Troy

I was tagged and asked to respond to this question on Facebook. Anyone who knows me, also knows I'm not a fan of content providers (bloggers, writers, journalists, etc) posting their content on Facebook. I've learned that doing this, over the long term, is a losing proposition. Today, too few of us understand this, and collectively we are worse off. Ultimately, I believe we will learn this lesson, but not before a lot of money and potential has been lost. Most importantly however, this type of text would be impossible to post on a Facebook comment and good luck trying to find it or share with with someone in the future, or someone who is not on Facebook. Ok, I'm stepping down from soapbox... I'm answering this question here, because it is important. I also believe other authors in the same situation or completely new to online advertising can benefit from my posting a response here rather than on Facebook. I also hope this will help authors who advertise their books online to more effectively gauge the success of their campaign--whether it is here on AALBC.com, on social media, or some other website. In an ideal world, before a book is published, one would determine whether there is indeed a market for the book, evaluate how much it would take to reach that market, and determine if the cost of reaching that market exceeds the expected revenue generated from that market. If the anticipated costs exceed the expected revenue, the book is not published. I doubt many authors, who publish their own books, think about the process in this fashion. I can tell because many authors I speak to exhaust their budgets producing the books, leaving nothing left for promotion or advertising. Read more about what make a commercially successful book. In the traditional publishing model, publishers would take a chance on a well written book, by an unknown author, because other successful books would subsidize these riskier titles. Of course we know books by African American writers rarely enjoyed this form of support, but that is an entirely different subject... While the self publishing revolution has increased the number of books in the marketplace, many, if not most, are commercially unviable. We all know simply publishing a book is not enough for it to sell. Advertising will help (see axiom #1 below) but it will not guarantee book sales, particularly for a commercially unviable book. For the sake of this discussion I'm ignoring whether a book should have been published and considering them as is. Axioms (concepts that should go without saying) Axiom #1: No one will buy your book, if they do not know it exists.Axiom #2: Unknown authors have to more aggressively market their books than celebrities and famous authors. There two major factors that determine the effectiveness of a online advertising campaign. Quality of the Underlying Product (the Author's Responsibility) For a book this will include; (1) the reputation and name recognition of the author; (2) the quality of the book cover or banner and; (3) the readers interest in the subject. In general, an advertisement for a book with an ugly cover, by an unknown author writing about a subject no one cares about will perform worse than a book with an attractive cover, by a well known author writing in a popular and timely genre or subject. Notice I did not mention anything about quality of writing. One can not determine the quality of a book's writing solely from the banner or book cover image. That information is best conveyed on the landing page; where readers who click an advertisement are sent. The landing page must continue to engage and sell the book to the potential reader. Readers should have access to a detailed description of the book, reviews from reputable sources, a book excerpt, information about the author and more. Needless to say, a link to purchase the book must be easy to find. The landing page can be your website (usually a good idea), or the site where the book can be immediately purchased. Quality of Website You Are Advertising On Websites that provide advertising can be gauged on; (1) the number of visitors; (2) their visitor demographics; (3) the types of and placement of advertisements available; and (4) the nature of the content provided by the site. The more traffic a website has the more opportunities they have to display your banner (a single display of an ad is called an impression). The more impressions a site can generate, the greater the potential it has to get visitors engage with an advertisement, most often this is measured by a visitor actually clicking on the advertisement and taking some action, like visiting the advertiser's website. The potential of a website to get a visitor to click an advertisement is a function of the 4 factors described above. The clicks a website is able to deliver is usually measured as a ratio of the number of