Troy

Connie I just migrated your not so "mimi" review on to the new website: https://aalbc.com/books/bookreview.php?isbn13=9780979637469 it really was well written and would probably interest folks into reading the book that might not otherwise do it were it not for your review. Interestingly I've come become friendly with Amari (the author of this book), and have collaborated with him a couple of projects. He is really serious when it come to this subject matter. I'm going to share this review with Amari again. I'm going to email it to him, 'cause, like a real Man :-) he does not do Facebook.

Yes, I'm working on a way for writers to contribute content to the website, directly but it has to be done a in structured way and curated. I'm also thinking of a way to pay writers for their writing that is both transparent and a function of the articles impact on the website's profitability. I'm thinking about paying writers based upon the number of times an article is viewed, perhaps $5 to $10 for every thousand views? So if a writer decides to share an article on social media, and it goes "viral" they will share in the financial rewards--even if that happens a year from now. Sometimes things just take a minute to gain traction. For example, I wrote an article, "Are Negro Girls Getting Prettier?" back in March and it is one of the most popular pages on the site--this month. I have not had to the time to sort out why, but this is not unusual. The other thing about content is that uniqueness counts. The publishing of syndicated articles a model many online newspapers follows, does not work as well on the web. Search results would simply send readers to the source of the article of the site that was indexed first, so generally large corporate sites benefit and small sites are crowded out.

No problem man, I'm glad to do it. So you split the revenue 50-50, but who incurs the costs of getting a book into the readers hands; printing, editorial, design, layout, storage, shipping, marketing, promotion, events fees, etc, etc?

No problem Hickson, this is not Twitter, there is no expectation of an immediate response :-) Of course the goal is to sell books at a book fair. As a bookseller myself, I used to sell books at the event, but abandoned the effort after the nature of the vending changed. Today were very few publishers and bookstores on the street this year. The majority of those selling books are individuals selling their own books. As a result there are simply fewer titles available for sale, and attendees complain there are simply "no books." Went I sold books I would have more titles at my one table than 20 vendors, selling just their book, would have today. Last year the first year since, the fair's inception that I had absolutely nothing to do with it, I didn't even attend. This is a shame, given the proximately to where I live, my enthusiasm for and role in the world of Black books. This year, again, I was not involved with the fair (though they did reach out), but I decided, that afternoon to walk the street and speak to every single vendor--i.e. network. In a couple of hours I was able to make it to most of the vendor tables and spoke with each of them. I collected 46 email addresses. I emailed all of the folks a couple weeks later, and we will see how that goes over the longer term. It seems much of the Black literati that supported the Harlem Book Fair, supports the Brooklyn Book Festival. I've attended the Brooklyn Book Festival, and it is extremely well done, but honestly I just don't have the enthusiasm for the Brooklyn Book Festival, that I once had for the Harlem Book Fair. But that is really comparing apples to oranges. The Harlem Book Fair was a celebration of Black culture while the Brooklyn Book festival, a terrific event, is simply not the same thing. It is like comparing the old Capital Bookfest to the National Book Festival. The best thing going in New York City for the world of Black books in the National Black Writers Conference, which is coming up in April.

Agreed about the film. I was walking down 125th in Harlem and noticed there are three new wing spots that opened in the last year--they are all chains! There are many new local, non-chain, restaurants but the all cater to people with money. Sylvia's used to be the stop every tourist wanted to eat at, but people living in the neighbor could also eat there because it was affordable. Today all the media attention goes to Red Rooster, which is across the street from Sylvia's, and right off 125th street, but it is outrageously priced. Drinks start at $15, portions are small, and they are not going to even put down a piece of bread on your table without you paying for it. While the restaurant is fantastically successful, many locals simply can not afford to dine there. You'll never read anything like what I just wrote about Red Rooster, not because my opinion is fringe, but the people who feel this way have no voice in the media. They are building a "Whole Paycheck" (Whole Foods), supermarket on 125th and Lenox and it is massive! There used to be a concept of a neighborhood, homes, parks, libraries, small businesses. Now everything is super-mega stores and chains. It is almost like you can't escape. In my old neighbor they built a basketball arena where the NY Net's play. It is literally blocks from where I lived. The arena, and all the accompanying business have come with it, have destroy the vibe of the neighborhood (part of Park Slope, Brooklyn). There were a couple of bookstores on 125th a few years ago today there are no Black book stores in Harlem! Fortunately there are museums and libraries in Harlem, but this IS New York City for Christ's sake. Speaking of Black suburbs, The Bowie/Mitchellville MD, which was one of the best Black middle class neighborhoods I could think of still has not recovered from the crisis, with many, if not most homeowners underwater in the mortgages.

