Troy

...so talk to Walter Mosley. Looking forward to seeing film.

It is Walter Mosley post so this is fine. I never saw the film, I'll add it to my queue. I recently heard Walter say, and I paraphrase, that Denzel was not who he envisioned as Easy Rawlins, as Easy is not a handsome man. The novel Devil in a Blue Dress was rated as one of the top 100 book of the 20th century by this website's readers.

The following poem was written and Illustrated by Ngum Nagfor Cameroonian, Ngum Ngafor launched Africally Speaking which is an African website that tackles business, technology, politics, science and social issues. Ngum's poem is what introduced me to the role of West Africans in defending India for the British.

Got 'em! After the help I've received and a bit of research, I'll go out on a limb and say that I have all of Walter's books on his page--that is 54 distinct titles.

Walter Mosley Fans, I can use your help. I which books am I missing? I found 53 different titles.

That is a very common question. Reach out to other sci-fi writers, who currently have agents for recommendations and suggestions on how to proceed. You can search for names of sci-fi authors to reach out to, most of the ones on this site are quite approachable. Visit their websites or look for them on social media. Also research which agents have recently sold sci-fi books, you can use http://www.publishersmarketplace.com/ There is a $25 monthly fee to access their database, but if set aside some time you may only need access for a month. Many people use The Guide to Literary Agents, it is always a bestselling book on this site, but some people say by the time the book hits the stores it is already dated. Getting a good agent is perhaps harder than getting published. No agent will work with you unless they thing you have a book they can sell. Of course, never give an agent payment up front--for anything.

No problem @Aha Mena I'm also embedding one of the video you shared above below

From left to right; author; Q.B. Wells; me; award winning playwright, Tsehaye Geralyn Hébert; playwright, Ilesa Duncan; and Kevin Roberts owner of Azizi Bookstore (the physical store is now closed). This was a fun table. I already knew Kevin and Q.B., but this was the first time I met Tsehaye and Ilesa. They were both very interesting women. Ilesa is the Pegasus Theatre Chicago's artistic director and is adapting Charles Johnson's Middle Passage. As mention Tsehaye she serves a playwright-in-residence at Chicago State University. She is the recipient of the New Voices and Visions Award (Louisiana State University) among others. Please forgive the quality of the image, normally we have a photographer taking shots and we even do a massive group photo, but this year there was no group shot or a professional photographer it was just fun, food, drinks, and camaraderie :-)

@Ralph, most authors don't know about the affiliate code. I rarely see an author use one. Again it is leaving money on the table. Some authors actually use my affiliate code, just as a way to support the site--a percentage of their amazon sales goes to AALBC.com and it cost the author and the reader nothing... Now that I think about it I'm going to make an appeal in my next enewsletter that authors, interested in supporting AALBC.com use our affiliate code. I'm not sure how many authors will do it, but when you are selling book every penny matters. As soon as you as you define the demo and create a compelling appeal, I'll definitely consider reviewing the book.

Yes duck "quack quack" bacon. It is nothing like that turkey bacon bs, this actually tastes good!

@ocartman1, for ebooks you can sell them directly from your site. You would use other sites like AALBC.com to help generate sales by providing a commission implemented through an affiliate program. You would also promote your ebook through publicity and advertising--something most authors don't do enough. Check out Dante Lee's model. For physical books it is tougher because of all the issues related to physical products, postage, returns, storage, insurance, etc. But if you are willing to fulfill you own book orders, then everything described above for ebooks applies. AIl you need someone to drop ship your orders (send the books to the customer in your behalf). I'm sure there are a number of Black owned businesses that would be willing to do this. I suspect Dare Books in Longwood Fl, Mahogany Book in MD, Brother Mati of Africa World Books might be willing to do this, of course there are others. In fact, for a few years Earl Cox (pictured above) and I sold books in the manner Obari described. Earl was the publisher and distributor, I sold the books on my site and he fulfilled those orders too. I earned a commission on those sales. There is potential in this model. In any event, this might be a business concept worth thinking through and reviving. We see where the Amazon dominated world has taken us. Now that they are a powerful lobby and own the Washington Post, I don't expect any anyone in D.C. do anything about Amazon's growing Monopoly.

