Troy

“Outsiders” have often dictated the trends of African American Culture, sometimes doing the job themselves, sometimes using what authors John A. Williams called “surrogates.” Both W.E.B. DuBois and Booker T. Washington accused each other of being manipulated by outsiders With the introduction of cyberspace, younger writers have the ability to reach audiences unheard of during the sixties when African American writers produced broadsides and saddle-stitched chapbook. As access to cyberspace becomes less expensive, more voices will be heard and this period, the most prolific in the history of African American Literature, will rise to worldwide prominence, no longer having to obey the tastes of the outsiders in power or the dictates of the establishment-manufactured Talented Tenth. —Ishmael Reed (Black Issues Book Review; November-December 1999)

@Bookscan the video on the page you linked to is listed a private.

OK regarding the video and thanks. When I get some time I'll run a report based upon my websites salese that looks at sales volume, relative to price, over time and compare that to revenue. Of course my data is biased toward books I cover, but it would be a good proxy for the data Amazon has, which they'd never release, and I don't know who else has enough data, or the inclination, to do it.

Sara, I was responding to Cynique's question, I was not talking about you. Besides, you and Cynique were not first, and will not be the only two, to get into, that type of conversation. I've been running forums for almost 20 years, people argue, get angry, and hurl insults, it is actually normal. Expecting to never happen is unrealistic. I just don't want the board dominated by that type of discourse.

Hey Cynique regarding adding images I gather that you don't see the option pointed to in the image below. If not, I really need to go back and review the permissions for these boards. I may have gone a bit overboard trying to lock the site down, protecting it from the Unkle Ruckuses of the world. Think of your memoir in smaller chucks. You don't have to do all 80+ years in one humongous tome. You can just write about periods of your life or you can compile a series a more manageable vignettes like the one above about your granddaughter. You can write for the senior citizen a demographic, overlooked group if you ask me. It will be interesting because of your perspective. Dan's "memoir" only covered two years. Maya angelou wrote about 10 covering different parts of her life. You could even flesh out "The Golden Child's" story. Your perspective/input on her father's reaction, her parents divorce, what makes her "Golden", is she tarnished as a result of the revelation, do the parents blame themselves, did you see signs from her childhood, etc, etc. But from your perspective, given a the historical and familiar content. She told you she was an adult and did not have to justify her life choices, to you, her grandmother, you say that is "true." Was this true in your day? Is it a good idea today? You shared a bunch of stories here that would be a good start, maybe you can just mine the archives for ideas.

OK. Chris I will make a point of making these types of videos. What struck you about what I said that prompted the comment. I know you've made the suggestion before, and this time I'll make an effort to take your advise, but what am I saying that you think other people would want to (or need to) hear that that is not already being said or that I can say differently enough to be worth the effort?. Thanks

I'd prefer a more civil discourse, but a heated exchange every now then is fine as people are human and this is natural. And of course I know you've taken much "better/worse" (whatever adjective make more sense), in the past. I was not a fan of that back then either, though it did give you ample opportunity to sharpen your claws. Or did you come here with sharpened claws already As an aside, why do you think a verbal assault had less impact on you than say Thumper. He (and others) took some of the verbal abuse very personal and found it impossible to ignore. By the way our racist spammer Unkel Ruckus asked about you as he defaced a few pages on my development website a few days ago. We are battle hardened.

Chris I'm not debating your reasoning for going with a 99 cent book--it is perfectly logical and sound business decision that I agree with. I'm just making an observation on the impact the improved technology and the current business model as had on the Black book industry, which I feel has been adverse today. Individuals will, indeed must, make the best decisions for themselves. It is unreasonable to expect people to behave otherwise in a capitalist society. So if gas is cheap people will buy bigger cars and drive more frequently; why should they care if the planet is rendered uninhabitable for humanity in a couple hundred years? If they sacrificed driving a big car, while no one else changed their behavior, it will not make a difference and they will be at a disadvantage. Any positive change in the book industry can not be made at the individual level.

