Troy

OK Sara you obviously ignored my very simple question about the percentages you provided, because you don't have answer. Indeed there is no logical answer, because what you wrote makes no sense. I was hoping my question would help you see the problem with your conclusion, but I overestimated your reasoning ability.

I'm sorry @Sara, but you are indeed misinterpreting the information. Let's try a more Socratic approach: Sara, you presented the following percentages which, according to you, is a breakdown of the percentage of students enrolled in college. Again, you are asserting that Black women, at nearly 9%, make up the largest race/gender demographic in college enrollment.. Black female 8.7% Asian female 8.6 White female 7.1 Black male 7.0 Hispanic female 6.6 White male 6.1 Hispanic male 5.9 Now if you add these percentages up we get a total of 50% Please tell me what demographic makes up the remaining 50% of the students enrolled in college?

@Sara you are obviously keen on promoting positive Black accomplishments, as I am. However you are misinterpreting information. Black women are not "the biggest demographic in both race and gender of college students." Again given that Black women make up roughly 6% of the population that should be obvious. What is true is that if one looks at the percentage of students within a given race/gender combination, Black women have the highest percentage of students enrolling in college. In other words, a higher percentage of Black women go to college than any demographic. This is a very different statement that what you wrote. Do you see the difference? Pew summarized this information, but you can download the raw data from for 2014 from the census bureau and crunch the numbers. It is also worth looking at graduation rates in context: Black people still lag all other groups in graduation as a percentage of population. In other words were are 13% of the population but make up roughly 9% of the college graduates. Numbers are only a portion of the story. So while the data show a relatively high percentage of us go to college, it also shows that a higher percentage of us fail to graduate. Digging deeper, on relative basis how do we compare in terms of; quality of our education (caliber of school, GPA); debt we graduate with; and employment outcomes (time to find a job and salary); after our graduation? This is the stuff that matters. So while some are doing a happy dance with this data, they are also oblivious to some very profound problems.

8th Day of ‪#‎BlackHistoryMonth‬ 2/8/16 The Black Arts Movement by Kalamu ya Salaam

Well Chris, as bookseller, I have a close enough feel for the industry to say for certain that Black women did not by 50% of the books sold in America in any year. I don't need to see the numbers, as you indicated it is illogical. No I don't doubt for a split second that Black women buy more novel than Black men, however compared to the rest of the popular they are in the minority as a demographic. I've been following the Pew data of the last year fews years. By the way, no one has firm numbers of the racial demographics of book buyers. It is not as if K-mart collects the information at the register. The information is collected through a variety of means, including surveys, and to Cynique's point, about data, we all know how problematic surveys can be. Cynique, people can present numbers is a misleading way, or they misinterpret what the numbers mean, but at some point if the information is scrutinized the attempt to mislead can be revealed. Also If I wrote Black teenage boys purchased 25% of all romance novels in 2015, anyone familiar with books would know that is a ridiculous statement--data would be unnecessary. It is like saying Black people do not read. Finally I wish Black women did buy 50% of all the book sold. I'm sure the entire Black Book Ecosystem would be fairing much better than it is today.

My new favorite website: kentakepage.com now in Huria Search and the blogger database

7th Day of #BlackHistoryMonth The QBR 100 Essential Black Books

Sara, I can see that numbers, percentages and the like confuse you. If I thought it would make a difference, I would explain to you how the reasoning and math you used to arrive at the conclusion that, “50% of books bought in the 1990's were bought by black PEOPLE."”is terribly is flawed. With the reasoning and logic you presented here I don't see how even presenting you with additional information would help you understand something that should be obvious. I give up.

I'll guess I'll have to check out the tweets. I did not see them right away can you post a link to the train of 148 tweet that tell the story?

