Troy

Hi Guest, I just checked the link on my end it works for me, but that is academic now as I see the Kickstarter campaign has ended.

I finally resolved all of the bugs from the software upgrade I performed last week. This software is actually quite good and offers loads of features unavailable on popular social media platforms.

On November 22, 2015 The Board for the Education of People of African Ancestry will host a lecture by Dr. Molefi K. Asante, the author of over 70 books. He will discuss his book latest book African Pyramids of Knowledge. I'll be in Atlanta this weekend, but if I could make this lecture I definitely would!

IF ANYONE OUT THERE LURKING IS A BEN CARSON SUPPORTER PLEASE SPEAK UP. Armstrong Williams has been a staunch Carson supporter. I think he is his business manager. A Trump/Saunders ticket would result in mutual annihilation sort of like combining matter and anti-matter

Man where do you find the time. I looked at the title and busted out laughing. Please post the ISBN so that I can add it to your page.

I believe more information is communicated through books than through video. I think since people are learning something, through videos, that they are learned as much as they might if they also read. I'm not saying it is either or. I'm think both great together. But If I had to pick one method getting information it would be a book. The culture has chosen video, I think that is to our detriment--and that is really point. I probably use Youtube more than any other website in terms of time spend (not counting dev time on AALBC.com) Even on AALBC.com, the new site, in particular, I try to find a video for every page. I literally just created a page for MK Asante, I was already familiar with his memoir Buck, but I actually never met him or saw him speak, but the page together with the video was far more interesting than just looking at the book jacket and text alone:

I'm a right-side brained guy so poetry is often lost on me, but like this one. If you don't mind I have a couple of questions The line below threw me off a bit. I'm not sure what is meant by "one one to trust." The poem seems spiritual in nature. I take in "thee" in the final line to refer to God, but since it is not capitalized you may be referring to the reader, as if you are revealing a vulnerability we all share. Life is a mystery with one one to trust.

Man you won't have to buy the banner back from me, I'll give it to you whenever you want it. Since so many people are using Facebook as their main site I figured I could do a better job providing a web presence for them on AALBC.com. Plus I'll let them forward domains to their AALBC.com pages. In fact, since it is a bit technical for most people to do, I'll do it for them. Eventually I do need to figure out a way to transfer domain ownership (and those annual payments) to the authors. I'm also going to create pages for Book clubs. Clubs very willing to collaborate. One book club, the Me Time Book Club from Tuscaloosa AL, even put my logo on their website, which was very nice of them to do. They probably took the Chris Burns class for, on "web development and consciousness."

But you have to admit Unkel Ruckus does have a point. No one mistook Obama for an expert on foreign affairs or fiscal policy. Still, that does not negate anything Cynique wrote. Obama's appeal was the promise of change. This is the appeal of Carson and his evil twin Trump. Trump using his own money is compelling in the sense that he is beholden to no one, not even Wall Street, unlike Obama. However it also means Trump is not beholden to the people once he gets their vote. I don't think Carson is electable as president. While he may be beloved by the Christians in the south. They are more than outnumbered of the liberals in the major cities who hate him. Trump is electable...

Thanks man. I was not a big fan of it either, but from a technical perspective, but they are very popular and used on a lot of sites. Using a standard banner would also be much easier for me to implement too. Considering your books were one of the images and you still don't like it means you really don't like it. Yeah I'm aware of the alignment issue, and will work those out. I'm experimenting with a bunch of elements on the page which visually looks simply but is a a pain on the backend. Once I settle on what elements i'm using then I make everything line up. Even changing the menus on the content pages will probably take me the better part of a day or two. When you say you like the center of the page, do you mean the round author's images or the larger images with the large text. So you like reading is social huh? I came with that I as I placed the image, but a quick google search shows it is not a unique slogan at 31K results it is basically a cliche. I guess there is really nothing new under the sun. I registered http://chrisdburns.com and pointed it to your web page. There a typo in the original forwarding entry, I corrected it, but it may take a couple of hours for the change to propagate across the net. I also set the masking so that your domain name will persist in the browser, even though you are on my site.

http://aalbc.org/ I think I'm getting closer to a new homepage design. I've completely reworked the menu structure and am playing around with elements on the page. I still have not settled on colors yet, I kind of like the mustard background (more relaxing), but I also like the blue menu which is more energetic, but the too colors are not exactly complementary. I think I'm going to sell the sliding banner at the top of the page as ad space. As always I'm looking for suggestions, ideas and comments.

Cynique, my goal is to create a platform worthy of your writing. I'm going to quote you in the next eNewsletter.