Speaking of doing the white thing. This trailer for the next Star Wars Film was viewed 46,523,058 times in less than a week--that is roughly 5% of the planet's population! The film which appears in theaters in December is already sold out opening weekend in many places. Princess Leia was the only non-white-male character (of the human characters) in the original Star War flick. During the time comedians use to joke that white folks did not plan for us to be here is the future. The new film addresses the lack of diversity and some white folks are complaining about the film being anti-white. Can you image? Some guy on Twitter called the film's director J.J. Abrams a director "an anti-white nut" that got 141 favorite and 171 retweets. I did not bother to look at how many of his followers were fake, but CNN covered his tweets....(I wish they would get rid of the 24-hour-per-day reporting of news, a lot of it is just crap).

Man, if you have book reviews send them! I literally working in the book review template. Basically, if you have written a review on the website, a link to it will pop up on your author's profile page. I've only migrated three reviews, as test cases, but here is one written by Robert Fleming. The review links back to roberts page, his books, his reviews and more. So any reviews I publish of your will just create more links back to your page, further elevating your work not to mention increasing the exposure your the book you've reviewed. Robert Fleming has been in the game for decades. In an alternative, more sane universe, he would be well known. Regarding Facebook the desktop users (all 7 of them) did engage the site to my satisfaction. But the charm there is that all I had to do was create the content, I did not have to worry about engage on Facebook myself. I will probably add social sharing button to the authors profiles, for this reason. But I'm still considering removing social sharing button from the site altogether.

Hi Donia, have you published your books yet? Tell us something about them. What does it mean to be an herbalist and why should I be interested in, or need to buy your books?

I added your book to my database: http://aalbc.it/gillianberry this is a website under development, the the URL will always work. Once your ISBN is "active" the buy links will work. Let me know if you want to change the information or if you ever post a youtube video, I'll add it to you page. Thanks for sharing information about your book here. For the sake of booksellers, I would add the ISBN to the website, that and the name of the publisher--even if you are the publisher. This also helps readers who want to have a bookstore order your book.

Chris also consider the quality of the engagement of the facebook users. Looking at the chart; the mobile users spent bit more than 1/2 a minute on the site. However the desktop users where on the site for a full two minutes longer (on average), and looked at more pages. Now the current site bestsellers list is not optimized for mobile, the new site's bestseller list is optimized for mobile displays, so engagement from mobile users may improve when I cut over to the new website. Also let me check on books book sales as a result of the facebook engagement....as far as I can tell there were no direct sales as a result of the engagement (I only checked Amazon and not the other channels) But sales are trickier, they are not always immediate, and people often obtain books off-line, after discovering them online. Even without a sale, that I can directly attribute to the referrals from Facebook, there is still value in branding the website, Trice's book, and the books of other authors on the pages viewed by the visitors from Facebook or whereevr they originate.

Hi Chicki I'm posting you youtube video below (basically you post the url and the forum's software will automatically embed the video.