Hummm embedding is easy (unless this is another one of those features limited to admins). Basically you post the regular (unshorted) URL to the video and hit return. The video is automatically embedded. It may take a couple of seconds for the URL to convert into a youtube video. But there is not real extra effort. Sorry I need to go back and re-read what I wrote, but I think the available of free and 99 cents ebooks hurts the sales of the average individual author. I don't have data to support this, but my sense is that today we have say, 1,000,000 authors making an average of $500 on a book, when 20 years ago we had 10,000 making $50,000. So yes, there are 999,000 authors generating $500 they would not have had otherwise earned and there are 999,000 more titles being published, but fewer are earning a living from their books and most of the additional books published are not very good. Finally, the good books are more difficult to find, because there is less revenue to spend on promotion and advertising and crappy books are often on equal footing with good one and it is harder for the reader to sort them out.

Hi Cynique, I read this last night on my cell phone it reads like a short story and was very engaging. The title is inspired as you can read a lot into it. Your life would make a fascinating memoir, and you have the wit to pull it off. I just finished read a memoir by a written by a 25 year old white boy, Dan Marshall, Home is Burning. It made me think of your story. Not that your lives have very much in common... Basically he is a rich kid who has two terminally ill parents and the story covers a two year period ending with the father's death. The story would have been much sadder for me (I can see other people crying by the end), but in my present state of mind it is hard for me to feel a whole lot of sympathy for some rich family that has had every advantage imaginable. What reminded me of your story is that Dan's sad tale was told with humor, like yours. Yeah, the lesbians who go for mannish women always confused me, but I guess human sexuality runs on a spectrum.

Yeah the film has been out a month and has earned 2.5 million at the box office. In stark contrast Star Wars which has been out two weeks less has already grossed more than 1/2 a billion. I think it would be more rational to price tickets according to demand. But using this calculus, Chiraq and most other films would be free. Sorry to hear about the rapper King Louie, who some report as being a gang member himself. It is interested when Spike was asked about the negative impact calling Chicago "Chiraq," he pinned the blame or Chicago rappers.

Yeah we pretty much convicted him immediately upon the allegations. I think people got a perverse pleasure out of seeing Bill Cosby fall, and the media of course gave us our fill. Personally I was not so quick to condemn Cosby. I advanced arguments like the ones presented by James McIntosh and others.

Wow someone tried to return knock offs! A slick scheme, that might work for a large corporation. Where these sales through Amazon? I used Vimeo for years, but I could not justify the monthly expense given the views the platform generated--which was minimal. Youtube actually generates views of my videos--independent of AALBC.com. I'm getting views that I would not get otherwise. Plus, and this is a big plus, I make money off these views. No other social media site does that. This 5 minute video (below) of the Harlem Godfather book launch party (a book about Ellsworth "Bumpy" Johnson) I posted, taken with a camera, so the quality is relatively poor but it has gotten over a 1/4 million views, over the last 8 years and generates a couple of bucks a month. I'm not getting rich off this revenue, but it is FAR better than the model other social media platforms have adopted where you have to pay for your content to be seen.

This is apparently Bill Cosby's mug shot (booking photo). It does not look good for Cosby, as it appears he indeed be found guilty of sexually, and indeed be guilty, sexually assaulting women. Tragic, no matter how you look at it.

