Troy

No Chris this is actually VERY important, if not for Cynique's sake for other authors. You are right, Lulu's books are not available through Ingram, nor do they offer direct shipping to the customer. Ultimately I will be selling books directly myself, but I'm not about to package a book and hike to the post office every time someone orders a book (the way I used to). Ingram will send any order I generate directly to the customer. Lulu requires bulk orders. This fact limits the number of places that will carry Lulu's titles. I did not know this myself until today. Amazon will carry Lulu Books (I understand), which helps a great deal, sInce Black folks buy books from Amazon more than any other place else. It just that indie brick and mortar and online booksellers, who might be inclined to carry the books will find it very difficult to do so. But here is the really kicker: I'm more than happy to carry Cyniques book and even list it on the homepage, but Lulu doesn't even offer an affiliate program for Christ's sake! This is really bad. So not only can I not sell the book unless I order it in bulk, I can't even earn a penny through the referrals! Once the book is available through Amazon, I'll begin to spread the word more actively.

This was just very interesting I will excerpt this in the next newsletter. By the way, is your book in Ingram's database?

This apparent statement from Cosby's wife has been floating around the internet. The copy was pulled form CBSNews twitter feed. So I presume it has been vetted. After a quick search I could not find a text version of this letter. I agree, and hate the fact, that as soon as an accusation is made it goes viral. It is one thing if this happens, on its own, in social media, but it is something completely different when the so called "reporters" in the "news" media fans the flames and even initiates these allegations gone viral. Again it is all about money and people lap it up so... I disagree, that we can know people we see, in the media. We can assume that Bill is anything like the character Dr. Huxtable. It is like assuming we can actually get to know someone based upon what they put on Facebook. Shoot, it is hard enough to truly know your friends, let alone a celebrity you've never met. I met Bill once. I introduced myself to him at an event. He seemed nice enough, but I would never presume that I know him. It appears, we will never know what happened. I still believe Bill must have been up to something funky, but again after being subjected to so much of negativity how could one believe otherwise? This letter does not prove anything. Has anyone heard from Lisa Bonet on this issue?

Hey Cynique I updated your AALBC.com webpage: http://aalbc.it/cynique

I listed to this video a couple of times over the years since it first noticed it on Youtube. I used to attend Wyatt Tee. Walker's church growing up. He baptized me in the early 1970's. I will watch this again and comment later. If you have not already watched follow up conversation 30 years after this one you posted:

Forcing change, by definition, is not respectable. You will never change anything by being respectable. It was once not considered respectable (and against the law) to teach Black people to read. People had to engage is behavior that was considered not respectable, and literally fight for the right to to be treated equality.

Hey Waterstar we missed you, or at least I did :-)

We are currently in the sign of Ophiuchus. Or rather the sun's is is passing through the constellation Ophiuchus right now. I always, and incorrectly believed that the 12 astrological signs actually mapped directly the 12 constellation to which we associate them. It seems that the Earth's path has changed over the centuries since Astrology was invented. If would seem that Astrology should change as well.

Cynique, clearly, Bill's behavior was not about sex, it was more about power and his perverse predilections. If Dyson came out against Johnson, Dyson is a fool. We can begin to see why Bill's crimes went unreported for so long, with reactions like Johnson. This is sick, just sick. Bill has done so much for Black people, financially. This is such a shame. If would be foolish to return any money BIll has given to institutions, like Spelman. But Black folks have lost a benefactor and a role model. The type of person we can sorely afford to lose.

Harry, I hear you man, and truth be told I agree with you. At the end of the day very few entities are celebrating the literary accomplishments of Black folks, and those that do get very little support. So since the NAACP is behind the biggest Black book event in the country I will support them even if they fall short of perfection in my eyes. I'd rather the literary awards exist than dry up like so many other platform that support our books. In fact, with our support perhaps the NAACP will improve, and be free of dependency on funding from overt racists.

OK Del, I know longer doubt that Bill Cosby drugged and raped women. Here model Beverly Johnson tells her story in Vanity Fair: [Editor’s Note: Cosby’s attorneys did not respond to Vanity Fair’s requests for comment.] My head became woozy, my speech became slurred, and the room began to spin nonstop. Cosby motioned for me to come over to him as though we were really about to act out the scene. He put his hands around my waist, and I managed to put my hand on his shoulder in order to steady myself. As I felt my body go completely limp, my brain switched into automatic-survival mode. That meant making sure Cosby understood that I knew exactly what was happening at that very moment. “You are a motherfucker aren’t you?” That’s the exact question I yelled at him as he stood there holding me, expecting me to bend to his will. I rapidly called him several more “motherfuckers.”

