Troy

All of us involved with the production of content online is familiar with the refrain "Content is King". The general idea behind the phase is that if you generate a lot of unique content you will generate a lot of traffic, links back to you site from other sites and high ranking in search results. The key is really the last bit about ranking high in search results. Well funded websites today are discovered by spending a lot of money on advertising and promotion. Smaller independent websites (the vast majority of websites) are dependent upon ranking high on search engine results -- specifically Google search engine results, because they are far and way the most popular search engine. Indeed "google" is now a verb meaning; to search online. However, at an accelerating rate, it is becoming clear that in reality, "Google is King". Even Google says quite loudly that content is king when it comes to their search results. My experience and the data I've collected suggests otherwise; Here are a couple of many anecdotes to illustrate why your support is needed: Not too long ago I paid a writer for an article he'd written for publication on The Huffington Post's website. The writers was unhappy. He felt his article would lose it's impact because the Huffington Post was taking too long to publish it. On top of that, he was not being paid for that article or any of the articles he wrote for the Huffington Post. Knowing I could publish the article in a few minutes, I paid the the writer $25 and published his article on AALBC.com. I wanted to test a theory. My article was indexed by Google in less than 24 hours. About a week later The Huffing Post published the article. Immediately, after Huffington Post's publication of the article they started beating beating AALBC.com in search results. This is not surprising a giant corporate site beats a much smaller independent site on the same content. However, the real problem is that scores of other sites which aggregate content, by automatically copying excerpts of content from the Huffington Post and other sites, producing no original content, began beating me in Google searches as well! The only purpose those sites serve is to generate advertising revenue through the use of excerpts from other websites. Social Media or Rather Google's Bias Toward Social Media has exacerbated the problem. My own social media (FaceBook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Google+) OFTEN beats AALBC.com on searches for my original content! If I post a LINK on FaceBook to an article on AALBC.com, then later run a query on the article's title my FaceBook page can come us first! It is hard to rationalize how a page with just a link and can beat a page with the entire article. Click this link which runs a Google search on Troy Johnson Now Troy Johnson is a very common name and I'm doing great to have several results appear on the 1st page of results. On my tests my LinkedIn in profile and my Facebook page beat my site which has, deliberately, much more up-to-date and comprehensive information. The problem with sending people to Facebook to hit a link that leads back to AALBC.com where the content is, is that Facebook is very "sticky", once people get there they tend to stay there. Someone looking for Troy Johnson or an article I've published will likely get stuck on Facebook and never make it to AALBC.com. Sometimes I find myself reading something on Facebook completely side tracked from my original task. I've been running Google searches since Google was invented and they are no longer getting it right, particularly when it comes to indie sites (save Wikipedia - arguably a commercial entity). On one hand I'm disappointed because for many years Google represented what was great about the net. Google facilitated a level playing field between content providers based upon QUALITY of CONTENT. Today they are more reflective of a greedy corporation bent on exploiting the net for monetary gain. The things I mention here impact the entire internet experience for all of us. The impact of what I've mentioned here is far WORSE than even the digital divide problem. Sure, it is bad to have an environment where accessing the Internet is difficult for so many, but it is far more tragic when independent expression is completely shut out. There are certainly solutions to this problem. Perhaps the biggest challenge is recognizing there is a problem. This is not just about Black books. Journalism is impacted, the ability for a writer to earn a living is greatly diminished, the quality and depth of what is published on-line and the ability to tell our stories from our perspective is in serious jeopardy. There was absolutely ways to correct this problem, but it will take a concerted effort from a critical mass of people. But the first step is helping people and content providers (the ones remaining) recognize there is a problem.

The Africans Who Wrote the Bible by Nana Banchie Darkwah

Hey y'all please test a Google search for me by running a simple query. Just clicking this link: Then let me know two things: (1) Which site comes up first? (2) What # does AALBC.com come appear? (#1, #2, etc.) Don't go past the first page (top 10 results), just let me know if you did not find it in the first page of results. I really do appreciate your help. This is a query to find a film review I published recently. It is crafted in an way that really should return my AALBC.com first. I run queries like this all day long, and have been for years. A Google search is normally the fastest way to find content on my website; I almost never use my site's navigation menu. But something changed recently and I'm just trying to collect to support my theory -- thanks.