@Sara, I could be wrong, but I think you are the first person to ever elicit a direct response from @harry brown

@Sara not I did not read the entire conversation, but I skimmed it and did see where Chris said something about you and PTSD and I saw your exchange with Cynique, but did not attempt to determine what prompted all of this. Often these things started from other conversations and trying to sort this out is very tedious and time consuming. Honestly, I'm a little shell shocked by trolls nowadays. I tend to use a heavy handed approach and favor long time participants and am more suspicious of newer folks. I much rather folks sort these things out themselves. Judging from everyone's responses it looks I'm going to let the entire conversation stand as is. @Cynique, in hindsight Kola turned out to be very destructive to the boards. Her posts got the entire Thumper's Corner domain banned from being able to post google ads (the primary reason I moved the discussion forum to AALBC.com). She also was largely responsible for running Thumper away from Thumper's Corner, even giving Kola her own forum was not enough to corral her "energy." I'll not saying Kola was a troll in the pure sense, but she had troll like tendencies that ended up having the same impact on the forums. I let her continue because the most active participants actually wanted her here, while many lurkers found her obscene and divisive. But as far as forums go while lurkers are important posters are more important and Kola despite her ultimately adverse impact on the forums as the most prolific poster we ever had. Damage done, Kola no longer posts and I don't even know if Thumper is alive (seriously). Cynique you have been active on these forums since the first generation (pre-January 2004). So if I have anything to do with it, Cynique's Corner will outlive both of us. @Sara email me troy@aalbc.com your ISBN13's so that I can make sure you are on the website: http://aalbc.org/authors/authors.php

Yes the Nkiru effort is far less significant in terms of scale and depth, but that does not matter. The most popular content on the website (produced by Black folks, for Black folks) tends to be rather shallow. I'm not saying the Nkiru books online is a shallow effort; I just saying celebrity trumps depth every day of the week. Chris, as you know, it is impossible for a celebrity to engage with the vast majority of people who engage them on social media. Plus social media platform presents what will encourage engagement. When I looked at Talib's post from my wife's computer I saw a completely different set up top responses--she didn't even see our exchange. Plus just the sheer volume of responses make this impossible, if not impractical. Again, unless we are conscious and strategic about how we use social media we will never benefit from it. With about 100 more of us, in the book space, working together we can make a difference.

Hey Chris I just watched the video as an Amazon Affiliate I earn only 4% on Kindle related products including ebooks. If I sell an eBook priced at 99¢ I earn less than 4¢. Obviously, there is no incentive for me to promote a 99¢ product, because I can't generate any revenue selling it. Of course if an author chooses to purchase an advertisement that promotes a 99¢ ebook, then I'm good with it. That fact should be considered when deciding to price a book at 99 cents. Because promotion by online booksellers helps drive eBook sales. Needles to say there are other factors including the author's platform, perceived value of the book, the book target audience, the revenue goals of the author, the production costs of the book, etc. If you are an unknown, first-time, author who put together a book that required no research, little effort, or minimal expense in the way of production, 99¢ works. Indeed it may be your only option as few would probably pay much more for such a book. Now if you are a well known author with a loyal following, you don't need to consider this pricing strategy as readers would be willing to pay much more to read your book. Mainstream publishers think it is bad because they can't generate much sufficient revenue with 99¢ books to cover their overhead. Much more goes into the creation of a book than printing, shipping and storage. You have editorial, marketing (including advertising a publicity), and of course the author needs to be paid. Needless to say African-American authors, published by mainstream publishers suffer the most—fewer deals, smaller advances, and less promotional support. This of course adversely impacts the entire Black Book Ecosystem including booksellers like AALBC.com. The bazillions of 99¢ books (and don't forget the free eBooks) published by independent authors, have not impacted the Black book ecosystem in a positive way. Sure there may have been some individual successes, however modest, but collectively the net result has been adverse. @CDBurns, I also noticed you just put the link to the video, rather than embedding it? Was this deliberate or are you unable to embed the video?

Whoa what the heck happened here? One of the things that discouraged participation on these discussion forums was when they devolved into this type of exchange. Previously, I pretty much let anything go. But I've learned that if I allowed complete freedom of speech, that tended to take the whole board down to the point there was no speech. I decided I would more actively monitor these forums to prevent this sort of conversations that include calling someone else here a "Potty mouthed old biotch," But realistically I don't have the time or resources to do this. I was away from the forum for two days and completely missed the devolution of this exchange. Last time I was here Nelson and Chris were going at it but it seemed to converge into some more productive--which is great. Now I do know that I have to remove and ban actual "rolls." A troll is someone whose goal is to simply create conflict for the sake a creating conflict, they are devils who get their kicks crapping on discussion forums, like this one. Our pal Unkle Ruckus was one such troll. He started out merely as controversial, but ultimately revealed himself for the troll that he was and I had to ban him and remove all of his posts. My question to all of you on this conversation. Do I need to take action here? Are we cool? Happy New Year!