clicks on an advertisement over the number of impressions delivered. The is called the click through ratio or CTR. For example, If an advertisement is displayed to 100 visitors and one of them click the advertisement, the CTR would be 1/100 of 1%. This would be considered a relatively high click through rate. Typically advertisers, like the guy who made the original Facebook post above, will compare different advertising campaigns, across different websites by comparing the cost per click (CPC). For example, lets say an author spent $100 on an a banner advertisement, and the ad was clicked by 100 people. The CPC for this ad would $1. Far too often, advertisers--even major publishers, do not evaluate or even examine this data. They can be swayed by websites that deliver a lot of impressions but generate few clicks. This could result from; (1) ads that are poorly placed on the website; (2) a poor match between the demographics of the website and the advertised product or; (3) the advertised product itself (as described in "Quality of the Underlying Product above"). Advertisers, who do not examine their advertising campaign statistics can also be fooled by a website's popularity. A site popularity does not automatically translate into clicks. What Makes AALBC.com Unique This is really where I finally begin to answer the question posed. All of the stuff I wrote above simply provides a context for my response. AALBC.com has a very narrow demographic, we have sold 10's of thousands of different titles on the starting with our first online book sale in December of 1997. We have the ability to place a wide variety of advertisements. Our large book cover ad type is unique industry. In fact Facebook rejects most book covers, as advertisements, because book covers often violate Facebook's text/image policy. While we can not come close to delivering the number of impressions a social media site like Facebook might, we kill them on CTR. A far higher percentage of our visitors will click our advertisements than will click an advertisement on Facebook. It is not uncommon for 10% of our visitors to click an advertisement, single digit CTRs are typical. On Facebook I've seen CTR of less 0.01%. People seem to have trained themselves to ignore Facebook ads--even those placed directly in our feeds. Facebook is also used by visitors you are using the Facebook mobile ap. These visitors are completely engrossed looking at friends photos, and are less likely to click on an ad which requires the browser to be launched, taking them away from their nephew's graduation pictures. There is an advertisement running on AALBC.com right now (I took the following screen shot as I'm writing this) which has 25,109 impresions. The CTR is 5.62%. You will also notice that the number of clicks is 1,410. This ad was sold for $449 for one month. If the ads stopped right now the cost per click would be less than 32 cents. Already this ad is more efficient than can be expected from most other platforms, but this add will be running for another 10 days and the cost per click will continue to go down, making it a very cost effective ad buy. Now that AALBC.com has sent 1,410 visitors to this author's website, it is the author's responsibility to close the sale. It is also the sites responsibility to look at conversions. They are called actions. Actions are also be looked at as a ratio of actions per click. Lets say that 10% of visitors to a website actually took an action like joining a mailing list or purchasing a book. Some authors may say well I made $5 for the 10% of visitors (141) who came the website. Therefore I made $256 on the advertisement (141 books and made $5 per sale or $705 less $449 spent on the ad). But this is just one way of looking at the effectiveness of an advertisement. Advertising build name recognition. There is value in having 1,400 visitor come to you site--even if they do not spend a penny. Perhaps they joined your mailing list and purchased 15 copies our your book, at a local bookstore, six months later because they discovered your work months earlier on AALBC.com. Often authors I work with don't have $449 to spend on promoting their book over a 30 day period, but I can work with you even if your annual budget is $449. Advertising on a site that actually cares about your product is important. Often I will rework a banner ad, provide recommendation for an authors landing page, and even work with authors on pricing, placement, bundling ads, barter and more. This is not a place where you upload your banner, input your credit card information and are forgotten, as an advertiser on AALBC.com you are building a relationship with AALBC.com and a community of readers. At the same time supporting a platform dedicated to supporting your work and the work of others like you. Drop me a line or post any questions who have below. Peace, Troy