Here is another Brother, J. Marcellus Burke, I met during our annual Black Pack Party. He wrote what sounds like an interesting novel, The Black Knights. Which is fact based story about four fighter pilots serving in the German Air Force (Lufwaffe). His publisher, Bennett Johnson, who was also at the party (shown in the photo with me below) has an even more impressive resume. Bennett was Vice President of the Third World Press Foundation, President of the Evanston Branch of the NAACP and much much more. These brothers are both well into their 80's and still gettin' it in!

No Cynique you did not strike me as elderly in the least. I too appreciated that the situation my not present itself again so i cherished the moment even more. I went on about how you look like yourself, because you did. I see A LOT of photos of folks, meet them in person, and wonder who was in the photos they release Well next time you are in the 'hood check out a restaurant called Peaches. It is not much to look at, but they have an excellent breakfast I'm not checkout the duck bacon and the biscuits.

This article was written by a Brother I met at the Black Pack Party this week. Is Black Success Possible without White Infrastructure? by Dr. Obari Adéye Cartman I decided to go the “all Black everything” route last year when I published my book. In the text I encourage us to do for self, so it felt hypocritical to let Amazon make money while I advocate Kujichagulia. I had a vision of becoming a model for large-scale collectively sustained Black success. It was unsettling trying to think examples and only coming up with Marcus Garvey and Tulsa from decades ago and Tyler Perry today. Independent black bookstores are barely surviving, so I dreamed of doing my part by creating a demand for my work to then say ‘you can only buy it from a Black owned bookstore’. Which still sounds good, but I’m starting to have some doubts. Now y'all know this brother is singing my song. When I was setting up his pages on this site, I noticed his book, despite having an ISBN was not in any of the major retailer websites. I inquired about this and he sent me a link to his article. I was like whoa! I'm completely down with this--I just did not know. So I asked him for a direct to his book. Interestingly, I'm increasingly have conversations with publishers and indie authors who are interested in selling books directly--completely cutting Amazon out of the picture. I think this is a great trend, as Amazon OWNS the Black book retail business and this is impoverishing black business, and not serving the reader very well. The other benefit is that with Amazon out of the picture the author will make more money and the reader will pay less for the book. The example I shared about Dante Lee's book is a perfect example. But the trick is, getting the reader to buy the book on a platform other than Amazon. This will require a seismic shift in attitude among readers, but with enough promotion on the reasons why this matters I think it can be done. Dante was able to address the issue of getting reader buy by directly from him with by setting a very low price. This works for the type of book he was selling; a very short ebook. But for a physical full-length book, the model may not hold, but it is something we are wrestling with, and we are open to ideas. Below is a photo of Dr. Obari Cartman and a few other "Book" brothers at the Black Pack party; from left to right (front) myself, Obarl Cartman, (rear) Kwame Alexander (Newbery Medal Winner and Coretta Scott King Honor Award Winning author), Earl Sewell (bestselling author), and Earl Cox (publishing consultant).

@Pioneer1, I don't think it is lack of organization; we have many massive organizations. The greek letter organizations, for example, have 100's of thousands of members. The Black church has even more members. There is still an NAACP, an Urban League, etc, etc. The issue does not seem to be a dearth of organizations, but rather what the organizations we do have are about. That question I can not answer because I'm not a member of any organization. For sure, some would say that is the problem, but I would disagree...obviously. Agreed, indoctrinated Black people can not know much they are being indoctrinated--that is the definition of indoctrination...