Thanks Shirley, it is a struggle for me to do this, I appreciate you kind words. Thanks. Where have you been all this time? Got any like minded friends? Send them over too :-)

I've completed a list, over the weekend, of all the Black winners and nominees for National Book Awards: This year (2015) had the most number of Black nominee, 9 on the long list and 6 finalists, than ever before--more than the first quarter century that the award was given! More than makes up for the watermelon joke, huh?

Well I'm at the age where I don't need to buy very much for myself anymore. SO the only thing I really shop for is food. Videos are good because you don't need as many brain cells to engage with the content. However, our culture's focus on video and images on screens versus words on the page or even engaging each other directly, is our loss. We need to use those brains cells...

I think this is just another way of saying people don't read any more.... From an article I just read: Condé Nast, which is in the process of evolving its business to be more digitally nimble, is following a similar path as its print rivals. This path includes combining jobs and using the budget to establish new streams of revenue. Most companies are building out their video and live events businesses, while adding e-commerce. Condé is no exception. While each magazine brand there is in charge of managing their own budgets and head counts, Condé is moving money and investing in Condé Nast Entertainment and the digital group. The transition has been described as a shifting of resources rather than a steep across-the-board cut like the company instituted in 2014. Read the entire article

Nov. 9, 2015 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Lois Smyth, Baton Rouge Area Foundation, lsmyth@braf.org, (225) 387-6126 Susan Polowczuk, Zehnder Communications, susanp@z-comm.com, (225) 448-0760 T. Geronimo Johnson Wins 9th Annual Gaines Award Award Honors Literary Legend Ernest Gaines BATON ROUGE, La. – “Welcome to Braggsville” by T. Geronimo Johnson has been selected as winner of the 2015 Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence. Now in its ninth year, the Gaines Award is a nationally acclaimed $10,000 prize created by donors of the Baton Rouge Area Foundation. The award recognizes outstanding work from rising African-American fiction writers while honoring Gaines’ extraordinary contribution to the literary world. Previous winners of the Ernest J. Gaines award include Attica Locke for “The Cutting Season,” Stephanie Powell Watts for “We Are Taking Only What We Need” and Dinaw Mengestu for “How to Read the Air.” Award ceremonies take place at 6:30 p.m. on Jan. 21 at the Manship Theatre in downtown Baton Rouge. Johnson will read excerpts from his winning novel. The ceremony is free and open to the public, although reservations are requested at rsvp@braf.org. Johnson is a New Orleans native who lives in Berkeley, California, and serves as visiting professor at the Iowa Writers' Workshop. He earned a master’s degree in fine arts from the Iowa Writers' Workshop and a master’s in language, literacy and culture from the University of California, Berkeley. He previously held the Stegner Fellowship at Stanford University and the Iowa Arts Fellowship at the University of Iowa. In addition, Johnson has taught writing at Arizona State University, the University of Iowa, UC Berkeley, Western Michigan University and Stanford. His first novel, “Hold it ’til it Hurts,” was a finalist for the 2013 PEN/Faulkner Award for fiction. “Welcome to Braggsville” offers a socially provocative and dark comedy about four UC Berkeley students who stage a protest during a Civil War reenactment in rural Georgia. In his review, Los Angeles Times book critic David L. Ulin says Johnson is “a terrific storyteller, and he moves fluidly from past to present, place to place. In the end, no one is right and everyone is – or perhaps it’s the other way around.” Due to the exceptional quality of this year’s entries, Gaines Award judges short-listed two books – “The Sellout” by Paul Beatty and “The Turner House” by Angela Flournoy. The national panel of judges for the 2015 Gaines Award are: Thomas Beller, award-winning author and journalist; Anthony Grooms, a critically acclaimed author and creative writing professor at Kennesaw State University; renowned author Elizabeth Nunez, professor of English at Hunter College-City University of New York; Francine Prose, author of more than 20 books, including “Blue Angel,” a nominee for the 2000 National Book Award; and Patricia Towers, former features editor for O, The Oprah Magazine and a founding editor of Vanity Fair magazine. About Ernest Gaines Ernest Gaines, a native of Louisiana’s Pointe Coupee Parish and a literary legend, is a 2013 recipient of the National Medal of Arts, a recipient of the MacArthur Foundation’s Genius Grant, a recipient of the National Humanities Medal and a member of the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. Last year marked the 40th anniversary of publication of his critically acclaimed novel “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman,” which was adapted into a made-for-TV movie that won nine Emmy awards. His novel “A Lesson Before Dying” published in 1993 won the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction. About BRAF The Baton Rouge Area Foundation is one of the Gulf Coast region’s largest community foundations. Winner of the Association of Fundraising Professionals’ 2011 Award for Outstanding Foundation, BRAF connects donors to projects and nonprofit groups, along with investing in and managing community projects. For more information, visit BRAF.org. ###

As I migrate, and update, content from the old version of AALBC.com to the new version I have the pleasure of re-discovering some really accomplished people and ogrnaizations in publishing. As corny as it might sound, that is one of the reasons I sacrifice to run AALBC.com The folks running Good 2 Go Publishing, are just one example a business accomplishing a lot. They are making films, publishing books, and are also a long term sponsor of AALBC.com. Companies like Good 2 Go, should be well known. But hey, that what AALBC.com is for

Classic Cynique! You can't even say merry Christmas without the risk of offending someone...