FB Post: “Goodreads Ad: Yesterday, I pulled the plug on my Goodreads display ad for my novel. After a couple of months of using two different ads, there were only 10 clicks. I only paid for the clicks, not the views (which they say were lots). I bid between $1.00 and $2.00 per click. It was good to experience but I'd rather spend my ad money on AALBC and getting in readers' inboxes.” Question in Response: “What is AALBC like as far as pricing and visitors to their site actually making purchases?”

Like most magazine covers this has been "cleaned up" quite a bit. Still he does not look bad for a 65-year-old broad. People usually slow down to look at a car wreck. Even though we know we might see something grotesque, we do it anyway. Perhaps Bruce Jenner's life distracts us from all the more pressing and important issues that we should be dealing with. It gives us an opportunity to say, "my life may be jacked up but at least it is not as bad as Bruce's," meanwhile Vanity Fair sells a bazillion copies of this issue. Creflo Dollar got his 65 Million dollar private jet and the beat goes on....

This is an article written by sci-fi author by Ursula K. Le Guin. The following quotes are her opening and closing paragraphs. I understand Ursula's comments and in some ways agree with her. The only issue is that she seems to have completely ignored at least two major points which explains Amazon's success. Amazon makes it possible for anyone to publish a book We can argue over whether the hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions now, of books self-published each year in ebook format, or on demand, are worthy of publication. I'm sure many will argue that most of these books are not very good. But every single author feels their book is worthy of publication and applaud companies like Amazon for making the production of their "baby" possible. Quality literature is incidental Authors are motivated by making bestsellers lists, movie deals, popularity, and money. Ursula argues that Amazon is motivated by profit, treating books as commodities; "...the only value of a book is its current salability." What she fails to realize is that many, if not most, author's motives are perfectly aligned with those of Amazon.Ursula is a elderly woman who probably wants things to be they way the used to be before Amazon came along. She is, judging by her numerous awards (Hugo, Nebula, National Book Award, PEN-Malamud, and more) a very talented writer. Just as important she has benefited from being part of the dominant culture. Her path to traditional publishing was relatively smooth, I'm sure. Besides, despite all the complaining about Amazon, I'm sure Ursula is not returning any of the money she is getting from Amazon. All that said, I did think massive, dominate corporations like Amazon, provide a tremendous benefit, but only to a relatively small number of people. Net-net, the vast majority of us do not benefit; I'd argue we are worse off. Sure we have cheap smart phones, but the manufacturing jobs are in Asia. We have low cost products in Walmart, but their worker don't make very much. People love Facebook, but that comes at the expense of all the other websites that are dying. If Ursula is so concerned about Amazon's dominance, she can lead the way by boycotting Amazon, and removing her books from the website. Needless to say that will never happen.

If anyone would like a high resolution version of this year's group shot (or any of the previous Black Pack Party Group shots), let me know. I'm thinking about charging a reasonable fee to raise funds to support the 10th anniversary party in Chicago coming in 2016. Of course corporate sponsors are welcomed and we will be able to offer an attractive package in return. Email me troy@aalbc.com if you are interested in the high resolution photos or in being a sponsor.

Hey Cynique, I see you adjusted to the new software without missing a beat. I'm not sure what happened to everyone's avatar. The account I set up manually, via Twitter and Facebook remain intact. Perhaps some of your friends would like to share there thought about your book with me. I can cobble them together as a "crowd sourced" book club review. Let me know what you think? Funny, I generally read everything Morrison writes but I not thought to read this one. After reading your review I'll decide.

Thanks Chris, I'm still working on more customizations. I'm hoping more people will participate as a result of the redesign, and being completely optimized for mobile devices. I did not see the two books you mentioned. and I still don't the WEB Reader--I guess you have to know the cover huh?