Harry that was an excellent book suggestion! There are always gems in your posts. I was not familiar with this one but it looks good. Carol of the Brown King: Nativity Poems by Langston Hughes, illustrated by Ashley Bryan (Atheneum Books for Young Readers, October 1, 1998)

There was a time I complained about the NAACP image awards; not about the award itself, but the nominees. It seemed to be a popularity contest, which I thought marginalized the better books available, that needed more attention. I thought the NAACP with their platform could do a better job of pulling together a list. Here is a typical conversations from almost a decade ago. But I was griping during a time when there was a LOT more attention paid to Black books. I also have a much better understanding on why the popularity aspect of this show is important--it draws more people. In 2014, the NAACP Image Awards is our, National Book Awards, Pulitzer and Nobel all rolled into one. Their Literary Awards are far-and-away the best thing we have going and I applaud their efforts without reservation or conditions. Also Gwen Richardson author of 101 Scholarship Applications: What It Takes to Obtain a Debt-Free College Education, is my partner on compiling the Power List Best-selling Books -- Congrats Gwen! Here are the winners from previous years (I'm not sure when the literary awards started) The 45th NAACP Image Awards - Awards Presented 2014 The 44th NAACP Image Awards - Awards Presented 2013 The 43rd NAACP Image Awards - Awards Presented 2012 The 41st NAACP Image Awards - Awards Presented 2010 The 38th NAACP Image Awards - Awards Presented 2007 The 37th NAACP Image Awards - Awards Presented 2006 The 36th NAACP Image Awards - Awards Presented 2005

46th NAACP Image Awards will be presented February 6, 2015 The Literature winner were announced Thursday, February 5, 2015, and are highlighted below. Location: Pasadena Civic Auditorium 300 E. Green Street Pasadena, CA 91101 Date: LIVE! Friday, February 6, 2014 on TV One Red Carpet – 8/7c, Image Awards 9/8c Outstanding Literary Work – Fiction A Wanted Woman – Eric Jerome Dickey (Penguin Random House) An Untamed State – Roxane Gay (Grove/Atlantic – Black Cat) Another Woman’s Man – Shelly Ellis (Kensington Publishing Corp.) Momma: Gone – Nina Foxx (Brown Girls Publishing) The Prodigal Son – Kimberla Lawson Roby (Grand Central Publishing/Hachette Book Group) Outstanding Literary Work – Non-Fiction Bad Feminist – Roxane Gay (Harper Perennial/HarperCollins) Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption – Bryan Stevenson (Spiegel & Grau) Place not Race: A New Vision of Opportunity in America – Sheryll Cashin (Beacon Press) The Bill of the Century: The Epic Battle for the Civil Rights Act – Clay Risen (Bloomsbury Press) Who We Be: The Colorization of America – Jeff Chang (St. Martin’s Press) Outstanding Literary Work – Debut Author Forty Acres – Dwayne Alexander Smith (Atria Books) Queen Sugar – Natalie Baszile (Pamela Dorman Books/Penguin Random House) Remedy For A Broken Angel – Toni Ann Johnson (Nortia Press) The 16th Minute of Fame: An Insider’s Guide for Maintaining Success Beyond 15 Minutes of Fame – Darrell Miller (Dunham Books) Time of the Locust – Morowa Yejide (Atria Books) Outstanding Literary Work – Biography/ Auto Biography Breaking Ground: My Life in Medicine – Louis Sullivan with David Chanoff (University of Georgia Press) Handbook for an Unpredictable Life: How I Survived Sister Renata and My Crazy Mother, and Still Came Out Smiling (with Great Hair) – Rosie Perez (Crown Archetype) Life In Motion – Misty Copeland (Touchstone) Mayor for Life – Marion Barry, Omar Tyree (Strebor Books) Stand Up Straight and Sing! – Jessye Norman (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) Outstanding Literary Work – Instructional 101 Scholarship Applications: What It Takes to Obtain a Debt-Free College Education – Gwen Richardson (Cushcity Communications) 10-Day Green Smoothie Cleanse – J.J. Smith (Atria Books/Simon & Schuster) Afro-Vegan: Farm-Fresh African, Caribbean, and Southern Flavors Remixed – Bryant Terry (Ten Speed Press) Justice While Black: Helping African-American Families Navigate and Survive the Criminal Justice System – Robbin Shipp, Nick Chiles (Agate Bolden) Promises Kept: Raising Black Boys to Succeed in School and in Life – Joe Brewster, Michele Stephenson, Hilary Beard (Spiegel & Grau) Outstanding Literary Work – Poetry Citizen: An American Lyric – Claudia Rankine (Graywolf Press) Digest – Gregory Pardlo (Four Way Books) The New Testament – Jericho Brown (Copper Canyon Press) The Poetry of Derek Walcott 1948-2013? – Derek Walcott, Selected by Glyn Maxwell (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) We Didn’t Know Any Gangsters – Brian Gilmore (Cherry Castle Publishing, LLC) Outstanding Literary Work – Children Beautiful Moon – Tonya Bolden (Author), Eric Velasquez (Illustrator) (Abrams/Abrams Books for Young Readers) Little Melba and Her Big Trombone – Katheryn Russell-Brown (Author), Frank Morrison (Illustrator) (Lee & Low Books) Malcolm Little – Ilyasah Shabazz (Author), AG Ford (Illustrator) (Simon & Schuster) Searching for Sarah Rector – Tonya Bolden (Abrams/Abrams Books for Young Readers) Dork Diaries 8: Tales From A Note-So-Happily Ever After – Rachel Renee Russell with Nikki Russell and Erin Russell (Simon & Schuster) Outstanding Literary Work – Youth/Teens Because They Marched: The People’s Campaign for Voting Rights That Changed America – Russell Freedman (Holiday House) Brown Girl Dreaming – Jacqueline Woodson (Nancy Paulsen Books) Revolution – Deborah Wiles (Scholastic Press) The Freedom Summer Murders – Don Mitchell (Scholastic Press) The Red Pencil – Andrea Davis Pinkney (Author), Shane Evans (Illustrator) (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)

