, but for anyone else who might be reading this and contemplating sharing their book’s information or other places like AALBC.com. First, save readers a step, by providing more information about your book up front. I’m not saying don’t include a link to your website—definitely do that, what I am saying is you are likely to grab more attending from the people reading this forums if you posted a description here. Second, always include an image of your book. They say never judge a book by it’s cover, but the reality is people do judge books by their covers. So again, provide that info up front, particularly if you believe if you belive serves to represent your book well. Third, do you have a website? If so always provide a link to it. It you don't have a website, get one. Finally, always use an affiliate code when sending people to Amazon; not doing this is the equivalent of giving money away. If we all constantly give Amazon free promotion the least we should do is get something in return, right? Read this article for more information on Amazon's affiliate program and other things writers should do. Congrats on the new book! Other Side is contemporary literature set in the New York City area, circa 1980s. The themes are viewed through the experiences of Jordan Baros a young middle class African American attorney. While race is an issue and part of the active consciousness, the majority of themes are universal. The title Other Side is an attempt to explore the duality of personality, character and actions of people. The main character faces his conflicts and value propositions through four relationships that are juxtaposed and contradictory. His pursuit of validation and truth is explored through his mother, wife, mistress and a sex worker. The reader is introduced to an array of other characters and backgrounds. The anecdotes from each encapsulate a broad perspective of political and social issues in a multicultural American society. Although presented through the prism of a male protagonist the women's stories of relationship struggle and maturation provides the platform for all the characters development. Jordan Baros narrates stories that represent the various engagements from his and the female characters stage of life and being. His mother (Rachel) is regretful of failure to find happiness (love) and security and its effect on her son, his wife (Trina) is hurting from her insecurities exacerbated from his infidelity and betrayal of Jordan's commitment to family, the mistress (Maria Velez) is damaged from past abuses and sense of worthlessness, and the sex worker's (Toy) anger is a result of untold disrespect and need for basic survival. The characters act out their love, frustrations and dreams for the future. As the story progresses, Jordan navigates the various ups and downs of love, sex, career, family and self. He explores the sustenance and growth that comes from his female relationships and the movement toward an understanding of himself and place in the world. Jordan is firmly entrenched in modern-day America. His perspective through the supporting characters is relatable and combined they present personal stories about love, betrayal and alienation. They express a pervading lack of comprehension with a profound need for stability. Ultimately, he realizes that in order to be fulfilled in love and life he must accept himself and frailties including the strength to control his destructive impulses. All the main characters in Other Side are seeking fulfillment and love. Over the course of the story Jordan strives for completeness. His wife, Trina confronts her insecurities and seeks to reduce her dependence, his mother is resigned to a life she has but harbors no ill will to anyone, the mistress Maria Velez is determined to find her solace and feels entitled to do so, Toy, the sex worker is doomed to self destruction and failure. For the most part each one desires someone who makes them feel special and supports them. As women, they make the mistake of compromising themselves in the pursuit of love and meet with disappointment when the men they choose (or who choose them) cannot be what they want. Their sorrows are immediately relatable to most men and women who have experienced a painful relationship. Other Side captures the raw pain of love in its various forms. The characters in Other Side start out captured in the moment conflicted and searching. The male protagonist is torn because of a desperate need for love. His journey moves from selfish arrogance, duplicity with soiled values to self-awareness and self-actualization. The women characters learn to accept their scars, their successes, and their connection to something more powerful and divine. By the end of the story they become accepting of their stations even when flawed and are hopeful about their future.