Author Emanuel Carpenter shared most of these points on facebook and asked me to comment. Since I'm not a fan of supporting social media with free content, I'm responding to E's comments here. I've also shared my opinion on the PW website. As web site and publication PW is extremely important--even to Black books. Indie Bookstores: There are many indie bookstores thriving across the country, so it comes to as no surprise to me that the ABA membership is growing. It is the Black owned indie stores that are struggling. As far as the overall number of store increasing I would really need to see the list and understand what the ABA consider a "bookstore." The last time I looked at their list of stores, I found a number of errors including the inclusion of the Hueman bookstore in Harlem which closed a few years ago. eBook sales: I noticed this trend and reported a leveling off of ebook sales on AALBC.com a couple of years ago. I think the novelty of eBooks has worn off. Now that quality eBooks have begun to be priced more rationally, the cost difference is not as significant. I've owned several eBook readers none of which I use today, because I prefer reading physical books. Besides, sometimes you just want to OWN a hard covered book, and proudly display it in your home. You never really "own" anything stored in the cloud. China: China dominated the convention. Their massive pavilion was the first thing you saw when you entered the convention. It was kinda weird at first, almost like walking into an unfamiliar space before recognizing you are in the right place. Most talked about books: The two books I talked the most about where Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates (Spiegel & Grau, September 8, 2015) and Grant Park by Leonard Pitts, Jr. (Agate Bolden, October 13, 2015). I'm also looking for news titles from Just Us Books. I attended an interesting panel called "Word-Of-Mouth Gone Digital! - Building New Online Communities of Readers." There was a woman on the panel. Who worked for suvudu.com (panel shown below in cell phone shot). [original image lost] The site is run by Penguin/Random but touts itself as providing a platform for science fiction and fantasy fans to discover books and authors --regardless of the publisher. This made no sense to me, so I asked, "How does the publisher justify the allocation of resources and expenses to promote the work of a competitor?" The response is best summarized by quote from the Suvudu's representative's response "...a rising tide lifts all boats." Now that sounds great, and is what I truly believe, but I KNOW corporations don't operate that way. Another another woman, from Tumblr, stepped in and explained that all of the data Penguin/Random collects is very valuable. I was sitting in the second row, so she could see I appreciated a little honesty, and she went on to explain that were are at an industry event, what else are if it is not to provide information. Again, like most of BEA (save the humongous Chinese pavilion), the panelists and the attendees (photo below) were all white. It was also interesting that this particular room was full of women (my bald head deliberately left in the short for contrast). Of course there is a reason for the lack of men, but that is a completely different conversation. [original image lost] But imagine being a white woman attending a event that full of Black men. Would that woman feel welcomed and comfortable? Would she be friends with anyone there--would they even want to be her friend? Would her children go to the same schools, belong to the same organizations, or worship at the same churches. Would she look forward to hanging out at one of the numerous after parties, later that evening, with free food and drinks. Or would the Brothers simply look at her and wonder what the heck is she doing in here? I did not spend a lot of time at BEA this year. Partially because I have less time and money, but mainly because BEA, has become a sea of whiteness. There used to be a lot of programming and exhibitors that would be of particular interest to Black folks, but publishing, never known for hiring many Blacks, has become virtually all white in 2015. The following images are courtesy of BEA's press room, and are reflective of the attendees and participants. This again is one of the reasons we host the Black Pack Party every year during BEA. Sadly, it is the only opportunity to see more than a handful of Black faces in one place--even in a convention center filled with thousands of people. Occasionally, someone would suggest that it would be racist to have a gathering and call it the "White Pack Party;" so why then is it not racist to have a gathering called the "Black Pack?" Only someone from the dominant culture would think that question makes sense. If you look at the attendees of any of the big parties held during BEA by publishers, "White Pack," would be an appropriate description. This has been the reality, in mainstream publishing for so long, adding the adjective "white" would be redundant and superfluous. A sea of whiteness that far exceeds the population distribution is the accepted, perhaps desired, norm for publishing. I'll leave it up to you to decide if that is racist.

Read Publishers Weekly's entire article and coverage of BEA (Book Expo America), which is the country's largest trade show for the publishing industry. ABA CEO Oren Teicher said that for the sixth year in a row the number of independent bookstores has grown. ABA added 48 members, for a total of 1,712, up from a core membership of 1,401 in 2009. The total number of locations also grew to 2,227, from 1,651 in 2009. In his presentation on the state of the e-book market, Jonathan Stolper, senior v-p of Nielsen’s U.S. book business, noted that according to Nielsen’s PubTrack Digital report, which tracks e-book sales from more than 30 top publishers (for more on PubTrack Digital, see p. 7), e-book units fell 6% in 2014 compared to 2013. One of the most notable aspects of BEA 2015 was the large presence of China. The country had a 25,000-sq.-ft. pavilion that housed more than 500 publishers and authors. The pavilion occupied space from aisles 1,000 to 1,800 and was so large one could easily get lost exploring the display. The most talked about books were two novels, one from a debut author, Garth Risk Hallberg’s City On Fire and the other from a seasoned veteran, Jonathan Franzen’s Purity. Next year’s show will run from May 11 to 13 in Chicago. It will be the first BEA held outside of New York City since 2008, when it was held in Los Angeles. Here is a link to a video from the panel, "In Search of Diverse Book Buyers," that I sat in on during BEA.