I've created a new webpage which showcases all of the Black writers honored by the National Book Foundation. I have 15 years of data so far. As far as I know this information is not available anywhere else.

Wow Shirley those were such kind words. I appreciate it. It is clear that you get the purpose of these forums. Readers of this forum have always outnumbered the people who comment and post, Unfortunately both participants and readers are way down compared to a few years ago. I've always said the value of this forum is a function the level of participation, so I definitely appreciate you spreading the word. We have to help each other; no one else will.

Hi Shirley, it would be much better if you simply posted the poem on the page. Copy and Paste works well and preserves the formatting. Attaching a word document forces people to download a file that could potentially hold a virus. Some people, mobile users in particular, may not have a program to open the file.

No she can't know what it means to be treated as "Black" in America, for we are targeted based upon skin color. But a definition based skin color is a definition that is imposed upon a us by folks outside the group. "Blackness" to Black people is about culture, not skin color; this is why a lily white person, like Rachel, could so easily "pass" as Black. Blackness, by necessity, can't fixate on complexion. So if you want to be Black, live with Black people, help and support Black people, or run a freaking chapter of the NAACP that is fone with me 'cause their are plenty of Black people fighting to remove themselves from anything Black, schools, communities, business, etc. Here is a poem from the recently departed D-Knowledge:

@Shirley Gale, the promotion will last until I roll out the new website design (more info). I'm not sure how I will position these type of book ads on the new website. I want to keep the lower priced options available to advertisers, but I just not sure how that will be done on the new website, I'd like to make the main pages, including the homepage a lot less clutter than they are now. @Cynique oh that one is easy, I'll just link your book's cover to your Blog. I just added the a link to your blog from your Author Profile page. To be clear, this service is getting your book cover on the aalbc.com homepage and the books main page for 50 days (not counting whatever extra I throw for being Cynique ). Thanks for your support.

I stumbled across an article I wrote about 5 years ago, Random Thoughts About Facebook. I wrote, "It is astonishing how many people use their websites to drive traffic to Facebook rather than the other way around." Over the years since I wrote that article Black websites have struggled a great deal to get visitors, many have shut down. The are many reasons for this, but one is that we tend send people to social media, to learn about our work, rather than using social media to send people our own platforms to learn about it. If we all made an effort to use social media direct others, with links, to websites we liked and supported, those website could benefit from that simple effort. Here is a perfect example; On November 1st I posted a link on Facebook, to my test site for the new AALBC.comBlack Book Clubs page: http://aalbc.org/bookclubs/. As you can see 176 people shared this post and that resulted in 943 visitors to the website that day (November 1st). The vast majority of visitors were new (it is a brand new website), but the average time on the site was 1:22 seconds which is pretty good, less that organic search, but not bad. There were an average of two pages per session because once you visit the page you have to select a state to find your club. The platform from which visitors came from is also very telling of a trend; almost 75% of the visitors viewed the page on a cell phone or tablet. Just 27% visited the site via a desktop computer. One of my reasons for resdesigning AALBCc.om is to make it mobile friendly, which is also a, essentially, a Google mandate if you want you website to rank in search results. The Bounce rate (percentage of people who leave after viewing one page) is lower for the desktop user and the number of pages viewed is higher. Even though the site is designed to accommodate visitors from mobile devices, the site is engaged more deeply by people on desktop computers. Desktop versus mobile engagement with this site is something I will continue to examine. Facebook referrals coming from mobile users make sense; that Facebook mobile app, like snapchat or instagram, is very popular (addictive to some even). Referral from organic search come from mostly desktop users, but that could be because Google is not referring as many mobile users to the site in their search results. Again this is one reason I'm redesigning the website. Sadly, November 1st was the same day that Dr. Derrick Gilbert, a/k/a D-Knowledge, passed away. Normally, I would have picked this up, because his page received almost 400 visitors that day, through organic search. That is a lot, in one day for a relatively obscure poet, who had not produced anything new in a decade. Now I would argue that D-Knowledge would not be obscure in a world with Black media, if fact his passing is newsworthy. More of us should be familiar with his work