Yeah, Trice is one of those mutually supportive authors, we need more of. On top of writing good books; behind a very pleasant, and attractive exterior, is a serious business woman. Here are the results of her posting on Facebook. The quick answer to the question of how many clicks to the website resulted from Trice's posting on Facebook, 41 hours ago, is 24, as shown on the chart below. Considering her post had 162 likes and 5 shares (2 were mine), this is far better than any ad I've placed--not just because it did not cost me anything extra, but because the engagement rate was far higher. Organic engagement always performs better than paid engagement. I'm attributing all of these click to Trice's post, because during this period I was not aware of anyone else posting on Facebook but the same page on my site, so I could be off. But if I am, I doubt the impact is significant. There were 30 authors on my last bestsellers list, those that share the list, generally tend to perform better in sales, on my site. Of course I appreciate Trice's support so I also more willing to help her when I can. These are the types of relationships that fuel our businesses and helping readers discover better books. During the 41 hour period, Facebook was just over 2% of my over all traffic. Of course Trice link was not the only source of referrals, from Facebook, during this period, but it was the largest one. Looking at the chart on the right you can see that during the 41 hour period all social media made up 3% of my source of traffic, and referrals from other sites was double that. This is why I will increase engagement of other site rather than social. Looking at the chart on the left you can see that Facebook referrals make up most of my social media referrals--facebook always has. What is most striking is how poorly Google Plus and Pinterest performs for my site. I'm not surprised by Goodreads, because I don't engage there at all. I'll probably blog about this in more detail.

Got it! Please post your ISBN13 so that I can add your book to my database. Thanks. I'm pleased to see you also mentioned African American bookstores as a source. Authors used to say something like, "available where books are sold," without giving any particular store the free promotion. Today many authors say, "buy my book at Amazon" and display a big Amazon logos on their websites. An independent bookstore would kill for that time of free publicity. On my site redesign I'm sending readers to a variety of different stores--even to the publisher's website, when that is an option, to buy the book. I'm also considering transitioning to selling books directly. Man if I could get authors to display an AALBC.com logo on their website and say by my book at AALBC.com I would actually pay for that. .

Righteous, you have a very nice website =, but I could not help but notice that your are selling your book directly, as the only option. I was wondering if there was a specific reason you chose to do that.

Man I just read the banner I created for your books and I see now that it makes no sense. I'll correct it but is there else that you would like me to write there instead?

Man Chris you got me ranting today :-) Helping people understand that we can do more to help ourselves than Facebook can will do, can not be done with reason. There has to be an emotional component, and nothing I can think of is a powerful as what facebook can do for one emotionally. Authors who post frequently on Facebook, there are many, generally post personal stuff and it gets a lot of likes and comments. If an author can get 1,000 likes for saying it is their anniversary, you can't pull them away from that, it is a terrific ego stroke--even if an very small percentage of that activity translates into traffic to a place where readers will buy their books. But many authors are in the business for notoriety, so this is perfectly aligned with what they are looking for. The authors I'm likely to attract are the writers who want people to read what they have written, and don't want to be bother engaging will the masses on a social networking website, Don't get me started on the NAACP. Last year I was willing to fly out and cover their event--on my own dime. They declined to give me a press pass! Keep in mind I have no interested in celebrity award shows. I just wanted to cover the books--which gets no coverage. Every year I post articles and cover the award winning books. I get ZERO acknowledgment, thanks, recognition, not even a retweet, not even an "Atta Boy!" For my efforts. I can deal with this I'm not doing this for recognition, I'm doing to recognize the authors and share information about the books. But it is frustrating, hence this rant. Last year, desperate to cover the event in a more meaningful way than simply listing the books, I asked a couple of the authors that I knew to write about their experiences. The NAACP would even help share those articles by Gwen Richardson, and Dwayne Smith (who won his category). This stands in stark contrast to the ALA, I have always covered the Coretta Scott King Awards, and various libraries link to the list, reference the website, and I even keynoted a dinner at the BCALA this summer. I just finished listing (on the new site) all of the CSK winning books going back to 1970. I have covers for every book, video, description information about all the authors and illustrators -- no one has this type of information on all of these books, not Google, not Amazon, not even the ALA. But I know this will be a resource that they reference, sending me valuable traffic and giving AALBC.com a level of legitamacy. I plan to do the same for the NAACP winning titles, but I know, going in, that I will get no help from them, but again not matter how I might personally feel about the image awards, other than the African American Literary Award Show, they are the only entity celebrating, a large number of popular Black authors. So I'm support them even though is is not reciprocated. Chris you mentioned that if I have the support of 100 authors, I would be killing it, if I had the support of a few Black of our Black institutions that would be just as helpful. Should you submit you book, that is not a question I should answer for you :-) I assume there i still a fee for submission (how much is it). You have to cover your expense to and from LA. Though I understand based upon what Gwen told me, that you are treated well once you are there. You get to rub elbows with celebs (if that is you thing) and being nominated is always a credential that you can use. Depending upon your finances it might be worth a chance on getting a nomination. I've been at this PC since 6:30 this morning. I'm going to the gym for the first time in months. I miss being in shape ;-)