Read the First Issue Vol. 1 April 2013 In April 2013 C&B Distribution published its first issue of Writers' World Newspaper. This publication is a resource for self-published and established authors to exchange opinions on literature. Readers will be provided with unique and motivational articles, ideas and resources to further enhance their lives. This paper will be distributed every three months to different venues such as "April is Book Month in Queens" & The Harlem Book Fair, The Queens Book & Health Fair Events, various libraries, high schools, colleges, banks, book stores, supermarkets, restaurants, news stands, and grocery stores. C&B Distribution will distribute 750 - 1000 printed copies to reach the population of Flushing, Fresh Meadows, Jamaica, some areas of Brooklyn, Bronx and Manhattan. More Areas to come! Click here to learn how to subscribe and advertise

I spoke with the filmmaker recently and the cool thing about this video is that it was unscripted and the two people (Aki and Lee) are friends and have know each other for years.

Virtual Blog Tour new ebook INSIGNIFICANT OTHERS with bestselling authors Pynk and Carol Taylor We’re organizing a virtual blog tour for the new ebook INSIGNIFICANT OTHERS a collaboration of bestselling authors Pynk and Carol Taylor. This dynamic storytelling duo are joining forces to combine their vibrant voices and fervent fan bases in a series of erotic novellas. Tour dates are July 8th - 12th. If you would like to be part of this tour, please email us atmarketing@insatiablepress.com by June 14th 2013 and make note of the following guidelines: Pynk and Carol Taylor are willing to do Q&As and guest blogs posts. Guest blog requests are on a first-come, first serve basis. You will receive 2 copies of the ebook, one for yourself to read and review, and another to give away on your blog When you have the contest and the review posted, send us the link. Only residents of the U.S. or Canada are eligible to win Giveaway copies will be sent directly to winners—please email their name and email tomarketing@insatiablepress.com We ask that you post reviews on Amazon, and Barnes & Noble, as well as your blog page. You may also post them on Books-A-Million and Goodreads. If you have a Facebook or Twitter page, please post about the book there as well. When tweeting, use hashtag, #insignificant as much as possible. About the novellas in INSIGNIFICANT OTHERS Erotic City: Miami--It’s 2012 and what happened in 2008 at the controversial Erotic City swingers club in Atlanta is a distant memory. Now, with a second club located in Miami, Milan Kennedy and her heavyweight boxer husband, Lavender Lewis, have moved to Miami to raise his son. Lavender’s loony baby’s mama is serving time in prison for the attempted murder of Milan. For now all seems quiet, that is until Milan and Lavender are served child custody papers, and also, a test of fidelity arises just as the couple plans to add to their family, and expand their thriving business. Milan questions the very meaning of the lifestyle itself, and doubts the purpose of her own career as a swinger’s club owner, providing significant others a playground for fornication. Big Booty Trudy, Tamiko Kennedy, Jarod Hamilton, and Nancy Clark Kennedy all return, and a couple of freaky additions are added to the mix. The newest location, Erotic City: Miami, is a huge success, but at what cost? Will the wife-swapping lifestyle change Milan and Lavender forever, or will they survive the very temptations that their own sex business brings? The Ex Chronicles: Plan B--Funny, erotic, sexy, and insightful, The Ex Chronicles: Plan B reveals the darker side of desire, when four women must overcome their lust or be trapped by it. Bourgie Hope, the editorial director of Shades magazine, fell in love with Derrick, a single dad from the projects, while at her wits end caring for her sick mother and handling her own high-powered career. Derrick proposed to Hope and she was ecstatic. But she’s now wondering if it's too much too soon, especially when she meets the sexy and seductive Max. Precious, a Shades editor, left her fiancé Darius after finding him in bed with another woman. She’s now back with him; hoping that this time he really will change. Bella, the overindulged wild child of rich parents, burned out, not only drugs and alcohol but also on her enabling ex Julius, and went into rehab. Now her parents are threatening to cut her off if she doesn’t get a job, something she’s never had to do. Half-Jamaican, half-British Zenobia sacrificed a successful modeling career for her ex Malcolm, but his constant cheating made it impossible for her to stay with him. Now she’s with David, but Malcolm wants her back. As we follow these best friends from New York, to London, and Amsterdam, they must cope with not only their careers and their past, but also their cheating exes and the love they still have for them. They each need a Plan B. Although the blog tour is focused on ebooks, please let us know if you'd like to be added as a reviewer for our audiobooks in the future. Take care, Roy Huck Insatiable Press www.insatiablepress.com

More on Miz Paula:

Interesting you should phrase it that way Cynique I was talking to someone about this situation and they were perfectly happy about Paula's predicament referring to it as payback. They did not give a crap about the specifics of the situation -- indeed neither of us knew the specifics. In fact I STILL do not know specifically what Paula said and when she said it to get her into so much trouble.

