Troy

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?

Nah'Sun, all sure respect to The Coldest Winter Ever nothing you've described is particularly unique, or revolutionary. Indeed "multi-layered is a characteristic one would expect from any half way decent book. Check out a one conversation we had about the The Coldest Winter Ever back in 2004. Bestselling author Zane, who started that conversation would seem to agree with you Nah'Sun.

From Magazine Fuera de Serie The relevant quote from the article show below; translates as follows (using Google translate). "Never said it ensures that well-known that behind every great man there is a great woman was so successful in describing the Obama marriage. In the shadow of the U.S. President is a person whose popularity ratings exceed those of Barack own. This person is none other than his wife Michelle, who stars in the cover of the magazine this week. Political communication experts are no strangers to the overwhelming charm of the first lady and, knowing this, she even point will be key to the reelection of Democrat in the next presidential election to be held in November. To find out how Michelle has managed to seduce the American people, the journalist Paul Scarpellini detail the secrets of women who not only won the hearts of Barack Obama." I could not find a link to the magazine article itself Most people i shared this magazine cover with thought it was offensive -- no ifs ands or butts. Is this artist expression for a culture with different mores about nudity or is this straight up racist simple and plain. Incredibly many people found it insulting that I would even post the photo. I can probably never overestimate the Obama worship that exists in our community -- and I mean worship of biblical proportions.

Looking forward to seeing the list Milton. I have not watched video yet, but it is queued up on my Apple TV to watch on a regular TV screen one evening after work. Peace, Troy

Thanks Peyton for taking the time for sharing this information and sharing how AALBC.com assisted in effort. Peace, Troy

This is true. You also have to consider the commercial environment. We had authors like E. Lynn Harris, who was a true hustler, but also had first mover advantage. E. was a hustler with little competition. The same was true for Omar Tyree. I used to to call Omar the "hardest working man in publishing". He had boundless energy with an ego to go with it. Again with relatively little competition Omar did very well for himself. Over a decade later I can name a dozen authors who make Omar look like he was sleep walking in the 1990's. Authors like Relentless Aaron (14 book deal from St Martin;s Press) and Wahida Clark (NY Times Bestselling Authors) are a couple of examples. Today, hustling authors, are a dime a dozen -- the self publishing phenomenon has increased the pool of of these types of authors exponentially and the books to go with them -- competition in urban space is very fierce today. Anything above a marginal level of success will require a great deal more effort than E. Lynn or Omar needed to expend. Writing a really good book might help, but even that is not enough... (click images at the end of this post for more information on my thinking). Of course the same is true for sci-fi authors. The problem sci-fi authors have is that they have a smaller audience than Urban authors have, but one advantage is that there, at least in the Black space, is not a lot of competition. (Milton are you familiar with Kiini Ibura Salaam maybe I'll focus on Sci-fi Authors You Should Know after I'm done talking about married authors - can you email me your bio for an author's profile page). I assume Milton knows the demographics well enough to know if a reasonable living can be obtained by a writer in this space... Writegirl, I read The Coldest Winter Ever and do not really understand the love affair with this particular novel other than it's iconic nature. It is generally held up as one of the best written of the Urban fair, but Treasure Blue writes arguably better, as does many others in this space. It is far easier to Publish a book today, but more difficult, on average, to make any money with it.

Writegirl870. Thanks for the kind words. I really wish I had the time to delve deep into the phenomenon that is Facebook. From it's obviously (at least to me) over-hyped stock price, to the social implications for children in schools, to the control and ownership of our personal data -- Facebook is a monster out of control 2nd only to Google. There is some, albeit a very small percentage, of good stuff happening on Facebook, But like the rest of the internet the good stuff is crowded out by the garbage. There is not such thing as balance. I still log into Facebook a few time a day to share content posted on AALBC.com. But for the most part I don't use it very much for personal reasons beyond the posting of a few photos. While I have 5,300 friends most of my actual friends don;t use Facebook.

Whatever the media tells us to care about is what we focus on. We are easily manipulated lemmings.