Hi Mel. The was a line in the Broadway play, Avenue Q, goers along the line of "The Internet is for Porn." There was a time the majority of traffic on the web was porn related. As I migrate my bestsellers books to a database I'm able to very easily run some queries that present some interesting results. My all time bestselling book (far and away) is the Confessions of a Video Vixen. Three of the top five books deal directly with sex. I think this has more to do with the subject matter, sex, than the quality of the writing or the writers journey. Zane started the same way, but on her blog. Karrine's (author of Confessions) blow-and-tell book made her quite wealthy.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 3 FEBRUARY 2016, Los Angeles YASIIN BEY IN NEW FILM THAT REVEALS THE ORIGINS OF THE WORLD PASSPORT “My country is called Earth” yasiin bey says in a new film. “This whole thing belongs to everybody that’s on it.” The hip hop recording artist, actor, comedian, and activist from Brooklyn, New York, formerly known as Mos Def, was improperly detained in South Africa after he presented his World Passport to travel to a gig in Ethiopia. A 9 minute excerpt from “The World is My Country” was released today on www.acountrycalledEarth.com, the site created by yassin bey and Ferrari Sheppard. (bey prefers to spell his name in lower case letters) The site says that Arthur Kanegis Director of the film, rushed to release the clip from his film in response to Mr. bey’s detainment: “this excerpt shows that the World Passport is a fundamental human rights document that has been issued by the World Service Authority (WSA) in Washington DC for more than 60 years. Visas have been stamped on it by 90% of the World’s nations.” In the film clip attorney David Gallup, President of WSA, talks about the bey case: “We immediately sent a legal statement to the government through his attorney explaining the legal validity and recognition by the government of South Africa,” Gallup says in the excerpt, “including copies of stamps from the government, the most recent one as you can see on our website here in the last few months.” The film shows that South Africa has visited the World Passport at least eleven times just in the past few years as displayed at www.worldserivice.org/visas.html. The site shows copies of visas from 183 countries. “People can apply for World Documents using the forms on www.worldservice.org” Gallup said, “or contact us at 202-638-2662 or info@worldservice.org” “We hope that once South African officials see this film they will not only honor yasiin bey’s World Passport, but also move to the forefront of recognizing this important human rights document,” Kanegis said, after all “Nelson Mandela himself said “we are citizens of the world,” and South Africa’s constitution says that ‘everyone has the right to freedom of movement’ and ‘everyone has the right to leave the Republic.’ "The World Is My Country" shows origin of yasiin bey's world passport from Arthur Kanegis on Vimeo. The film tells the story of “World Citizen #1” Garry Davis, the founder of the World Service Authority which issues the passport. “He was an actor – a song and dance man, who leapt off the Broadway stage onto the world stage in 1948,” says Martin Sheen in the excerpt, “showing us that … We don’t have to accept a world ravaged by war and plunging toward environmental disaster…. We can build a world that is constructive for all and destructive to none.” “The full film reveals the very interesting story of the role Garry Davis played in helping to precipitate the UN’s unanimous passage of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) in 1948,” said director Arthur Kanegis. “People can go to www.futurewave.org to watch the excerpt now and to sign up to be informed when they can see the whole documentary.” Since 1954, the World Service Authority has been issuing World Passports, Birth Certificates, Marriage Certificates, IDs and other World Documents all based upon provisions in the UDHR. The film clip shows the important role these documents have played in helping to secure observance of basic human rights for thousands of refugees and stateless people. A work-in-progress preview of the documentary will be shown at the Manchester film festival Friday March 4th at 8PM at the Odeon theater in Manchester England. The date and place of the Grand Premiere has not yet been revealed. The full article is posted here: http://acountrycalledearth.com/2016/02/03/yasiin-bey-the-world-is-my-country Arthur Kanegis and David Gallup are available for interviews futurewavefilms@gmail.com Media Contact: Ilene Proctor PR 310-858-6643 Cell: +1 310-721-2336 E-mail: ilenepr@sbcglobal.net ilene@taghollywood.com www.ileneproctor.com

Here is the correct link to the website I could not figure out how to buy this book, otherwise I would have posted a link. Hopefully Shona will provide that information. I recall The Caribbean Writer, but have not seen it in a while.