Why does obtuse sounds like a personal attack? It is a fairly innocuous word much less harsh than the words throw around by the like about by Roy Hibbert and Paula Dean. I just looked up the word; Annoyingly insensitive or slow to understand. Difficult to understand. I was using the 2nd, definition with regard to your response to my question. I was NOT calling YOU obtuse. I was characterizing your statement as such. That is easy to see based upon what I wrote. Looking at it another way; can you see way someone would be confused by the response you gave to my question? I don't know about decorum in the context of this place, but my tone is pretty consistent. Admittedly I show Cynique some difference cause I usually agree with her and she is my elder, but when I disagree with her I tell her without having to sugar coat it. Now that I think about it I do recall referring to Cynique as a self loathing negro because she would not blindly support Obama simply because he was Black. I remember this ONLY because I thought about it before hitting the enter key. Because THAT could be reasonably be construed as a personal attack. But Cynique and I go way back now I knew she would not storm off the boards in a huff. Needless to say Cynique explained her position, and in hindsight, I see that I was wrong for blindingly supporting Obama (or anyone) simply because of the color of their skin. If you are really interested in the exchange of, and debating, ideas we really we have to assume it is the ideas we are attacking -- not the person.

Del I've been writing on these boards for 15 years. More than a decade of conversation are archived here. You'd have to look VERY hard to find an instance of me attacking, personally, another individual here. Now being accused of attacking someone is not the same thing as attacking someone. I found the sentence with the word "obtuse" to try to figure out why you thought I was attacking you as a person (one that I like) rather than your ideas or actions. I wrote: "Del when your answer is too obtuse to be understood by an educated person, it does not provoke discussion it is just confusing." I stand by the statement because I asked you a question and I not only did not understand your response I was left more confused. Sure I could have softened the statement, perhaps been less blunt. But I did not get the impression I needed to do that with you. I apologize if you took my statement personally it was meant to obtain clarity not hurt your feelings. Thanks for mentioning it. I did not appreciate that I was coming across that way to you.

I'd actually never seen Paula Dean prior to seeing these videos. I had no idea what she looked like and I have never seen her cooking show. My reaction to her use of the N-word was that people are over reacting. It just seems inconsistent to hold Paula to a higher standard regarding the use of the N-word in her private life than we hold a comedian or rapper who uses the word in front of thousands. I don't use the N-word or any profanity much today but as a teen and young adult I used the n-word all the time. Is was part of the way me and I peer spoke. However after seeing this video I can see how and why she would the n-word. Paul is clearly unsophisticated when it comes to speaking to the public. I don't suspect she is not very bright either. She apparently does not have a publicist who knows very much either. This interview with the times is very telling. Ever after viewing it I don't believe Paula is a bad person, just not the sharpest knife in the drawer. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOOtHsYeEqg Here is a video Paula published a couple of days ago, "After spending all day soul searching and trying to figure out how to deal with what I did, I recorded a video trying to do the right thing. In the end, I felt that I needed to just be myself, say I am sorry and beg for forgiveness. What I said was wrong and hurtful. I know that and will do everything that I can do make it right. I am not about hate, and I will devote myself to showing my family, friends and fans how to live a life helping others, lifting us all up, and spreading love." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkwbyNKC9Kg I think the ratings driven media feeding frenzy has exacerbated the problem. I doubt many of us could meet the standard Paula was expected to make -- but none of use are losing our livelihoods and careers over it.

DT why won't you just share the press release here -- it would just save folks a step. As you can imagine you lose people with each additional hop.

I hear you. Are all the titles listed anywhere? if so please post a link.

As with all things, good and bad, there is a spectrum a range Good <-------------------------------------------------------------------> Bad Where killing Hitler would be on the "good" side, and raping and killing a infant would be considered "bad". Drive-by's, capital punishment, and all the rest would be placed somewhere along the spectrum. At the end of the day, however we want to justify it, killing another person is just wrong. Whether it is aborting a fetus prematurely, euthanasia, executing a mass murder -- whatever -- it is wrong. I think a major problem with our culture is that we have justified killing for so many reasons, so much so, that we can easily justify doing it. Murder is rampant is ghettos because we do not respect life -- even our own. It is built into the culture...