Nkiru Books @Kwelickub @CDBurns, hey man thanks so much for shouting out AALBC.com in the comments of Talib's post. It really does not cease to amaze me what celebrity can do. The single post was liked by 24K people, shared by 6,500 and generated over 700 comments in less than 24 hours! Now I don't know if they paid to promote the post, and I don't read anything on Facebook that I have not generated or been tagged on, but this is definitely one of the most popular posts I've seen in a long time. Forgive me for not posting a link to the post; I have a personal policy against linking directly to Facebook. I honestly don't think the viral reaction to Talib's post has anything to do with books and supporting bookstores; but is much more about Talib's celebrity and how easy it is to show support on Facebook. It is so easy to click "like," but an entirely different thing to support a store by buying a book. Nkiru was truly an iconic bookstore. I lived a couple of blocks away from the store and patronized it long before AALBC.com was invented. I actually highlighted Nkiru Books in my article, "Death of the Black Owned, Independent Bookstore," back in 2012. Talib's mother, Dr. Brenda Greene is a professor at Medgar Evers College and runs the Center for Black Literature. The Center also hosts the National Black Writers Conference, who I've worked with for over a decade. Dr. Greene is super supportive of AALBC.com. Chris I also appreciate you suggesting that Talib reach out so that we may work together. First, given the sheer number of responses I doubt he will even see it. But even if he read the suggestion I would be very shocked if he took you up on that offer. You know the reason why, as you explained it very well on your post about YouTube subscribers. The fact of the matter is that while I link to and promote every online or physical bookstore, that I'm aware of, other bookstores rarely return the favor. In fact, I'm so accustomed the lack of reciprocated support I receive from other bookstores it no longer bothers or surprises me. So, I'll promote Nkiru Bookstore Online as I supported Nkiru Books' physical bookstore (even before Talib brought the store from Ms. Miller). On a related note, I purchased Talib's album Gravitas; I brought it not so much because I was interested in the music, but because I wanted to support him. He wrote about the importance of independence and musicians making money from their work. That resonated with me, for obvious reasons, so I purchased the music files and downloaded the liner notes.

Chris I should have mentioned that I completely agree with your assessment (your December 6th post) of the current state of the web, and a strategy for dealing with it. I'm still 235 subscribers short of my goal. I have gained 153 subscribers in the past month. Given that is about 40 more than I gained the entire 12 months prior, I guess this effort was successful. I'll make another push in the new year. I'm not sure I ever mentioned why I wanted to reach 1,000 subscribers. I'm not just trying to get subscribers to boost this number. I need a minimum number of subscribers to be able to provide visitors with video they can have to pay to watch; Paid Content. During the National Black Writers Conference, at Medgar Ever this spring, I will be hosting a seminar on book publishing featuring industry professionals. I was thinking about filming the event and charging people to view it on Youtube. In order to be able to charge people to view content you need 1,000 subscribers to your channel.