I have this love/hate relationship with Google. On some level I believe Google really does want to make the web a better place. However, as a corporation, they have to generate an ever increasing amount of money for their investors, and in the age of Facebook this must be very difficult. As a result, Google is like a schizophrenic; you never know who, or what you are dealing with at any given moment. When Google's algorithms get crazy they can't be reasoned with, have no compassion, or guilt over the mayhem they leave in their wake. AALBC.com posts advertisments, provided by Google, throughout the website. On the page you are reading now, there are likely two Google provided advertisements; one horizontal banner at the top of the page and another at the bottom. I have been serving Google ads for over a decade almost as long as their Ad network has existed, and I've gotten a check from them, often a 4-figure one every single month. But every once in awhile Google comes down on me for something on my website that they don't like. If you don't react quickly enough to address their concerns, Google will remove their ads from your site until you comply. They don't play. I used to have Amazon products appear on my website from their products feed. This allowed people to buy anything Amazon sold on my website, which allowed me to earn commissions on those sales. Amazon sold a sex toy (some kind of kinky butt plug) on their website which meant the product could appear on my site--which apparently it did. Google disabled my ads as a result. Ultimately I ended up removing the Amazon products feed feature from the website. The feature also ran afoul of one of Google's SEO rules, but that is another subject. Another time Google sent me a link to a post on my discussion forums that they did not like. It was something Kola Boof posted. I actually removed the offending images on the page, but that was not enough to placate Google, for they said there were many other offending images, but they refused to provide me with additional links to to help me get rid of all the images. Unable to find all of the images on my own, Google simply stopped allowing the forum to serve Google Ads--no trial, no jury, no recourse. Ultimately, I relocated the discussion from thumperscorner.com to aalbc.com, but that relocation resulted in a big reduction in participation. Just this week I got two more warnings from Google: Hello, This is a warning message to alert you that there is action required to bring your AdSense account into compliance with our AdSense program policies. We’ve provided additional details below, along with the actions to be taken on your part. Affected website: aalbc.com Example page where violation occurred: http://aalbc.com/reviews/kola_boof.htm Action required: Please make changes immediately to your site to follow AdSense program policies. Current account status: Active Violation explanation Why was this action taken against my account: Google ads may not be placed on pages with adult or any kinds of non family-safe content. This includes any site which contains: Full nudity Pornographic images, videos, or games Pornographic cartoons or anime (hentai/ecchi) Please note that to fix this violation, you need not censor the content itself, but you should stop placing ad code on the page. It turns out Google did not like a topless image of Kola Boof that was on the page?! This is frustrating because on the very same page, Google was serving an ad feature an image of a provocative, largest breasted woman, promoting a Russian (wink, wink) dating site. Whose sensibilities are Google trying to protect? I can't show a bare breast, but Google can promote a sex site?! I replaced Kola's photo with modified version obscuring her breasts, which is on the right. if you click the photo, you can see the original image which violated Google's policy. A few days early I received the message below: Hello, This is a warning message to alert you that there is action required to bring your AdSense account into compliance with our AdSense program policies. We’ve provided additional details below, along with the actions to be taken on your part. Affected website: aalbc.com Example page where violation occurred: http://aalbc.com/authors/author.php?author_name=Frances+Cress+Welsing Action required: Please make changes immediately to your site to follow AdSense program policies. Current account status: Active Violation explanation Publishers may not implement Google ads in a manner that makes them more prominent than the content of the page itself. On mobile devices this includes placing two or more Google ads on the viewscreen at the same time. Please be aware that if you have responsive website design that ads may shift into non compliant positions as the format of the screen changes. I'm saying to myself, "What the hell is Google talking about now?!" I hate sites that place ads which dominate the page. In fact work hard to make sure this does not happen. On one hand Google will tell you to place ads within the content as this increases clicks on the ads and on the other they manage to find something wrong with a page I actively work to ensure ads do not dominate. It turns out my problem was the mobile version of the website. I've designed the pages to take all of the ads on the right hand side of the page and move them below the content on mobile displays. In order for the ads to be seen on a mobile device, one has to scroll past the page's content. So it seems absurd that this would make Google think my ads are more prominent that the content. Please note, the mobile optimized version of the website was created to comply with one of Google's SEO rules, but, again, that is another subject. I explained to a Google employee that I thought this was overreach on Google's part and that anyone looking at the mobile version of the page could not reasonably conclude I was making the ads more prominent than the content itself. The employee remained mute on this point. But it was true, if you scrolled to the bottom of the page you could indeed see two Google ads at the same time, depending upon the ad rotation; so I deleted one of the ads to comply. Usually months, even years, go by between violation warnings from Google, but two in the span of a week gives me the impression Google is getting more aggressive. I'm just glad I was not on vacation to return home to find my site was banned from serving Google ad for not addressing their warnings. In an ideal world, I would not be dependent upon Google for advertising, but frankly they are the only game in town, that provides a meaningful source of revenue for sites like mine. So it turns out that jumping through Google's hoops is worth the effort. If I were perfectly honest, my site is actually better as a result of doing what Google suggests particularly as it pertains to SEO. Hopefully I won't have to hear from Google again any time soon.