Chris I don't disagree with single word you wrote. The fact that you mentioned Tavis' lack of integration with the grassroots is perceptive. I was trying to think of a way to describe it; elitist came to mind, but that did not seem to be quite it. I've met the man a number of times. We never really spoke or connected largely because he was not interested. I was a HUGE supporter of his publishing company. The only reason I had any connection with it was not because of Tavis, but because of the woman who actually ran the company an iconic figure in publishing Cheryl Woodruff. Cheryl thinks more like you and I, but was burdened (my word choice), by Tavis' sensibilities, which are not nearly as conscious, in my opinion. Chris active support of 100 writers would subsidize my support of 1,000 other authors. I always envisioned that that support would from the likes of a Tavis Smiley, a Toni Morrison, an Oprah. But people of that statue has never exhibited an inclination to support my efforts. My support comes from people like you, Hickson, and folks like Cynique. Back in the day when Urban fiction was getting beat up in the media. I would never say anything bad about urban fiction because they were were supportive of AALBC.com, and appreciated any and everything I did. Seriously, the support of these so called "ghetto" writers helped give me the resources to promote the work the writers who were the most critical of urban fiction--writers who never lifted a finger to support an AALBC.com. Do you see what I mean? At the end of the day, we who unabashedly support Black writers are marginalized by those same very same Black writers once they reach a certain level. Of course there are authors who are exceptions to this, but I think you see my point. At the end of the day, the white man's ice is just colder to many of us. Those writers will anxiously write for the huffington post, Goodreads and Facebook for free, and turn their nose up at the few dollars a Black independent could offer.

Thanks Hickson! An thanks for your support over the years. I added Ghettoheat's books to my database: http://aalbc.it/ghettoheat I still have to update some of your author pages, but that will part of a larger process down the road. As part my research I discovered this interview of you. I liked what you said about having our own. Man you get it, you really do. It feels like I've been saying this over and over, so it is refreshing to encounter someone who understands this out the box. I also liked what you business model and the revenue share (about 20 minutes into the video) with your authors. In practice, how has that worked for you over the years? Also I could not find much information about LOVE DON’T LOVE NOBODY can you post a better cover and the missing information here?

Chris I pay ZERO attention the the reviews on Amazon because most of them are worthless. I stopped posting there long ago, because Amazon won't even allow you to put a hyper link back to your website. So not only do they want me free book review they won't even give me the courtesy of a reciprocal link!? Occasional I'll post a review if an authors asks, but I don't even do that anymore. Now if you have one review and it only got one star, that does not look good and I can understand your reaction. But again this is Amazon's problem. They don't give a crap. Now if we posted a review you best believe ample consideration was given before posting especially if it was unfavorable.

