Troy

Why does Hickson ignore one of the most basic rules of netiquette: do not type in all caps. There are many reason one should avoid this; It is simply harder to read It is perceived as SCREAMING It actually trigger many email spam filters It just turns some people off The question remains: Is typing in all caps effective? I'm sure Hickson can tell if it is, but given that he has been doing the entire time he has been posting I suspect it is effective. The real question then is why it is effective? It is like asking why is Kola Boof effective, despite her unorthodox methods? I have my theories, but hopefully we will hear from Hickson himself. One clue we can all observe are his post's views counts. They are typically relatively high but i think that has to do with his use of social media. Boitumelo types in all caps too. In fact, if was because of that reason -- I simply never read any of his (I still think he) posts. One day, I think it was Carey who pointed out the poetry in one of Boitumelo's all cap posts. I said to myself,"well I'll be damned!" I prejudged the fellow simply because his caps lock key is permanently locked. I was guilty of prejudice. Summarily dismissing his contributions simply because they were written in all caps and did not conform to a standard that I'd been taught. Now I still would prefer if Hickson and Biotumelo would type in "proper" case. But that is up to them -- either way I'll read their posts. At least Biotumeo's. Hickson I honestly do not read all of your posts when they are long. The all caps really does make the text more difficult to read -- at least for me. Maybe with your younger demographic this is not an issue. I trust you magazine is not in all caps

Cynique, it looks like you understand the point I was trying to may regarding aliens and blacks writing on Slavery. Indeed you expressed mu sentiments better (not uncommon). The "All Caps" Hickson

GoDaddy was the target of protests after it was discovered that the company supported unpopular bills the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA): http://www.cbsnews.c...responsibility/ From Wikipedia GoDaddy is an Internet domain registrar and Web hosting company that also sells e-business related software and services. In 2010, it reached more than 45 million domain names under management. Go Daddy is currently the largest ICANN-accredited registrar in the world, and is four times the size of its closest competitor.

Some cat on twitter named "AnonymousOwn3r" Security leader of #Anonymous has claimed responsibility for bringing down GoDaddy and a large portion of the websites on the WWW. Apparently the feeling is that GoDaddy is a bad corporate entirely and is being punished. GoDaddy seemed like a good company to me. One of the few large corporations that provide local 24x7 phone support and reasonably priced services which support small businesses. The rationale for attacking Go Daddy is not clear to me yet. I'm losing money and potential business as a result. My websites http://edit1st.com http;//domainsforauthors.com and http://huria.org are all down -- these site provide services and features to other sites so even AALBC.com is impacted as well. For example, my bookstore database is down http://aalbc.com/writers/bookstores.html because the database lives on a Go Daddy server. Countless other business larger and small are effected by this outage this is a MAJOR outage -- perhaps one of the worse outages I've witness in all my time online. The collateral damage inflicted on on perhaps millions of websites and thousands and thousands of small business does not seem to be worth the attack against GoDaddy.. I could easily come up with some more logical targets -- companies that do far more damage, and if their websites went away forever the WWW would actually be much better off. Maybe there is some hope after all...

writegirl870, you understand.

Am I the only one who thinks the coverage of the presidential campaign is indistinguishable from a reality TV program? Use of purportedly real people - √ Situations or environment manipulated - √ Interactions designed to appear unscripted - √ Participants in direct competition - √ Live footage edited to "enhance" story - √ Goal is to provide entertainment - √√ That said, I'm not sure we the public would have it any other way.

Milton, these quotes illustrates why I don't follow your argument, There is no Black person alive that was enslaved. There is probably no one alive that knew anyone that was enslaved. While the impact of slavery effects us today in incalculable ways. No one really knows what it was like to have actually been enslaved in the American south -- therefore writers are forced to write outside their experience -- and this is fine. If you agree with this then you'd have to agree that both Black and white people are at the same disadvantage trying to develop a "real" character. Of course both Black and white writers can read about the experiences of enslaved Black people. If the writers are equally skilled, I submit they would be equally able to write a good character. In fact many Black writers are culturally indistinguishable from your average white American (they grew up in a mostly white communities, went to mostly white schools, etc). In fact, one could argue that since black folks are more likely to be emotionally charged about slavery they would be more biased, less objective and create characters that are less historically accurate. What a black writer is perhaps better able to do is develop a character that resonates more with Back readers, because of a greater likelihood of that author and the Black reader have similar backgrounds and shared experiences. This does not mean that the enslaved character is more "real". I'll agree Black folks have an advantage when writing racism in the 21st century -- living something is completely different than reading about it.