Yeah Facebook is executing brilliantly. Paying content producers had to come eventually, still this is a relatively small payment to The New York Times. If I were running the paper I would not publish on Facebook for a mere 3 million. Still, small business are left holding the bag, having to pay to reach the fans they have attracted on Facebook. In contrast, Youtube still pays content producers. I get a check from Google, for my Youtube videos, every month and have for years. It is not a big check, but it is something. Everytime I log onto Facebook they have their hand out asking me to pay to promote a post that they have identified is interesting to readers.

Hi @Sheryl that's simple; it is based upon sales generated by AALBC.com since 1998. I'm actually still inserting book information, particularly for some of the older titles, so this list will evolve over time. The information is being complied from sales of well over over 10,000 different titles sold over a period of almost 18 years. Some publisher imprints have more titles based upon their sheer size and the popularity of their authors. Of course AALBC.com is just one website, so our sales are skewed to by books we promote, books of our sponsors and supporters, or books that resonate with our audience. When I first started compiling this data I ran a report which showed more than 2/3's of the most popular books read by African American readers are published by just 3 conglomerates and two of those were headquartered outside the United States. This data was compiled on the now defunct Power List sites, but I have very similar info on AALBC.com and look forward to reporting in this information and showing who is really behind Black books. As an aside, I want to review how I'm counting bestsellers for publishers. When I count them for authors I count the number of times their book has made the list. So if an author has one book that made the best sellers list 10 times; the authors is a "10 Time AALBC.com Bestselling Author." For publishers I think I want to count the number of distinct titles that have made the list. So if they have one book that has made the list 10 times I'm considering counting the book once rather than 10 times, then ranking the publishers based upon the number of bestselling books (as opposed to the number of times their books have appeared on a list) What do you all think?