Would you do me a favor a write a paragraph, you can simply post it here, describing your music production side, and I'll add it to the end of your profile. I'm going to use a large slider at the top of the homepage page and every main section of AALBC.com. Yours will be the first ad in those positions, which means it will be in place many months I besides the web site redesign I have two major challenges Helping Authors Recognize the Potential AALBC.com Has in Enhancing Their Platform AALBC.com could be the "goodreads" of Black literature. If they choose to make it that. Rather authors have been posting content on my Facebook page. As a result, I've decided I will abandon Facebook with the roll-out of the new website, it is simply cannibalizing traffic. Besides AALBC.com can provice a better treatment of authors content than Facebook, for free, and without all the downside Facebook brings. I just posted a video describing how an author can post information about their books on these forums. Getting Quality Writers to Write for the Website Just today I discovered a book reviewer on Facebook posting a link to Goodread (owned by Amazon) for a review of a new book. I followed the link to Goodreads (as much as that pained me only to discover the person had written many reviews on Goodreads. Now Amazon is not paying writers to write these reviews, so it always floors me when writers give their content to massive corporations allowing them to profit, while overlooking independents that could really use the content and are willing to pay for it. I dug deeper and noticed that the buy links at the end of the review had affiliate codes applied. So someone else was earning revenue off the content from those reviews. Even the prospect of being "discovered" on a Goodreads from writing book reviews is unlikely. Since so many writers are willing to write for corporate websites for free, it is extremely difficult for any writer to be paid for writing book reviews- virtually no one makes a living doing it. As a result, I'm also working on a model to pay writers for articles and reviews. Right now I'm thinking of a payment system that is a function of traffic generated by the article and/or a share of commission from book sales. At any rate, it is better than what writers are getting from the corporate sites.Neither of these should really be problems if it was understood that everyone benefits, especially readers, if we all supported entities like AALBC.com with the same gusto we support Goodreads, or Amazon, or Facebook... But honestly this has always been a challenge, so I'm not really daunted by this, but it would really would be nice to have more active support from more authors--it is in their own best interest. I still have tons of work ahead of m, but I'm liking how the new site is shaping up. Chris, I'm glad that I I've been helpful. The feeling is mutual. Imagine a world in which folks cooperated on our level--and we never even met! We have similar life goals. Perhaps that is why we clicked. You have an advantage in that you have a few disparate revenue streams, I'm pretty much all in with the book website. I have branched into education and while I find that rewarding, it does not scale or have the revenue potential of a website. Peace

I was researching American trends, and there seems to be a similar trend in the Broader US market which mirrors what is happening in Canada, A 2013 PW (Publishers Weekly article, “Mixed Blessing in Slowing E-book Sales,” cited Kensington's CEO who called the declining growth of eBooks sales “a mixed blessing.” I find that an almost shocking statement to come from a CEO of a publishing company. If there is a market for a product you provide why on Earth would a decline in sales be anything but bad news? I guess that just illustrated how jacked up the business models are in publishing. More recently; E-book Sales Dropped in First Quarter By Jim Milliot, Jul 16, 2015 First-quarter e-book sales were down 2.5% and 36.6% in the adult and children’s/young adult categories, respectively, according to figures in AAP’s StatShot program. With sales of hardcover and paperback also down, first quarter sales in the children’s/ya category fell 15.9%. Big Drop in E-book Sales Led to Soft 2014 at HBG By Jim Milliot, Feb 10, 2015 E-book sales took a big hit at HBG in the fourth quarter, comprising 19% of trade sales in 2014 down from 27% in the fourth quarter of 2013. Once again, Lagardere blamed a stronger publishing schedule in 2013 and the Amazon dispute for the drop in e-book sales. For the full year, e-book sales accounted for 26% of all trade revenue, down from 30% in 2013. HBG added some more details to digital results, noted that the combination of e-book and downloadable revenue represented 30% of net sales last year compared to 33% in 2013. It is interesting to note that the average sales price for the top 5 selling eBook is 12 bucks! Visit PW for the full list. The average ebook sales price for AALBC.com is closer to $1. That combined with the negligible commissions generated by those sales have put a serious damper in revenue from commissions on book sales. Still I would not want to see ebooks go away, I just want people to read more and buy more book through AALBC.com. Top 25 E-Book Bestsellers, First Quarter 2015 RANKTITLEAUTHORPUBLISHERPRICE1The Girl on the TrainPaula HawkinsPenguin$12.992Fifty Shades of GreyE.L. JamesRandom House$9.993American SniperChris KyleHarperCollins$21.994All the Light We Cannot SeeAnthony DoerrSimon & Schuster$13.995Fifty Shades DarkerE.L. JamesRandom House$9.99We, Black folks I mean, tend to lag the rest of the industry in our behavior, at least that has been my observation. Slower to adopt technology, slower to react to changes in the industry, and slower to recover when things turn around. So I'm confident Black folks will come around to buying more physical books again, it just will take longer than we we are seeing in the broader markets.