Waiting to Exhale by Terry McMillan is on President Obama’s Bookshelf. What other Black author's books can you find?

Reviews of films released by AFFRM

African-American authors with multiple titles are well represented on the Spring 2015 edition of the Power List of Best-Selling African-American Books. These authors have clearly developed a wide audience for their books, and a solid fan base. Does anyone read anymore?

Needless to say, my posting of the Playboy cover image of Condi garnered more attention on social media in 60 minutes than the video I posted several days ago. I now understand this is also a function of what social media sites choses to show, and it is not just a function of what we want to see. Essence actually did interview Condi, at least once, but the interviewer came across as uninformed about Condi and her role as Secretary of State. I have to believe Ebony covered Condi more than Essence, but given their inexcusably weak website, one is unable to make that determination. They could have put Barack Obama on the Republican ticket and Sarah Palin on the democratic tickets and I assure you our people would have still voted Democrat, or not at all. Nothing short of a substantial bribe would get negroes out to vote Republican in 2016.

This first time I saw this flag it was quite striking, blowing in the wind fully extended. It can be seen most easily on I-95 South near mile marker 134 or so, about 40 miles south of the Mason-Dixon Line. This Confederate Flag welcomes drivers on I-95 to the American South. The "flaggers" feel that our politically correct culture has falsely demonized this flag. That may be true. Today however the flag is not only a symbol of what was wrong with the South 150 years ago; it also symbolizes what is wrong with America today. I'm sure white supremacists are beaming with pride every time they see it.

I dunno Cynique I can't recall ever hearing a Black woman praise Condi Rice. Sure Black men dog her, but I've never heard a Black women ever come to her defense. Most of the reaction to Condi is along the lines of the hyperbolic, false, rhetoric Harry Brown posted above. That is so damaging because people read that stuff and believe it because they are dumb I guess. Saying stuff like this serves no other purpose than to be inflammatory. Condi is not a "birther", was not part of Fema, Homeland security or any department responsible for Katrina dealing with, and is not part of the tea party. These are simply facts. I don't believe Bush, Powell, or Condi lied about "weapons of mass destruction" (whatever that means). Chenny is another story. Condi is perhaps the most accomplished Black woman on planet Earth. Now I don't measure success based upon the amount of praise given by mainstream media of by income, in which case all praises go to entertainers. I'm just talking about pure accomplishments. Has Condi ever been on the cover of Essence Magazine? How many times has Beyonnce (sp?) been on the cover? I'm sure their is no comparison

Condi spoke at my kid's graduation on Saturday. It was as good, if not a better, than the speech Steve Jobs gave that everyone was creaming their pants over. Rice is an amazingly accomplished woman. It is astonishing that Black people dislike her. She is often brandished as a war hawk, even disparged as Bush's mistress. Barack Obama is no less a war hawk and is worshipped (literarlly) by most Black folks. The idea that Black folks are not talking about TPP boggles the mind. But I digress... On a related note, on my way to my kid's graduation, in VA, I passed at huge conderate flag blowing in the win, easily visible from I95 near mile marker 134 in VA. It I'll be passing that way this afternoon. I'll try to get a photo. The location of flag appeared to be in or near Spotsylvania, VA the site oif a Civl War battle. The South will never forget. Honestly I don't think they should, but they need to stop blaming Black folks for their troubles a recognize who is really jamming them up.