For Immediate Release Media Contact: Deborah Heard June 16, 2016 Info@hurstonwright.org 202-248-5051 Ernest J. Gaines and Junot Díaz to Receive 2016 Legacy Awards Nominees Named for Debut Fiction, Fiction, Nonfiction, and Poetry WASHINGTON, D.C. - The Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Foundation will present the 2016 Legacy Awards on Friday, October 21st at the historic Washington Plaza Hotel in Washington, D.C. Receiving the North Star Award -- the foundation's highest honor for career accomplishment and inspiration to the writing community -- is Ernest J. Gaines, the award-winning author of A Lesson Before Dying. Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Junot Díaz will receive the Ella Baker Award, which recognizes writers for work that advances social justice. Gaines has received numerous awards, including the Presidential National Medal of Arts from President Barack Obama in 2012. Other honors include the National Humanities Medal, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Louisiana Humanist of the Year and a MacArthur Foundation "Genius" Fellowship. In 2000, he was made a Chevalier (Knight) of the French Order of Arts and Letters. Gaines serves as writer-in-residence emeritus at University of Louisiana at Lafayette (formerly University of Southwestern Louisiana). Many of Gaines' works are taught in schools and are celebrated in the canon of world literature. Some of his most-read are The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittmanand A Gathering of Old Men. Díaz is the author of the critically acclaimed Drown and The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, which won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. He is a co-founder of Voices of Our Nation Arts (VONA) workshop and advocates for writers of color. He also is the recipient of a MacArthur Foundation "Genius" Fellowship, PEN/Malamud Award, Dayton Literary Peace Prize, Guggenheim Fellowship and PEN/O. Henry Award. The evening will culminate in the announcement of the winners of the juried awards in the categories of debut fiction, fiction, nonfiction, and poetry before an audience of more than 200 literary stars and representatives of the publishing industry, media, arts, politics, and academia. The 2016 Hurston/Wright Legacy Awards continue the foundation's tradition of recognizing literary excellence by writers from the United States as well as the international Black writing community. Winners of the Hurston/Wright Award for College Writers, under the sponsorship of Amistad books, a division of Harper Collins Publishers, also will be honored. Visit www.hurstonwright.org for event details and ticket information. . The Nominees for the 2016 Hurston/Wright Legacy Awards are: Debut Fiction Mourner's Bench by Sanderia Faye (The University of Arkansas Press) The Star Side of Bird Hill by Naomi Jackson (Penguin Press) The Fishermen by Chigozie Obioma (Little, Brown and Company) Fiction The Sellout by Paul Beatty (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) The Turner House by Angela Flournoy (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) Delicious Foods by James Hannaham (Little, Brown and Company) Welcome to Braggsville by T. Geronimo Johnson (William Morrow) Under the Udala Trees by Chinelo Okparanta (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) The Lost Child by Caryl Phillips (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) Nonfiction The Light of the World by Elizabeth Alexander (Grand Central Publishing) Confronting Black Jacobins: The United States, the Haitian Revolution, and the Origins of the Dominican Republic by Gerald Horne (Monthly Review Press) Spectacle: The Astonishing Life of Ota Benga by Pamela Newkirk (Amistad) Where Everybody Looks Like Me: At the Crossroads of America's Black Colleges and Culture by Ron Stodghill (Amistad) Infectious Madness: The Surprising Science of How We "Catch" Mental Illnessby Harriet A. Washington (Little, Brown and Company) The Beast Side: Living and Dying While Black in America by D. Watkins (Hot Books/Skyhorse Publishing) Poetry Honest Engine by Kyle Dargan (The University of Georgia Press) Forest Primeval by Vievee Francis (TriQuarterly Books/Northwestern University Press) Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude by Ross Gay (University of Pittsburgh Press) How to Be Drawn by Terrance Hayes (Penguin Books) It Seems Like a Mighty Long Time by Angela Jackson (TriQuarterly Books/Northwestern University Press) Voyage of the Sable Venus by Robin Coste Lewis (Alfred A. Knopf) The judges: Debut Fiction - Mitchell S. Jackson, Laila Lalami and Nelly Rosario Fiction - Jeffery Renard Allen, April Mosolino and Nancy Rawles Nonfiction - Charles E. Cobb Jr., Natalie Hopkinson and Lawrence P. Jackson Poetry - Amaud Jamaul Johnson, Evie Shockley and Patricia Smith About the Hurston/Wright Foundation: The Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Foundation was founded in 1990 in Washington, D.C., and is dedicated to discovering, mentoring and honoring Black writers. The foundation was co-founded by award-winning author Marita Golden and bibliophile/cultural activist Clyde McElvene. Through workshops for adult writers and teens, master classes, and readings, the organization preserves the voices of Black writers in the world literary canon, serves as a community for writers, and continues a tradition of literary excellence in storytelling established by its namesakes. The Hurston/Wright Award for College Writers was the first program of the foundation to support emerging Black writers early in their careers. The Legacy Awards, introduced in 2001, honors the best in Black literature in America and around the globe. For more information about the Hurston/Wright Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, go to www.hurstonwright.org.

Book and Major Motion Picture Coming: Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterly:

Photo: of Walter Mosley and Paul Coates. Coates presented the award to Mosley during the 70th anniversary gala. MWA Announces the 2016 Edgar® Award Winners Mystery Writers of America is proud to announce the winners of the 2016 Edgar Allan Poe Awards, honoring the best in mystery fiction, non-fiction and television published or produced in 2015. The Edgar® Awards were presented to the winners at our 70th Gala Banquet, April 28, 2016 at the Grand Hyatt Hotel, New York City. GRAND MASTER Walter Mosley BEST NOVEL Let Me Die in His Footsteps by Lori Roy (Penguin Random House – Dutton) BEST FIRST NOVEL BY AN AMERICAN AUTHOR The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen (Grove Atlantic – Grove Press) BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL The Long and Faraway Gone by Lou Berney (HarperCollin Publishers – William Morrow) BEST FACT CRIME Whipping Boy: The Forty-Year Search for My Twelve-Year-Old Bully by Allen Kurzweil (HarperCollins Publishers – Harper) BEST CRITICAL/BIOGRAPHICAL The Golden Age of Murder by Martin Edwards (HarperCollins Publishers-HarperCollins) BEST SHORT STORY “Obits” – Bazaar of Bad Dreams by Stephen King (Simon & Schuster – Scribner) BEST JUVENILE Footer Davis Probably is Crazy by Susan Vaught (Simon & Schuster – Paula Wiseman Books) BEST YOUNG ADULT A Madness So Discreet by Mindy McGinnis (HarperCollins Publishers – Katherine Tegen Books) BEST TELEVISION EPISODE TELEPLAY “Gently with the Women” – George Gently, Teleplay by Peter Flannery (Acorn TV) ROBERT L. FISH MEMORIAL AWARD “Chung Ling Soo’s Greatest Trick” – Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine by Russell W. Johnson (Dell Magazines) RAVEN AWARDS Margaret Kinsman Sisters in Crime ELLERY QUEEN AWARD Janet Rudolph, Founder of Mystery Readers International * * * * * * THE SIMON & SCHUSTER – MARY HIGGINS CLARK AWARD Little Pretty Things by Lori Rader-Day (Prometheus Books – Seventh Street Books)