Square (paypal too) really should provide more descriptive error messages. When I take payments over the phone I'm not even promoted to obtain an address.

@Sara, You made a statement that Black women buy 50% of all books sold. I should have made my reply much clearer by saying that statement was wrong and reveals a complete ignorance of the industry. No data is needed, as it is absurd on it's face. Instead, I asked you to cite a source hoping you would discover the error on your own. However you comeback, not with a source to cite your ridiculous assertion, but comments with the comments from other people with limited or partial knowledge of the subject. Indeed nothing to support your original statement. However you demand facts from me. I told you I have the data, but it would take me some time to find the book. This information is not freely available on the web, those in the industry pay for it. But I posted a video, which you apparently did not listen to, or understand, featuring the founder of Kensington Books, talking about many of the points you raised. Instead you cite racism in this case, without even knowing what the hell you are talking about. In the white racist environment that is New York publishing Kensington Books is one of the least racist of the larger publishers--certainly during the time when Walter was at the helm. I seriously doubt you are actually interested in facts, given what you have written and your reaction thus far. So go ahead and keep believing that, "...in the '90's, African-American women purchased close to 50% of all books sold in the U.S. That's right. 6% of the population bought (not "avid readers" or "went to the library," but put out cold, hard cash!) 1/2 of all new titles sold in the U.S." However if you make outrageous statements like this here; expect them to be challenged. You can call it throwing mud, or whatever makes you feel better..

If you like you may simply send PayPal a payment of $50 for 50 days (or any increment of $50) to troy@aalbc.com. Otherwise I can do a credit card over the phone just email me you telephone number. Sorry you had difficulty, I generally don't run into problems using Square.

Well that is a very interesting conversation @Sara. Is the forum still active? I see rather than "50% of all books sold in the U.S.," the assertion is 50% of all romance books. This is a very different statement. I doubt this is true too, but I don't follow the genre. But there may be data to support his. I used to get reports every year, commissioned by PW, which broke down books sales by demographics, format and genre, I'll have to see if I can find one. In the meantime, the whole Black romance genre, for the most part, was kicked off by Kensington (who was mentioned above). I interviewed Walter Zacharias, the founder of Kensington, a few years ago. Both Walter and author Gwynne Forster, who also appears in the video,. are no longer with us. They were both fine people, and lived brilliant lives.

5th Day of ‪#‎BlackHistoryMonth African American History Month Quizzes This is always a popular page on my website each February.

Sure it is a referral service, it is just that Amazon is controlling the money. If they are successful contractors will make less money and become dependent upon Amazon for business. Recently Uber and Lyft decided to cut prices for their glorified taxi referral service in New York City and other major cities, launching protests. Meanwhile regular cabbies and car services make less while Uber and Lyft get rich.

It is interesting that I had no idea about his website, or his book, until you posted the link.

Sawant described Obama's as "a presidency that has betrayed the hopes of tens of millions of people." She is also planning to do something about affordable housing. Sounds good to me. However, it was the HuffPost that attributing her to #occupy, which may or may not be valid. She identifies as a member of Socialist Alternative, an anti-capitalist, democratic-socialist party. Which is #occupy did not invent. The $15 minimum wage law is controversial. The problem is not what some small business owner pays their employees, the problem is why is the cost of living in cities like Seattle so high?. Often when fighting the symptoms of a problem, rather dealing with the root cause, you create more problems, in addition to the one you had to begin with. New York has the same problem. $15 and hour to a McDonald's worker will only increase prices and/or reducing services in the restaurant, while having no impact on the an employee ability to Pay rent--especially the ones who lose their jobs or have hours cut as a result.

Now this is really interesting. Now there are already plenty of sites that provide these referral services for each industry and more broadly, like Angie's List. It will be interesting to see if the Amazon brand is able to compete against all of these companies. If Amazon is successful this will be yet another step more control of the WWW going to a handful of companies.