...I'm back this was very interesting-- far more interesting that the exchange could have possibly been on Twitter. Thanks @Nelson for popping in and everyone else for making such greats comments. Why is it that so many Black people cite Jewish people as the standard for enlightened culture, or a culture that Black should strive to be like in some way? It is always stricking to encounter "afro-centric" folks who, on the massive corporate sites, like Twitter, question the consciousness of another Black man they know nothing about. As far as I'm concerned, all this does is diminish ourselves while enriching the owners of those platforms. There are plenty of writers who write about Kemet and plenty who write about West Africa, who are highlighted on this website. I learned about the Dogon, from Saul Williams, and read even more about them in Tananarive Due's and Evelyn Coleman's novels. Some believe the Dogon in the West came from East Africans, Egyptians. Our course John Henrik Clarke, and many others highlighted here write about all of this in great detail. At the end of the day, we can not recapture and restore a culture that ended thousands of years ago--those days are over. The best we can do is learn as much as we can from it, incorporate it what we know today, and move on. This is natural, the way cultures evolve over time. Nelson as far as the action items 1-7 above, there is nothing wrong with them, per se. Needless to say, no one individual can do all of them and many of us can't, or won't do, any of them. The vast majority of people produce nothing, no books, no youtube videos, no DVD's not seminars, nothing. In a practical sense few will ever do items 2-6. The best you can hope for are people who support the ones that do produce these things--which is itself a tall order. Action items 1 and 7 are essentially the same, and that is to study. Again getting folks--event students in school--to study is difficult. So the question really is how do you get people to do the things you suggest or at least support the efforts of those that do? I mean it is not even clear you have done them yourself. Chris asked you about your YouTube channel and even offered to support it, but your response was, "Sorry brother I have no time and I am not interested in debate." This makes no sense to me if you are actually believe what you are saying. Finally, if your recommendations are not open to critique, or debate, then what good are they? You can't shove an ideology down someone's throat and expect them to comply blindly. Your recommendations are not religion that people are expected to blindly accept. I guess it is far easier to snipe at someone in 140 characters or less. Challenging and examining one's own ideas is much more difficult.

OK I still have not watched this video, and I've only watched two episodes of Empire so I trust y'all's judgement that Daniels stole from Dutton. So I'd imagine given the success of the series Dutton will seek just compensation compensation. Sara to embedd a youtube video you just post the URL to the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBEn84TOdZg and it will automatically embed. The URL you was was a shortened version, and I noticed those don't embed. Here is the Youtube version below

Hey Del I guess you ave to actually read the National Geographic article. Also I would be very careful about using Wikipedia as a source of anything. It might be a good starting point, The best approach would be to access the actual source documents directly and see what they actually say. I not in a position to debate the subject as it boils down to whose information one believes. The National Geographic information was very compelling. If you want to say they are lying or otherwise factually in accurate, I can't debate you on that as I have neither the data or the intellect to do so I do however trust the scientists, journalists and reporters at National Geographic over anything in Wikipedia.

Guest (Nelson), most educated people know the stories in the Bible, the resurrection, the flood, etc did not originate in the Bible. I don't know about 10,000 years BC, but Gilgamesh predates the Bible by 2,000 years... Also don't conflate Santa Claus, Christmas Tree, secular festivities with the Christian religious observations. They are two completely different things. So while I appreciate that you may have issue with both, don't mix them up. Your argument here addresses the religious aspects. But I presume what prompted you message me on Twitter was the Santa hat on my cartoon avatar. Also most of my audience, not all, but a majority are African American. Most of us, along with most of the Black people throughout the diaspora, including many in Africa--had EVERY cultural aspect taken away through the transatlantic slave trade or through imperialism. Again, most people already know this. You are fluent in English, why is that? Look I'm not about to give anyone grief for celebrating a holiday they that they have been celebrating for generations, any more than I would get on them for speaking English. You wrote, "Black people are celebrating a culture that was created after their own culture was destroyed." But the culture you are criticizing us of celebrating IS OUR culture. We were robbed of our culture and have created a brand new one; it is the culture that birthed Jazz and Hip-hop, it is the culture that took scraps of food and made a cuisine. For some of us that culture includes Santa and/or Kwanzaa. Our Santa will be Black and it has nothing to do with worshiping europeans. We are adapting, and all thing considered I think we are adapting exceeding well in a very hostile environment. Sure the food we eat is garbage, but again we live in an environment run by corporations that will poison us it with was profitable.... I gotta run.