I participated in the 2nd annual fair in 2008 and it is hard to believe it is now 10 years old. I can't wait to get back! NEWS RELEASE For Immediate Release June 20, 2016 TURNING 10! Renowned Leimert Park Village Book Fair Gears Up For 10th Anniversary Celebration With Headliners, Crowd Pleasers and Fan Favorites LOS ANGELES – “Voted One of LA’s Five Best Annual Book Festivals,” the renowned Leimert Park Village Book Fair (LPVBF) invites those who love reading, literature, learning and fun to the 10th anniversary celebration on Saturday, August 20, 2016 from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on the outdoor promenade of the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza (BHCP), located at 3650 W. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. in LA. This year, the book fair will be held outdoors, and luckily, it rarely rains in Southern California! Thousands are expected to flock once again to this family-oriented festival held in the heart of Leimert Park, the epicenter of the Los Angeles area African American arts, intellectual and literary scene. LPVBF will celebrate its 10th anniversary with an exciting and eclectic mix of authors, scholars, poets, television personalities, and celebrities. The book fair will present a line up of headliners and crowd pleasers, fan favorites of voracious readers and of book clubs around the country. This tribute to reading and literature will be punctuated by music, laughter, intellectual engagement and celebrity authors, signing their impressive works of literature. "This year marks our 10th anniversary," said Cynthia Exum, founder and executive director of the LPVBF. “We wanted to step things up a notch to commemorate this milestone; so, we are hosting city-wide special events, called ‘BookEnd’ events with our community partners.” She added, “There will be concerts, film screenings, celebrity readings, panel discussions, reading parties and more to help us celebrate our theme of ‘Turning 10!’” In 2007, with a vision of staging a world-class book fair in Leimert Park, Exum invested her own money, and that of a few friends, into what has become one of the nation’s best gathering of authors, scholars, entertainers and educators. Her commitment to the book fair was acknowledged when she received public support from the City of Los Angeles, County of Los Angeles, LA Department of Cultural Affairs as well as sponsors, community organizations and enthused merchants in Leimert Park Village, including Eso Won Books, one of LA’s premier African American-owned bookstores.With the support of these partners and supporters, she built a high-quality cultural event, and the people came! Now considered one of the premier literary events on the West Coast, the LPVFB continues to be free to the public, and expected to draw more than 10,000 people, with more than 150 authors, writers, storytellers, poets, spoken word performers, vendors and exhibitors. Enjoying unprecedented growth, in 2013, the book fair was re-located to the spacious Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza -- a beautiful historic venue, located in the Leimert Park area. For Exum, the impetus for the start of the book fair began as a tribute to her late grandmother who read the Bible daily and kept stacks of National Geographic magazines around the house – as well as to her late sister who regularly received books from Exum, while serving time at the Central California Women’s Facility (CCWF). “Having books in the home inspired a love of reading for me,” explained Exum. “As a child, by flipping the pages of a book, I could go anywhere in the world, and dream the dreams of the person I wanted to be.” Exum has taken the book fair on the road this year, hosting two community reading programs in collaboration with the Los Angeles Public Library (the Washington Irving Branch), the National Endowment for the Arts, and the LA Department of Cultural Affairs. In memory of her sister, she plans to organize a pop-up book fair at a women’s prison to offer inmates not only a lifeline; but hopefully instill a love of learning through reading. Perhaps, taking a cue from media mogul Oprah Winfrey, Exum eventually wants to expand her book fair and literacy programs internationally to Africa. Today, the LPVBF has become a much-anticipated cultural tradition in the LA area. “We are pleased to support this pre-eminent literary organization, which hosts some of our greatest scholars, historians, established artists as well as emerging authors, providing a unique platform for them to connect with the community,” added Dr. Bernard W. and Shirley Kinsey, chairpersons of the LPVBF. “The event is a beautiful testament that our community loves reading and the literary arts, and we’re so proud to be apart of this special celebration.” PAST PARTICIPANTS In the past nine years, the book fair has hosted a steadfast stellar lineup of authors, poets, celebrity authors, speakers and artists, including Pulitzer Prize winners Isabel Wilkerson and Douglas A. Blackmon; prominent literary figure Ishmael Reed; New York Times best seller Eric Jerome Dickey; poet/activist Nikki Giovanni and poet/playwright Sonia Sanchez; Oscar winner Louis Gossett Jr.; along with award-winning actors like Victoria Rowell (The Young and the Restless”); Hill Harper (“CSI: NY”); Todd Bridges (Diff’rent Stokes); Isaiah Washington (“Grey’s Anatomy”); and reality stars NeNe Leakes ("Real Housewives of Atlanta”); writer reality star Demetria Lucas D’Oyley (“Blood, Sweat & Heels”) and Award Winning Film Director Ava DuVernay (“Selma”) – just to name a few. Also, throughout during its tenure, world-renowned visual artists, such as Charles Bibbs, Michael Massenburg, Synthia Saint James and Varnette P. Honeywood have lent their talents to creating official LPVBF posters to commemorate the event. For a complete list of previous celebrity participants, please visit www.leimertparkbookfair.com ABOUT THE LEIMERT PARK VILLAGE BOOK FAIR The LPVBF is produced by Exum and Associates in collaboration with the City of Los Angeles, County of Los Angeles, Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs; and Capri Capital Partners of Baldwin Hills Crenshaw. Philanthropists and art historians Dr. Bernard W. and Shirley Kinsey serve as the book fair’s chairpersons, leading the fund-raising efforts and increasing the book fair’s brand awareness in the corporate community. The Kinseys are one of the most admired and respected couples in Los Angeles. They are known for their collection of African-American art, books and manuscripts that document and tell the remarkable story of African Americans triumphs and struggles from 1632 to the present. The Kinsey Collection: “Shared Treasures of Bernard and Shirley Kinsey” has been on a national tour and seen by millions. Cynthia Exum, an alumnus of the prestigious California State Senate Fellows program, holds a Master of Arts from UCLA’s School of Urban Planning and Public Policy. She founded Exum-Casey and Associates, a public affairs and events management firm in 2005. Exum is also the co-author of “Images of America: Leimert Park,” with Maty Guiza-Leimert -- the wife of Walter H. Leimert, whose grandfather developed the area in 1927. The mission of LPVBF is to promote, encourage and advocate literacy, education and the love of reading throughout the Greater Los Angeles areas. LPVBF is a non-profit 501 (c) (3) organization dedicated to producing year-round educational programming, as well as to the presentation of events in collaboration with our partners, in addition to the annual summer fair for which the organization is named. For more information, visit www.leimertparkbookfair.com. With the backing of partners and supporters, Exum built a high-quality cultural event, and the people came! WANT TO GO? Leimert Park Village Book Fair Saturday, August 20, 2016 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Baldwin Hills Crenshaw (BHC) - courtyard plaza, located at 3650 W. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. in LA The event is free and open to the public. The Leimert Park Village Book Fair will feature iconoclast interviews, booksignings, workshops, panel discussions, poetry readings, stage performances, musical entertainment and a variety of activities for the whole family. Visit us at www.leimertparkbookfair.com. “Voted One of LA’s Five Best Annual Book Festivals” http://theculturetrip.com/north-america/usa/california/articles/la-s-5-best-annual-book-festivals/