One argument I get against bookstores relevancy is the record store analogy. That is book are to Albums and eBook are to music files. The analogy is flawed in my opinion because you actually read the physical book; you handle it, you write in it, you turn pages, display them, look at pretty picture tear pages out, etc. LP's and iTune files are listened to. As a result, when a technology make the process of listening easier and better the change from wind up Victrola to iPds is welcomed and the stores are not missed by anyone but the hardcore album -- any for those folks a few stores stay open.

Writegirl you may have found the quote of Kola's you shared funny but I agree with it. Indeed, it is much of the reason there is a rift between self -published authors and those "validated" by the academy or urban authors and literary authors. But Kola can say some very funny stuff, especially when she is tearing into someone defending herself. Just run this google query for 1,000's of examples. Cynique, I would never try to reign you in any more that I would Kola Boof, or even Thumper for that matter. Thumper broke every freaking rule of book review writing (except being honest), but I published his reviews and he made a real name for himself -- because he was brutally honest. I took as much heat for the stuff that Thumper wrote as I have for Kola. The last thing I was is a discussion forum where everybody agrees with everybody else -- that is uninteresting, and you can't learn anything that way. If I wanted that I'd spend all my time on Facebook. Very few have given me grief for anything you have written Cynique. I've never deleted any of your comments, nor Thumpers and less than a handful of Kola's. I'm sorry you did not get along with ABM. Both of you are great contributors. I liked Chris Hayden too. He and I were often at opposite sides of an issue. Which forced me to examine my opinions -- though I suspect at times he gave me grief for the sake of giving me grief, like always assuming I applied my NY City sensibilities to every situation. There are always new people signing up -- but still lurking.... As I always say, this discussion board is useless without contributors thanks everyone for sharing.

Thanks for taking the time to weigh in. I see that you have indeed developed quite a following on facebook and especially twitter (your twitter followed to follower ratio is off the chain!). I don't enjoy those social platforms nearly as much as I enjoyed these boards -- particularly in the heyday. I find social media to be much more narcissistic (by design). Consider even the prospect of discovering a good book to read. On facebook we have a bazillion authors telling us how great their books are. No one is there to challenge critique or honestly discuss any given book. if someone tries it they are unfriended or deleted Here people will give their honest opinions. In fact, this is what Thumper was known for and the reason he was so popular. Even in your case Kola no matter what people said about you folks KNEW you could write. That was not based what you said about your work, but based upon people seeing how you expressed yourself here and the feedback posters who read your work. But you have to acknowledge your relationship with Thumper was unnecessarily acrimonious. I believe in letting people express themselves freely, but I often wonder if I should have actively moderated the conflict between the two of you. In reality i did not have the time -- even if I wanted I probably would have still decided to let you work it out yourselves. Kola you also have to understand that most people do not believe everything you say. For example, when you drop a bomb shell like unknowingly sleeping with Zane's husband, most people would be shocked into outrage or disbelief. You get that right? Most people keep their sex lives to themselves -- especially when it might impact others adversely. I think we all miss ABM, at least I do. His interactions with the rest of you all were priceless. "We should have a Motown of publishing" that is SO on point! This failure irks me to no end. I think it is possible.

Here is a comment that an old frequent posted provided: "Troy, I think you make some good points in your post...Facebook has been a game-changer, and I believe that Thumper's Corner is not the only discussion forum that has been affected by its presence. I think too that the presence of some overpowering commentators on the board may have driven more people off than you may know."

Interesting to see a rap video glorifying white self-hatred. Maybe now Black folks will see how dumb we look doing it. All this video needs are the obligatory rump shakin' hoochie mamas to objectify women.