Below is a video I made while making the post above. I created it to demonstrate how easy it is post information to this forum. It is actually easier to copy and paste information here than it would be to my wordpress blog, or even a to a standard webpage. In fact, the video below is a flash file that I embedded directly into this forum (you can't even upload Flash file into youtube). As you see from the video, it took less than 5 minutes to post this message and share it on Twitter. If I were not actually recording a video while making the post it would have taken me all of 2 minutes. Just as many people, and potentially far more, will see information posted here than would see it on Facebook; PLUS people are FAR more likely to engage here with information here and click through to the underlying website. Again this is what the web is all about. This discussion forum is optimized for mobile, permanently archived here and discoverable via search. Did I say that I use these forums to discover information to include in my eNewsletter?

Hey Chris, let me know if there are videos for your books that would would like me to add and if you would like me to change the video on the page with your bio. I'll the other book (where do you find the time). I'll update the graphic on the slider as well. I think something like that will be the premium advertisement type on the main webpages of the website Also I watched most of the videos you made. I prefer the ones when you describe first then go into what is going to happen. Meeks music is dope.

Yeah we spoke about the Smiley Joyner riff back when it was occurring, but Tavis used to have a much more powerful and influential platform which is greatly diminished today. I wrote about what I percieved as Smiley's power and potential impact 5 years ago: http://aalbc.com/blog/index.php/2010/12/21/tavis-smiley-is-no-good-for-black-folks/ but agin this is greatly diminshed. The status of the Covenant's site is just one example. His publishing company SmileyBooks, is a faint memory. Remember the State of the Black Union Gatherings which died soon after Obama refused to attend. Imagine, it was politically expedient for Obama NOT to attend the most popular public gathering of Black leaders of the time, or since. Think about that. Keep in mind Tavis' influence and footprint grew after he parted ways with Joyner. The first clear sign perhaps was the complete evisceration of BET when Tavis and his program, the only thing worth a damn in BET, was canned. The tiff with Joyner was symptomatic of the larger problem. I agree I doubt many people know Tavis has TV a program. I don't hear anyone talk about it. The only reason I was aware of Sharp's appearance was because she told me about it. After listening to that interview I realized how important the work Tavis does is. So no. the show is not listened to by the people who could stand to benefit from it the most, because we own not platforms and refuse the support what little we do have left.

S. Pearl Sharp, a writer and actress who was an influential player in the Black Arts Movement and co-founded the Black Anti-Defamation Coalition is interviewed by Tavis Smiley. We need to see more people like Sharp gain media attention and exert greater influence on our culture. Here Sharp is the author of The Evening News: Essays and Commentaries from NPR and Other Clouds. We really need to see more people like Sharp gain media attention and exert greater influence on our culture. I have to give Smiley props for continuing to interview people like this. As an aside: I did not recognize this at first, but now I see that Smiley, along with Cornel West, have been marginalized by mainstream media. This probably started before the riff with Obama, and is part of the whole process of marginalizing Black men who are trying to do something positive for Black people, and are becoming too successful at it--too powerful.