Facebook Inc. has inked contracts with nearly 140 media companies and celebrities to create videos for its nascent live-streaming service, as the social network positions itself to cash in on a lucrative advertising market it has yet to tap—and keep its 1.65 billion monthly users engaged. The company has agreed to make payments to video creators totaling more than $50 million, according to a document reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. Its partners include established media outfits like CNN and the New York Times; digital publishers like Vox Media, Tastemade, Mashable and the Huffington Post; and celebrities including Kevin Hart, Gordon Ramsay, Deepak Chopra and NFL quarterback Russell Wilson. The value of individual contracts varies widely, with 17 worth more than $1 million, according to the document. The highest-paid publisher is BuzzFeed, slated to receive $3.05 million for broadcasting live between March 2016 and March 2017. Just behind BuzzFeed is the New York Times, which is to receive $3.03 million for a 12-month deal. CNN is third, with a $2.5 million contract. [Kevin Hart $600K] (Read the complete story at The Wall Street Journal, 22 June 2016) Now the Wall Street Journal did mention whether this would be good, bad, or indifferent for any of the parties concerned. Judging by the popularity of the videos Facebook is already streaming I have not hope this will benefit readers, as Facebook optimizes this content for revenue generation. It is already telling that a Buzzfeed commands for for their content the venerable New York Times. Will this put more pressure on the NTY too become more like Buzzfeed so that they can earn more from Facebook? How will the effect resource allocation at the NY Times. Wil they can a few more journalist so they can hire a few kids to make stupid videos like the one described below: The potential power of Facebook’s platform has been evident in early experiments. In April, two BuzzFeed employees streamed a Facebook Live video showing them placing rubber bands around a watermelon until it exploded. It was Facebook’s most-watched live video, until it was beaten out by Facebook user Candace Payne, who in May filmed herself in her car, laughing uproariously over a noise-making Chewbacca mask. {sigh}