Cynique do you think a person who is truly and I mean truly does not think murder is wrong AND actually carries them out would be considered sane? If so, lets exclude the socio-paths or psychotic people. Now if we consider war, killing someone (a likely socio-path) in self-defense. I too believe this is wrong but not so wrong I don't think it should be done. I certainly don;t believe we should defende ourselves with no regard for collateral damage -- the way the 911 bombers were or the US is with Drones or with Nukes. Dropping a 2nd nuke the way the US did in WW II is completely wrong. We can argue about the 1st nuke but dropping the 2nd nuke is just beyond monstrous. I'm sure the 1st one sent the so called "message". We live in a country where the leadership is unable or unwilling to make the right moral/ethical judgements. They know what is right and wrong, they just do not care. Or rather they care more about power and money than people I doubt the nuts in charge today would have ended slavery.

Humm lets see http://aalbc.com/tc/index.php?/topic/2089-do-gays-really-care-about-roy-hibberts-no-homo-comment/. I say fine Paula $150K and call it a day. Jesse Jackson said he'd like to cut Barack Obama's balls off -- what is that worth? $50K. Came across a rap music recently. The word Nigger was used about 400 times. I guess we'd have to fine this fellas $400,000,000,000 dollars.

Cynique for the sake of this argument and my personal beliefs I'm taking the position that good and bad are NOT relative. I agree good and bad may not be intrinsic, built into our nature. Simply observing the behavior of man will tell you that. In fact one could make an argument that being BAD is intrinsic, part of our nature. But that does not matter Even mass murders KNOW killing is wrong. Also I'm not talking about aliens. I'm talking about humans on planet Earth, in THIS space time continuum, the one we are in right now. I believe there are actions that are universally good and bad. I don't mean to suggest there are no gray areas and that everything is black or white. I'm saying, certainly at the extremes, one can, or at least should be able to determine whether an action is good or bad. My guideline for making this determination is if your action hurts someone else or prevents them from exercising their freedom it is bad -- simple. It is not all that complicated. We ALL do things we know is wrong if we were raised properly. The best of us try to improve - constantly, throughout our lives; for some of us that might just mean trying to get through the day without killing someone.

Del when your answer is too obtuse to be understood by an educated person, it does not provoke discussion it is just confusing. Del it is obvious if something does not work, we try to fix it. If it is not within our capability we then get some help. Again this is all obvious. People usually fix things that are broken, not working or otherwise not meeting one's expectations. Improvement implies we are making something that already works better. If something is wrong you don't improve it -- making it better at being wrong you fix the darn thing. The 911 bombers were wrong by killing those people. Improving their technique so that were able to successfully navigate the other plane into the White House and killing more people would be an improvement even more wrong. I glad you believe the 911 bombers were wrong.

Wow, Del you can't answer a simple, rather trivial question. I did not inquire about eveyone else -- just YOU. All the stuff about facts, proof, whatever, are no relevant. I'm not asking you to be God or prove anything. No wonder you can't be reasoned with or understood. You don't have a perspective, a belief system (any choosing not to believe anything is not a choice but the avoidance of choice) Here is my response, "I believe the bombers were wrong because killing thousands of innocent people is evil and not just wrong, but horribly wrong. Similarly the US Government using remote controlled death machines, otherwise known as drones, to kill "enemies" and causing collateral damage (murder of innocent people) is wrong too." Simple. Why, pray tell, would you ask about self improvement if you aren't even clear when something needs improvement?

Terrance McKnight, the WQXR weekday evening host, served as the MC of the 1st Annual African Voices Literary Awards which honored Poet Tony Medina. Here Terrance introduces me. I helped honor Tony by explaining how Tony's work impacted both himself and his visitors. I even recited one of his poems, a very short one which is usual for a Medina Poem I actually don't appear in this video as I'm actually the person shooting it. As good as I'm an I have not mastered filming myself at events At any rate, I'm editing a video of highlights from the event which features Tony Medina, Asha Bandele and others. I'm only posting this introduction here because I liked it so much

OK Del lets try a simpler approach. Let me ask YOU, Del, a simple question: Do YOU the believe the 911 World Trade Center bombers were right? I'm not asking based upon some hypothetical anything is possible alternative universe thinking. I just want to know what Del thinks about this very specific activity.

Hey DT how many books have you actually written? Is you event schedule posted anywhere. I plan to attend some events in the south over the next couple of weeks. If I can connect with one of yours I will.