Wow it is interesting to re-read my thoughts from over two years ago. On a whim I looked up the Brother that reject my supposition, Alfred Edmonds. He actually follows me, but he follows over 48,100 people (more people than follow him). My position over the past two years has become more nuanced regarding social media. But the underlying foundation of what I believe has not changed, I guess that is because it part of my nature. We HAVE to figure out how to use social media rather than having it use us. Just this morning I got this message on Facebook from an author friend of mine: "Hey Troy: Have you tried Facebook Custom Audiences for AALBC? Seems like it would be a good fit for advertising to newsletter subscribers. Check it out here: https://www.facebook.com/business/a/custom-audiences" I have an open mind and am willing to take advantage of opportunities but after following the link and watching the video (twice), my reaction was; are you freaking kidding me?! Facebook wants people to upload their list of contacts (100 names minimum), so that we can target those contacts, who are on Facebook, with advertising--advertising that we have to pay for no less!! The fact the ANYONE thinks this is a good idea is mindboggling. I have a mailing list that I've developed over the past 18 years, why on Earth would I just hand it over to Facebook? I can already reach my contacts through email (even the ones not on Facebook). Why the hell would I pay Facebook to reach these folks through an advertisement most will ignore and virtually no one will click? Now I know there are social media gurus running around happily exclaiming what a great new service Facebook is offering us. The Black Enterprises of the world will have their Facebook seminars, someone like me, will describe what a stupid idea it is for anyone to use this new "service" and they'll be soundly rejected. That said, there are ways to effectively use social media. My most successful social media campaigns were the result of organic, not paid, reach. Organic reach is platform independent.

@Xeon, when you come like that, you are not late but right on time. @Sara, OK according to the dictionary; "...a series of organized activities working toward an objective," #blacklivesmatter is definitely a movement. My main concern was an expression of impact and building something sustainable. Lets see where #Blacklivesmatter is after a decade. I did not say you said the MLK statement was original, I was just providing the content and why I disagreed with it. I also don't buy into the argument that the long arc of justice was favorable for the Native Americans, because there are a billion Chinese people running around. With that logic we can extend all of humanity back to Africa, and if we did that the whole arc of justice argument becomes nonsensical. No dispute from me on striving for Black unity. Again I completely understand why Black people are pessimistic. All you really have to do is look around. The data on murder, depression, incarceration, poverty, unemployment, graduation rate, etc., is available. You can also look at how we are portrayed in popular media. Of all the TV shows available featuring Black folks what percentage of them even attempt to uplift Black people? Is it Housewives of ATL, is it even the fanatically popular Empire? Just because people assess a situation and point out problems does not mean they are not prepared to do something about it--even if they are pessimistic. You can't fix something unless we know the cause of the problem--and I'm afraid that is our biggest problem. @Mel Hopkins, http://www.joincampaignzero.org/solutions/#solutionsoverview is a compeling website, but again I reserve judgment on the effort until I see results. I'm also not sure I even agree with some of the goals. For example, you and I grew up in NYC during the worst periods in generations. Without realizing the underlying causes of the high crime and poverty, people welcomed the very policing tactics that #blacklivesmatters want to eliminate. But his is a much bigger conversation. A few years ago #occupy was the movement dujour, today it may be #blacklivesmatter, tomorrow given our fickle nature, it will be something else...

I hear you Chris. Aside from books (which I no longer physically handle), the products I sell are intangible (advertising and services) and not available for purchase via Amazon, so my situation is different. But I can't help but wonder if Amazon sold my advertising would I sell more. The person who develops the software that displays my ad is working on a way to allow advertisers to buy and place ads directly, they way one might buy an ad on Facebook or Google. I hope to have this rolled out when I officially re-launch the website. BTW the are a lot of people who are very happy about the new Amazon stores.

Thanks for sharing information about your event Rochelle. I also added it to our events calendar: http://aalbc.com/events/index.php?st=California