Still no word from Amazon or Google...

The Top 100 Publisher Imprints Selling Black Books It is really interesting to me to look at this report. There is a lot of information in here, and as I continue with the website upgrade I'll continue to share even more information and put some of this data in context. But the main benefit is that as I compile book club reading lists, bestseller lists, awards, reviews and more I'll be even better able to identify quality books readers will enjoy I'm just getting started...

Thanks Bridgette, but it is not likely I'll get a chance to read the whole book. As you might image, I get books everyday so it is no reflection on your work. I will however definitely look at it and certainly recommend it to readers looking for these types of books. I can also assure you the book will not go to waste.

My mother always talked about this even when I was a kid. She told me no matter what i do never let them put anything in your hand. She also said we would not recognize the seasons... Congrats on the book @Author Bridgette L Collins

More than 2,400 authors profiled, as AALBC.com website upgrade continues. When I first started AALBC.com website upgrade I hoped to have everything completed by March to coincide with our 18th anniversary, but as I designed and implemented the newly designed content management system, I finding I'm introducing far more content than I'm migrating. So the whole upgrade will probably take a year to complete. For you project managers out there this is classic case scope creep, but it all good as I'm doing things with the site I could not have imaged when I started. I'm also discovering tons of great writers and books.

Cynique I agree. I'm sure Pioneer has heard of the Maury Show and the white family dysfunction that is paraded in continuous loop. ,The distinction I was trying to make was that even white privilege has a component of class, which we tend to overlook. I think the kid in Sandford got off because he was rich, sure being white helped but his class mattered most. The judge could not put him away because he saw himself.

Hi Mel, I'm sure I see the same thing you see. Since they copied the page completely along with the code, I'm able to prevent them from displaying the content on their website by preventing that specific rogue domain from displaying content served from my website. I'm afraid if I got rid of too much Amazon would not have enough to go on.

My money was, literally, on Cleveland :-)

"...the problem is being a good husband" LOL Amen to that Brother! Seriously I can one be a good father while being a poor husband? So can I conclude, based upon what you wrote that you do not consider Christianity to be a "Good" religion? Pioneer I don't think you can call for the implementation of rites of passage and freedom at the same time. Rites of passages require that you buy into a hold system of rules or behavioral norms that are adopted and enforce before you can be called a adult. What happens when you disagree with the rules? You see what I mean? If you want a well behaved society where people don;t make babies they can;t take care of you have to give up on the fantasy of complete freedom. Cynique I think Pioneer has a point when he talks about the differences between white kids and Black ones, but I think he is mixing class with race. Think about the rich, white, Stanford University athlete that recently raped an incapacitated girl behind a dumpster. He essentially got a pass. You and I both know a Black boy (of any class) would have been buried beneath the jail. If it was a poor white guy from the nearest trailer park (which I'd image would have to be pretty far from Stanford's campus), he would be doing serious time too. Rich white boys operate in a different world than everyone else.