Cynique your feedback is always interesting providing a new ways to look at something. Sounds like you and hubby had a great relationship I thought about the the issue of the posts being perceived a smug or bragging, but figured that would not be a problem since it is not the authors themselves showing off but me, a 3rd party. I hope to get to the Blog post this weekend and an eNewsletter next week then I'm gonna take it easy for a few...

Recently I've been highlighting married couple who have written books and maintained successful marriages. Doing one is difficult. Doing both is rare and I think really noteworthy. Apparently that idea puts me in the minority. With the exception of the Obama's, so much time an energy is spent focusing on the negative aspects of marriage: The astonishingly high divorce rates, the out of wed lock babies the disintegration of the Black family, the Will and Jada Smiths of the world, etc I figured I'd invest a little energy to buck the trend and highlight the positive. I've used Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter to highlight couple ranging from Mr. & Mrs. Jaquavis and Ashley Coleman to Mr. & Mrs Richard and Valerie Wilson Wesley. So far the reaction has been a deafening silence. I've had accidental Facebook posts generate more interest and reaction. While I knew better than to expect the reaction I got from something more negative like bookstore closings or scandalous like a -- but the absence of reaction to my married couple profiles is almost alarming. I still plan to write a blog post about married literary couple, mention it in my next enewsletter, a post a link on my home page and get the full force of AALBC.com behind the highlighting of married couples; which will give me a better indication of the reaction of a wider audience. But initial reaction is so muted. I decided to cut the initiative short. I spoke to a couple of people about the muted reaction and the general consensus is that most people are not married and they are not interested in hearing about others who are. I have to admit that thought occurred to me as well. At any rate, in a couple of weeks after my eNewsletter goes out I'll have a better indication. What do you all think?

Nevermind, I learned a little more about The Frugal Bookstore When I get a minute I'm gonna ad images video and other features to the website database. I'm now thinking maybe I should have just have used WordPress CMS instead of designing my own for this purpose.

Nah'Sun is Frugal Books in Roxbury Boston Black owned? It took me a minute to find their website. I'll add them to my database. Google is really a mess nowadays. They show yelp, Google own site (Google Plus), facebook.com,, yellow pages.com ALL of the site pulling content sources from Frugal Books. I could only find the Frugal Books site by going to Yelp to discover their URL!!! As you've experienced Nah'Sun It is not uncommon for an independent bookstore not to promote a signing. If they print a physical flyer and do an eblast; that is pretty much the most you can expect. It is a resources issue. Money time and energy is spend on celebrity authors, as the have the most promise of generating a return on the investment. It really is up to the author to do their own promotion for a book signing -- anything extra the bookstore does is gravy. But I agree if a bookstore is gonna host an author they should help promote the fact at least minimally. As you and "ALL CAPS" Hickson can attest you don't need a bookstore to sell a bunch of books. Further if you relied solely on bookstores to do your selling -- you'd be in a world of trouble - in terms of sales. But this is not to suggest that the physical stores (or websites for that matter) are irrelevant at least from the reader's perspective.

Hickson I'll try to check you out in city other than New York. Writegril, I'm not surprised I think it really is an age thing with The Coldest Winter Ever -- and that is cool. In fact I think the NYC city board of education classifies it as young adult -- it was not intended for a 40-something audience. I read the book because of it's iconic nature -- required reading. Please share your thoughts on Walter Mosley's Socrates Fortlow when you are done. When I get a few minutes I'm going to re-read Jean Toomer's Novel Cane I discovered that gook here. In fact it was Thumper's choice of the 1st book on our book club's reading list over 14 years ago Cynique, yep those were the days :-) I still believe/hope they can be revived. Speaking of Iconoclast ever since Christopher Hitchens died last year I've been checking him out on Youtube -- I think you might find him interesting.