Well Nah'Sun the oft quoted cliche; "We live in a white man's world" applies. If a Black person reads a James Patterson novel that is really not an example of "crossing over", no more than a Black person reading a Dan Brown novel. Black folks are just reading a novel written by and for the dominant culture which we are firmly entrenched. In much the same way a Black person is taught western white culture, religion, history, literature, music, heroes in order to graduate from school -- this is not crossing over this is just being "American". However Black people who want to learn anything meaningful about Africa, will need to do that on their own -- white folks don't need to know anything about Africa -- other than that is were their slaves came from. White folks don't have to cross over. The only time they do is when money can be made. But then we call that co-opting. It is really difficult for a Black author to write a book with Black characters and garner a large non-white readership. Foreign born Black writers seem to have better luck nowadays. The days of "cross over successes" like Morrison, Terry McMillan, Walter Mosley are waning. It would be nice to access to actual data...

Yeah I know K'wan is an example of "street lt" author who writes Sci-fi. I guess the problem, in 2012, is that the primary focus is to generate money and that leads to a lack of diversity in what is published. There are many reasons for this, but at the end of the day readers have a lot less to get excited about. And what they do get excited about is quite mediocre (50 Shades of Grey, etc).

Nah'Sun, here is my personal Harlem Book Fair anecdote: In the late 90's people would come by my table and see titles from John A. Williams get excited and buy a book. The last year I exhibited people would come by see titles from John A. Williams and not recognize the name at all, nor care to check him out after I explained who he was. I doubt you could give away a John A. Williams book today... The demographics of the attendees has changed over the years. I believe this is cultural, the popularity of Urban Lit is a reflection of this not the cause. Milton, you are obviously mission driven. You do not write books solely for fame and large amounts of money. You of course recognize that you are the exception not the rule. While I believe in my people too, I'm clearly more pessimistic than you are But it is not in my nature to give up so I keep going. Tina is extraordinary too. We need more people like you, Tina, Nah'Sun, etc....

I don't know Nah'Sun, folks never seem to get tired of the redundant beats, and the rehashed gangsta lyrics we now call hip hop. While we may tire of this stuff there is always a new crop of youngsters ready to consumer the music. It seems more and more folks never grow out of the music, made of children: sorta like grownups gettin' down to the theme from Barney and Friends. The same goes for books. The urban/street, erotica, celebrity stuff will dominate and the rest will struggle -- but again that is better than nothing (I think). And yeah, you are right it is choosing between the lessor of two evils. But that is the real world. You have to make a choices between the lessor of two evils because those are usually the only choices available. You compromise, and make concessions through all the time. I wish all my choices were just between good and bad things -- life would be of so simple. I think our biggest problem is our inability to distinguish between good and bad options; hence the f'ed up choices we make and our current situation...

http://aalbc.it/cherylwade Continuing my focus on highlighting the literary output of married couples today's couple for my "Authors Your Should Know" spotlight are Wade and Cheryl Hudson, founder of Just Us Books. If this type of material is of interest or important to you please consider sharing with friends and associates. From my perspective successes like these deserve more attention. Of course few platforms expend the resources to share stories about married couples because it generates very little interest -- unless the marriage has gone horribly wrong. The trend is getting worse -- lets try to reverse it.

Cynique, I completely feel you! All in, it will take about 1/2 a million dollars to provide a college education for my kids, that was in line with the education that I obtained 30 years ago. That does not include paying for private school since they were in nursery school. This to me is crazy!!? By the way, did I say that I don't have $0.5 million? Sure I could opt out of sending them to college, send attend a local community college, or make them play but lets be serious. For a country like the US a university education should be an entitlement along with health care. Today a world class education is ONLY for the rich. If you don't have some serious paper -- you better be a genius to get in and graduate from a decent 4 year school. Of course opportunities for a decent education vary from state to state - but the point is valid in general If we spent a few dollars making American smarter that would actually help the space program... I think one of the disadvantages of getting older is that you can see more easily how things will play out -- because you have the benefit of experience -- which only comes with age. Unfortunately it appears youth is what is valued rather than experience. Everything on network TV and increasing the Internet seem to reflect this preoccupation with catering to 12 years olds or people with 12 year old mentalities. I stopped engaging people on Facebook, they way I might here, folks. People really don't listen there and egos are SO much more fragile on Facebook. Facebook really is the poster child for the dumbing down of our culture. On a sadder note: Neil Armstrong, first man on the moon, died today at 82. RIP