The 7 Previous Winners of the Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence may be found here. This award honors Louisiana’s revered storyteller, Ernest J. Gaines, and serves to inspire and recognize rising African-American fiction writers of excellence at a national level. The book award, initiated by donors of the Baton Rouge Area Foundation has become nationally recognized in its role of enhancing visibility of emerging black fiction writers while also expanding the audience for this literature. The annual award of a $10,000 cash prize is to support the writer and help enable her/him to focus on her/his art of writing.

Mitchell S. Jackson Wins 8th Annual Gaines Award Award Honors Literary Legend Ernest Gaines BATON ROUGE, La. - The Baton Rouge Area Foundation has named Mitchell S. Jackson winner of the 2014 Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence for his novel "The Residue Years." The Ernest Gaines Award ceremony will be held January 22, 2015 at 6:30 PM at the Manship Theatre in downtown Baton Rouge. Doors open at 6:00 PM. The ceremony is free and open to the public but a reservation is required. Now in its eighth year, the Gaines Award is a nationally acclaimed, $10,000 annual prize created by foundation donors to honor outstanding work from rising African-American fictionwriters while honoring Louisiana native Ernest Gaines' extraordinary contribution to the literary world. "The Residue Years," published in 2013 by Bloomsbury Books, is a semi-autobiographical novel based on Jackson's experience growing up in Portland, Ore., in a neighborhood ravaged by violence and drug use. It follows a mother and former addict trying to steer her three sons away from drugs. "The Residue Years" received critical acclaim from The New York Times, The Times of London, Sydney Morning Herald and O, the Oprah Magazine, and was a finalist for the Center For Fiction's Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Prize, the PEN/Hemingway Award for debut fiction and the Hurston-Wright Legacy Award for best fiction by a writer of African descent. Jackson's novel was also considered for the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing, the Chautauqua Prize, and was named a fiction honor book by the Black Caucus of the American Library Association. Mitchell S. Jackson earned a master's degree in writing from Portland State University and a master's in creative writing from New York University, where he now teaches. He also earned fellowships from the Lannan Foundation, the Urban Artists Initiative and The Center For Fiction. His previous honors include the Hurston Wright Foundation award for college writers. In 2012, he published the e-book "Oversoul: Stories and Essays." Due to the high number of exceptional entries, several books were short listed for the Gaines Award by the judges. They are: "Celestial Blue Skies" by Maggie Collins"Red Now and Laters" by Marcus J. Guillory"The Secret of Magic" by Deborah Johnson"Long Division" by Kiese LaymonPrevious 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." The national panel of judges for the 2014 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. Ernest Gaines is a native of Pointe Coupee Parish, La. and became a literary legend and influential American author. He is a 2013 recipient of the National Medal of Arts, a recipient of the MacArthur Foundation "genius" grant, a recipient of the National Humanities Medal and a member of the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. 2014 marks the 50th anniversary of publication of his first novel, "Catherine Carmier" and the 40th anniversary of the adaptation of his critically acclaimed novel, "The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman," into a made-for-TV movie in 1974 that won nine Emmy awards. His novel, "A Lesson Before Dying," published in 1993, won the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction. 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. ###