Hey Milton I watched most of the video a couple of nights ago. It was good to hear you and the others interact. I do think non-black people can write Black stories with Black characters -- even stories about slavery, etc. All good authors write outside their personal experience. Sure it is hard and requires research, but if this was not the case all novels would be contemporary, based upon the personal experiences of the writer. Writing from this perspective is limiting and ultimately boring. If fact, writing outside one's experience is just the thing that makes sci-fi so fascinating -- you can create characters that are not even real and run with it doing that well takes imagination. A sci-fi writer will need to put themselves into the shoes of an alien life-form -- even if they were never an alien. Right?

raised an issue about the reduction in participation on the AALBC.com discussion boards in recent years, suggesting that Facebook and social media was the cause. I have not taken the time to quantify the reduction, but anyone who has been observing our boards in recent years knows participation is lower. The life of a discussion board is a direct function of the level and quality of the conversation so this is an issue that I care about and since AALBC.com is a one man operation I typically have not had enough time to really delve in the causes and take more aggressive action reverse the trend. Over the last 15 years I've collected data on how the site is used as well as anecdotal information from people I've talked to over the years. If I had the time I would create a survey and collection information on user experience in a more meaningful way, host some focus groups, etc. Until that time comes please feel free to share you thoughts. In the meantime here is what I know: Participation dropped significantly after the discussion board software was updated in January of 2010. For technical reason I had to migrate to more robust software. The old board was prone to crashing and getting rid was spam was very time consuming. This board gets spammed too but it is easier to prevent and get rid of (spammers are very persistent and clever). Many users simply did not migrate over to the new platform. Maybe the learning curve was too high. Google Search adversely impacted web traffic This is a major issue not only effecting these discussion boards but independent websites in general. In the old days a query on an author's name would turn up an AALBC.com page on the 1st page. Today I'm doing good if I'm on the second page. Google will now return 10 Amazon pages for an author before retuning an AALBC.com page. Increasingly, Google is even displaying their own content -- eliminating the need for visitors to even visit the underlying websites. Google will also return all the social media sites before independent websites. When I Google my own name Troy Johnson (see my results in the image below) my Facebook page (#2), LinkedIn Profile (#3) and my Twitter pages (#9) are returned. To many this might seem like great results, especially when you condsider how common the name "Troy Johnson" is. But in reality, this is terrible. My own pages which objectively has more complete and better content appears on the 3 page?! this is alarming when you consider that I rarely use Linkedin, 1/2 my twitter updates are dynamically generated, and I dilberately share very little on facebook -- again there is an active and deliberate bias is against smaller sites -- my only saving grace is that I've been around for 15 years and I have a ton of content. But when larger coporate entities are aligned against you -- it is not a fight one can win alone. Thumper (of Thumper's Corner Fame) has stopped posting Thumper's really loves books and was not afraid to express his opinion in a very humorous but non-traditional - no holds barred fashion. It was not schtick, it was his real personality. As a result, Thumper's opinion about books was widely read and respected by readers and industry folks alike. Thumper has not posted here in the better part of two years. In fact I have not heard from him myself in during the same period -- despite reaching out to him. Don't ask me why. Kola Boof Love her, or hate her, Kola Boof has had both a positive and negative impact on these discussion boards. Lurkers (people who read but don't post) often enjoyed her antics, extreme, often outlandish perspectives. On one hand she could be very supportive of AALBC.com then do something so bizarre I would think she was crazy. At the end of the day many posters could not tolerate took her strong, often hostile comebacks. Cynique could take Kola without getting her feeling hurt and this made for some interesting dialog. However many, most notably Thumper, could not. In fact I created a separate discussion board for Kola to give her free reign to be herself. I can't help but think that my unwillingness to shut Kola down is the reason Thumper is not here. I know for a fact Kola has chased off and alienated other posters (I've been told this). Today Kola rarely posts... go figure. Social Media - Facebook in particular I highlight Facebook because the other social media sites Myspace, linkedin, twitter, none of the others are comparable in features and functions to a discussion baord. Facebook however has does have the ability to host conversations between people but there are a few fundamental differences that make it more appealing than a traditional discussion board to most; (1) Facebook only has a "Like" button for the most part people can easily post anything and all others can do is like it. This creates the illusion that people agree with you and really care about what you have to say (this is very intoxicating). Here people will disagree and challenge your opinions and ideas. Most people are not really up for debates or arguments (many people have fragile egos) so Facebook is more appealing on that level. (2) Facebook is echo chamber. Like the "Like" button people ideas are artificially reenforced on every level from the advertisements you see to your newsfeed -- everything you see is tailored to suit what facebook "thinks" you want to see. Again, nothing you will likely disagree with -- I hate that. I have asked some posters who used to be active on here and have engaged me on Facebook to come back and post here again, but they usually don't. I could go on all day about Facebook but I will end with the fact that Facebook has the active support of other big business and people freely give Facebook free content and personal data. This is a powerful combination. An AALBC.com can not compete against this or ignore it -- all I can do is post my content and hope enough people are moved to share it with other and visit the site as a result. I've been running this discussion board almost 15 years and building website for almost 20. It feels like I've lived several online lifetimes :-) SO MUCH has changed in 20 years. When I first started people were using telephone lines and 300 baud modems to access the internet and AOL was the Facebook of the day. What hurt AOL was that they could not be the entire internet (all things to all people). The growth of other websites large and small is what killed AOL as we knew it knew it back then. Today it is fascinating to see Facebook going down a similar path. Facebook too will meet a similiar fate as AOL and MySpace, it is inevitable. Unfortunately, they will drag down many independent websites before they crash and burn. My job is to not be one of them. Any help and assistance is great appreciated -- needed. If you find a conversation here use the social media icons or just email your friends. Thank you active posters posters for sharing your ideas and thoughts! Thanks you too lurkers -- maybe some of the insight I shared here will encourage you to share your thoughts. Peace, Troy ------------ Results of a query of my name Troy Johnson (your results will vary)