Actually the site is still up; I inadvertently picked up the period when creating the hyperlink. Here is the correct URL http://noturmomsfish.com/ At this point the site is serving my ads with my ad code, so any revenue should flow to me, but again that is for right now. Tomorrow the site could serve malware and victims might assume it is me. Again I don't really know what the ultimate motives of these people are, but it can't be good. Another problem is that I have linked to the domain and have visited the site several times. Lets assume I had not taken the actions of reporting the site to Amazon and Google, and that this was replicated against hundreds or thousands of other domains; this could be a great to generate traffic and backlinks to a new domain. I've seen similar scheme work. Those affiliate sites only work for the people selling them and they definitely degrade the web, fortunately Google deals with these sites quite effectively.

I couple of days ago I noticed a newly created domain has copied my site: http://aalbc.com. The offending site, created last week, is http://noturmomsfish.com. I noticed this because it is generating a large number of requests for my ads. Some may argue that this is a good thing because my content and ads are being is being displayed in more places and I'm generating more ad views which means more money. Actually this is the exact opposite of good. On may 18th one page on this site generated over 17,000 ad views. This type of activity, left unchecked could get me dropped from Google's Advertising network, which would materially impact my business. Besides, I can't have another site spoofing my content; this is bad for branding, it is terrible for SEO, besides I have no idea what the ultimate intentions are of the people who set this up, but I'm pretty confident they are not good. The software developer for my ad server Renegade Internet provided these tips. I'm sharing them here because the World Wide Web is like the Wild Wild West there are no rules that are not unbroken and there is no one responsible for ensure people work together. This is why I'm always writing about the importance of working together. This kind of thing happens all of the time, to varying degrees. In fact a few years ago a very large site wn.com apparent business model was to copy content from other website and serve a ton of ads. They only copied excerpts and even linked back to the source, but they did not generate their own content. This site copied countless pages of content from my site. The worse part was that they were beating me in search results on my own content! Which cost me real money for a many months. Ultimately after getting beat up by webmasters like myself Google updated their algorithm and essentially put these site types of sites out of business, but at the same time I also believe they hurt Black newspaper sites because they all rely heavily on wire services that all the other uses which makes these sites carbon copies of each other. But again I digress... So how do I stop this from happening? Contact the website owner Sent them a cease and desist letter. You can usually find the website's owner by doing a whois lookup. In my case the web owner has hidden their contact information privacy protected, (no surprise there) Contact hosting company and asked them to take down the site because it was hosting stolen/copyrighted material. In my case the web hist is Amazon. Now this is surprising because I full expected a non-american company. A company like Amazon is very likely to take care of matters like they provide a form for reporting abusive website they host: https://aws.amazon.com/forms/report-abuse Report the offending site to Google and request that they remove this site from their index. Google provides information on how to report malicious websites here: https://support.google.com/legal/answer/3110420?rd=1 In my case the site is too new to have been indexed by Google's search engines. But I'll report them nonetheless and hopefully preempt and potential damages. I also stopped my advertisements from being displayed on bogus domain to prevent my website from running afould of Google Advertising Network policies. There are no guarantees here and I'll let you know how I make out.

Pioneer when you were "very religious" your religion did not mandate abstinence from sex outside of marriage? I hate to read about the bad experiences some of the men you know have had been fathers. Do you think there should be a law against people bring children into the world if they are not financially independent themselves? @Pioneer1, it is probably a good time for you to adopt; seems like you'd be a very decent father.

Well to be clear while I recognize how lists attract visitors; I'm not interested in building list solely for that reason, and I'm definitely not interested in creating lists for the sake of having people click through multiple pages to see each item on a list--I hate sites that do that. (I'm not suggesting that you were saying this Chris, I'm clarify this for other readers who may not know this) I use list in the in the content of aggregating information about books. For example take a look at the page for Jacqueline Woodson's Brown Girl Dreaming, you'll see that the book has been recognized in a variety of ways, bestsellers lists, awards, book club reading lists I think this is where the real value lies it helps readers find good books. I actually was not familiar with UPROXX until now. Honestly I'm not interested in replicating their model--though I can see why it would be much more lucrative than what I'm doing. You'll notice the site is much harder to navigate due to the prominence and positioning of ads.