"Tapped" me on my back?! I was talking to someone and I felt someone punch me in my back. My immediate reaction is that this person better know me. So I turned around and it @Cynique in the flesh. Cynique, in an ideal world we could have taken more time to actually have a conversation. Seeing you was like meeting a celebrity. A celebrity whose career you may have followed and taken a photograph with, but getting to know someone takes time and I think it has to be in person. The interesting thing about getting to know someone on these forums versus real life is that (at least for me), is that I tend to be more honest here. I'll express views and opinion here that I would keep to myself at a cocktail party. Here I'm less filtered, so I'm probably more likable in real life But which one is the real me. I think if you know me both here and in the real world you probably know me better than most. Lurkers may fall into that catergory, but hardly anyone you actively posts does. @Delano (who i actually went to business school with in the early 90's) falls into the category of both. I first met him in 1991 when we both were constants in the PC lab. But I have not seen him in about 10 years so we have moved from physical to virtual. Choosing between the two; physical trumps virtual. But when there is no other choice virtual is better than nothing. Our culture seems to behave as if virtual relationships are better than physical ones, given the huge amount of time we invest, in corporate curated, virtual relationships. Corporate control of the relationship is one of the reason's I've optioned out of using social media for personal reasons; social media imposes which greatly distort who we really are. I actually started to dislike people in the social media world that I actually liked in the real world! So if someone who I actually know, warts and all, in the real world, is seemingly constantly boasting about how great wife, children, lives are; they seem phony and disingenuous to me. But then I realized it is not them; it is the way social media works, so rather than disliking people I otherwise like, I try my best to ignore what I see, or like hit the like button and keep it moving.

Hi Ralph, thanks for sharing your new book with us. I will take the liberty of sharing a couple of things that I know will help you" First, At the risk of sounding like a broken record to frequent visitors here, never link to Amazon with using and affiliate code. You are just leaving money on the table. Read this article for more insight. Second, putting on my bookseller's hat: I read the information here and on the Amazon and createspace sites. You have to give us more information about the book to entice us to want to buy and read it. When I say "us" I mean the potential readers. Consider your target audience and how the book will appeal to them. For example, from the perspective of someone on the tail end of the baby boomer generation, when you write, as a 22-year-old person, "... my point of views about the world today." you really have to do some selling because your perspective is that of someone who is really young and hasn't actually lived life yet. This is not to say that it is impossible to appeal to an older demo, but you are gonna have to tell us what that appeal is; do you seen where I'm coming from?

Any institution still around from the period benefited from the enslavement of human beings, including all of the Ivy League schools that we fight to get into while the HBCU's languish. Forget it man, Black folks ain't gettin' no damn reparations. The best we can hope for is not to be gunned down by police officers and to get an academy award nomination every now and then... Move on. The rest of the country has. The important fight now is the right to use the bathroom of our declared gender.

@Pioneer1, Don't try to stir anything up please. It was a beautiful moment I'll be looking back on this post in the future with fond memories don't spoil it for me

Here I'm with Kai EL’Zabar who is the Executive Editor of The Chicago Defender during the Black Pack Party in Chicago this past Wednesday (read the full article and the Defender's website).

Well trying to count the number of African sold into slavery is impossible and estimates will vary significantly. While we know African's sold/traded other African into slavery, few suggest that Africans are responsible for the brutal system. That responsibility rests with the europeans. But that reminds me of more interesting points: You know there were Black slave holders in the U.S. You also know many so called white people are actually Black. Indeed some estimate that most white people who have been in the US for more than a few generations have some enslaved African in their Ancestry, should they be paid too?

Pioneer1 would a sales receipt work for you? Seriously, what would qualify as proof for you? You wrote, "The only thing preventing Black people from getting reparations NEXT YEAR is their disunity and lack of confidence." So, are you suggesting people like me are stopping us from getting reparations? I'm down for unity and I have no issues with confidence. So I'm not sure that is it. Did anyone see the debate?

I just published our bestsellers list for the period ending April 30th. I actually did not have a chance to really analyze the list, so I did not notice that Brown Girl Books published the top three books on the fiction side! I usually analyze the list for trends right before i publish the information in my newsletter. However, the news became quite evident after posting the information on Twitter. I have to congratulate both the authors and the publisher, they are one of the great stories in Black books today--look out for great things from Brown Girls Books.

The City College of New York, walking distance from where I live, and the Alma Mater of people like Colin Powell and Jonas Salk was FREE! Today a degree costs $86K (less if you commute) and that is assuming you graduate in four years. On top of that, the school no longer has the reputation it once had, so the value of the education is lower--and still too costly for many in the community to attend, with out going deep into debt. College should not be compulsory, but there should be quality free options available. The society and culture is FAR better off when the citizens are educated.