The All-White World of Children's Books by Nancy Larrick from The Saturday Review, September 11, 1965, pp. 63-65 This article reports; "Of the 5,206 children's trade books launched by the sixty-three publishers in the three-year period [1962,1963,1964], only 349 include one or more Negroes--an average of 6.7 percent." Almost 50 years later, in 2013, a study by the Cooperative Children’s Book Center at the University of Wisconsin which looked at 3,200 children’s books published in 2013, just 93 were about black people (that is less than 3%). Only 68 were written by African-Americans a whopping 2%! Sure it would be a mistake to directly compare the percentages from the 1965 article and the 2013 study. However the sobering stories these percentages tell across a 50 year period is the same. In March of 2014, four months before he passed, celebrated author, Walter Dean Myers published an article in The New York Times, "Where Are the People of Color in Children’s Books?" "Thousands of young people have come to me saying that they love my books for some reason or the other, but I strongly suspect that what they have found in my pages is the same thing I found in Sonny’s Blues. They have been struck by the recognition of themselves in the story, a validation of their existence as human beings, an acknowledgment of their value by someone who understands who they are. It is the shock of recognition at its highest level. I’ve reached an age at which I find myself not only examining and weighing my life’s work, but thinking about how I will pass the baton so that those things I find important will continue. In 1969, when I first entered the world of writing children’s literature, the field was nearly empty. Children of color were not represented, nor were children from the lower economic classes. Today, when about 40 percent of public school students nationwide are black and Latino, the disparity of representation is even more egregious. In the middle of the night I ask myself if anyone really cares." I've been asking myself that question since I began selling books over 17 years ago. The answer is, sure there are people who care; there simply are not enough of us, with the resources, to make a difference. Therefore the outcomes we are observing are no different than an environment in which no one cared. As recently as 1985, when then-CCBC Director Ginny Moore Kruse served as a member of the Coretta Scott King Award Committee that year, she was appalled to learn that, of the approximately 2,500 trade books that were published that year for children and teens, only 18 were created by African Americans, and thus eligible for the Coretta Scott King Award. I often wondered why the same names kept popping up as Coretta Scott King Award winners, not I see the pool of book of good book written by Black writers is not very deep. Given the staggering lack of attention paid to the CSK Awards I have to wonder it the American Library Association, who presents the awards, has begun to question the relevancy. As I work on a revamped version of the Power List's website, I too question if it is worth the effort to celebrate Black books. I have gotten a few requests to add a category for Childrens books, and I think it is a good idea. But it is hard enough producing this quarterly list given the lack of widespread support. Perhaps as Myers describes, we have gone far too long without a validation of our existence as human beings, or an acknowledgment of our value, to do anything about this situation. I for one have no idea what to do about it....

Our press release announcing the publication of our latest national best-selling books list, the Power List: http://aalbc.it/plfall2014 I’m interested in getting our newspapers to run this bestsellers list. While this is not the first list of its kind, right now it is the only one. It is also the most serious attempt by anyone to systematically look at, and regularly report on, the book buying habits of African Americans. Corporate newspapers essentially do not cover Black books. There has not been a Black novelist on the NY Times in at least 6 months. In reality, we could do a better job covering our books ourselves. I think this might be a good way for newspapers to begin covering books in a more meaningful way.