I'm not certain that men Blog less than women; it may be that we simply get less attention and are less supportive of each other. As I continue with my Blogger research, I'm sure I'll come to a conclusion that will convince me one way or the other; though right now it appears Black men do Blog less, much less. If it turns out that the vast majority of Bloggers are women, I would disagree that it would be of no consequence. I think it would be a bad thing. The Black male perspective is important. If it is missing we have a problem. Much of what we see online is dominated by what appeals to youth. The voices of wiser, more senior people are completely crowed out, as if they don't matter, or even undesirable. This is a problem too. When I was at Blogger conference recently most of what I was hearing did not resonate, At least two women, during their presentations, mentioned issues dealing with wearing high heeled shoes. Many were wearing flip-flops by the end of the day. That whole issue of women's feet hurting in shoes is either nonsensical or boring to me; as it would probably be to many men. The same goes for hair issues, fashion, weight loss, Christian (fill in the blank), etc... Of course I'm not saying these types of Blogs have no place, I'm saying we need masculine Black bloggers and content providers on the web. In a culture where the vast majority of Black men are raised by soley by women, or by a couple where the man was not raised by a man, is anyone confused as to why young Black men are killing each other at such an alarming rates? What does this have to do with the lack of male Bloggers? What does it have to do with the lack of American born Black in decent coporate jobs and in colleges? What does it have to do with are high rate of incarceration? I dunno, perhaps nothing, but more likely everything.

Yeah BB King was good. I would have loved to see him perfome when he was in his prime. I saw him about 15 years ago and he was okay. Whenever I go see an artist, past their prime, it is more like seeing historical figure in real life, I'm paying homage, rather that expecting an inspired performance. RIP BB King. Around the same time I saw Bobby Blue Bland, who passed in 2013 to much less fanfare. Bland was in his 70's when I saw him perform. Again, I was not expecting much; I went to see a piece of history before he was gone. To my delight the performeance was excellent. He sang a song that night, that I do not recall hearing before, or since, and it was beautiful. I can't even image what Bobby Blue Bland was like in his prime. Some artists never lose it (or so it seems). I saw drummer Roy Haynes perform a couple of years back. Haynes was in his deep 80's and was fantastic!

"...a picture of the devil would be right at home on the twenty. In Satan, we trust." Perfect! Lets just drop the pretense and "keep it real" (as the Reverend Sharpton likes to say). If everyone knew who those in charge actually served, there would be a lot less stress due to monumental congnitive dissonance we must manufacture to deal with the the crap we have to deal with. I'm sure there must be a photo of Satan on currency online let me look.... ...I found something even better: Satan is already represented on our currency according to some:

If you can get to New York City on Wednesday of next week (or happen to be in town for Book Expo America), please stop by an annual party I co-host. The 9th Annual Black Pack Party, will be held Wednesday, May 27, 2015 from 6 to 9 p.m. at Londel’s Supper Club, 2620 Frederick Douglas Blvd @140 St, in Harlem, NY

Thanks for posting here Marc. The list is up to 168 Blogs. When I get to 200 I will email the Bloggers in the database folks to solicit ideas including for promotion and get feedback on the "Visit a Black Blog" campaign. Maybe we can get the bloggers to encourage readers to visit at least on Black Blog a day, read an article, and leave a comment, for say 30 days. Like a 30 challenge for supporting out own. BTW Marc, how did you find this conversation? Also take a look at this conversation where I mention my impressions of Blogger Week and let me know what you think. You were one of the few other men there and probably closer to my age than the average person there, perhaps what I wrote resonates with you. Either way I'd be interested in reading your impressions. Also I created a profile page for you: http://aalbc.it/mwpolite

"ALL DEF DIGITAL is a YouTube MCN brought to you by Russell Simmons, showcasing the best in comedy, music, and entertainment news." I just learned about this video reading an interview of Marc Polite on BMoreNews.com. It looks like Simmons published this video on his youtube channel back in 2013. Many people took offense to the video, ultimately resulted in Simmons having the video pulled. I was not aware of this video until today. I wasn't offended by this video, any more than I've been offended by any of the other nonsense, Simmons has produced. What actually puzzles me is that anyone though this skit was the least bit funny. This video should have been pulled simply for being a horrendously poor excuse for comedy. The other thing we have to consider when we publish to the web is that this stuff never goes away. This video has already been downloaded, copied and redistributed by people anxious to profit from this video. Others are making money from this video.

Nelson George's documentary Finding the Funk traces the birth and evolution of the musical genre by presenting a wealth of archival performance footage from various artists like James Brown and Sly Stone, as well as interviews with many of the music's central figures, including George Clinton, Sheila E., and Bootsy Collins. Watch the Full Movie