I'm going to spawn It runs much deep er than just competition from social media.

Yeah Writergirl it used to be jumping up in here, but those were the old days. Days that I'm afraid may be gone forever. I'm glad the archives persist 'cause I actually stumble across them on Google searches it is interesting what I discover or re-discover. Re-reading that old conversation -- even though I did not participate in it brought back some memories -- indeed it may have been a reason I decided to read the Coldest Winter Ever myself. Nah'Sun, I'm glad you stopped lurking -- what made you come out of the shadows? Was it my invitation from Facebook? Lurkers always out number contributors by a substantial margin. Thanks for helping to keep the conversation active!

Nah'Sun that actually is an important distinction that I failed to make. The question was intended to be from the readers' perspective. But how in heaven's name can a bookstore be bad for authors? Now I can image in any given case a particular book store may not work for a particular author. But surely, in the general case, bookstores are great for authors. In the general case, you'd have to agree right? If not, what is the alternative; online sales, authors slingin' their own books, what?

Yep, to each their own Nah'Sun. This is the only reason talking about books and ideas is even interesting -- people are different. If you have not already done so I'd encourage you to read some of our old conversations, if may get to to think differently about this issue. Interestingly Writegirl I can't ever imagine wanting to go back an re-read Coldest Winter. Maybe as Cynique suggested it is a age thing. I was in my 40's when I 1st read this novel and t was not the first urban novel that I read (I think that might be Gansta by K'wan). It will be intering to read what you think of the book in middle age.

Just one question: Cast your vote now. I plan to post a public debate about the subject between Ron Kavanaugh (of Mosicbooks.com) and myself. We have been batting this issue around for years.

I had less than zero interest in both the conventions. So I have not idea what Michelle wore nor do I care. The idea of listening to all these folks telling lies for hours is completely unappealing. But I listen to the radio so I could not avoid hearing about the event. Listening to the talking heads talk about what a great job Bill did for Obama struck me as odd since my biggest recollection of Bill presidency was how he managed to ejaculate all over Lewinski's clothing, then there was Travelgate, impeachment, saxophone playing and being the 1st Black president. Can you image what they would do to Obama if he came in some intern's mouth in the oval office. Well the Michelle Obama photo is certainly political. As far as art, I feel it qualifies as art. Whether the art is "good" is another question. If it was painted rather than photoshopped ( and I'm assuming it was photoshopped), would it meet your definition of art?