I'll add an excerpt of this my my next Newsletter too. If anyone does share this please use this URL http://aalbc.it/blacked-out to link back to this page. This too is reminiscent of your editorial days Cynqiue, what I call "Classic Cynique" :-) It is not just Billboard failing to reflect the existence of Black artists, has anyone noticed that there has not been a single Black novelist on the NY TImes Bestsellers List for at least 6 months? Nope. probably not. I've been promoting the nation's only bestsellers list focused in recognizing the bestselling books written by or about Black people, The Power List, but it has been really hard to gain traction, presumably no one cares least of all other Black people. What kills me the most is what we do get riled about. Recently at the National Book Awards. Daniel Handler, of Lemony Snicket fame, told an inside joke about his friend, a Black woman, named Jacqueline Woodson. Black Twitter went crazy in reaction. The misguided outrage from keyboard activists was swift and relentless in its ignorance. But my coverage of the event was bolstered by this nonsensical outrage. I even wrote about it on this website. The problem is that virtually every media outlet covered the dumb joke, completely ignoring everyone's accomplishments. There were two other Black poets nominated and you'd be hard pressed to find coverage of them--even on Black platform. However Black platforms, covered the watermelon joke as if it was the most important thing that happened. I'm also tired of "diversity" this term has contributed more to our being "Blacked Out" more than anything else. What does "diversity" mean to Black people when one can completely exclude Black people and still be diverse?

Cynique you know, of course, the promulgation of Barkley's comments has more to do with ratings than the media's desire to offer informed, thoughtful commentary from a intelligent Black person. This is a consequence of having no Black owned media that Black people can rely on for reporting. Then again I'm not very confident Black owned media or news source would do anything differently Barkley is famous and is granted a platform and audience when he offers his superficial and inflammatory opinions on controversial subjects. We listen, we get irritated, but the fact is we listen and whoever made the video makes a mint. Corporate Media - 1 Black People - 0

I just posted an interview with Tavis: http://aalbc.it/smiley2014 If I was aware of his Dancing with the Stars appearance I definitely would have asked that question.

This film delves into the radical history of Britain's first black bookshop which was founded by John La Rose and Sarah White in 1966. As well as creating a much needed space for black communities to access and publish their own literature, it helped support important campaigns such as the Caribbean Artists Movement, the Black Parents Movement as well as playing a pivotal role in the historic Black Peoples Day of Action. Decades on, 'New Beacon Books' is still a functioning bookshop but in a world of Amazon and Kindles can it really survive forever?

Chris these are all excellent ideas. Several of the ideas you've mentioned are a couple I've worked pretty hard on. Everyday authors send me links to Amazon without an affiliate code. Below is a typical email I used to send to those authors: I noticed you use not using an Amazon affiliate code in the Amazon link you sent me. Here is a short URL you may use as an alternative to send people to Amazon: [sample URL not shown] Besides being shorter and easier to remember, any sales generated count toward AALBC.com’s bestsellers list. If your book makes the list it will result in a lot of additional, free promotion for you book. The benefit to AALBC.com is that it generates commissions for us without costing you or your customers and additional cent – win-win J This seems like a no-brainer to me, but the majority of authors don't take me up on the offer. Some do, but an alarming number don't. I'm not so much a fan of sending everybody to Amazon, but all authors do it. If you are going to send people to Amazon you have to stop leaving money on the table. You also know I tried to rally support for an advertising network of book sites but it did no go very well. Indeed two of the more popular sites, that were part of the network, Mosaicbooks.com and The Book Look, shut down their websites. Cushcity and their event website The National Black Book Festival are my only remaining partners. The other sites like The Power List, Edit First are sites I run. I hoped to scale this type of relationship, but this is very hard too. We just don't have the platforms. Chris I would be very willing to place my vertical ad code on your website and I appreciate the offer. After 30 days we can review traffic and see how much I can offer you for placement. You can then compare that to what you could get from Google or by selling the space yourself. When I sell ads that also appears on Cushcity's website -- they get paid. The same happens when they sell an advertisement that appears on my website. Also, I don't sell a lot of the vertical, skyscraper of 160x600 ads. The ad below (which is just $79 for 32 days, and appears on most of my content pages) just rolled off yesterday when ads I sell directly roll off I replace them with Google ads to continue to monetize the space.