Troy

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Pose any questions you have for for Alice Walker below. We will be interviewing her this week. I can't guarantee we can ask every question, but we'll try.

Hey Richard post a link to supporting information. I'm active on both and find that hard to believe.

Here are Kam's comments of this years Oscars: 2013 was widely lauded as the “Year of the Black Film,” but you would never know it, judging by the recently-announced list of Oscar nominations. It looks like the Academy settled on 12 Years a Slave as a sort of token black representative, with Steve McQueen (Director), John Ridley (Adapted Screenplay), Chiwetel Ejiofor (Lead Actor) and Lupita Nyong’o (Supporting Actress) landing nominations. Otherwise, the only other black nominee in a major category was Barkhad “I’m the Captain now!” Abdi, the Somalia-born cab driver who made his acting debut as the pirate who took Tom Hanks hostage in Captain Phillips. Perhaps the most noteworthy snub was that of Fruitvale Station which had won coveted awards at both the Sundance and Cannes Festivals. Or maybe it was that of The Butler, which was my favorite film of the year. Upon that picture’s release back in August, colleague Roger Friedman was not alone in unabashedly declaring Oprah Winfrey already a lock to win the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. But, in the end, Oprah wasn’t even nominated, nor was her co-star Forest Whitaker, despite his having delivered a nonpareil performance. The list of overlooked thespians arguably extends to a couple other critically-acclaimed productions featuring black principal cast members, namely, the brilliant biopics 42 and Mandela. What happens to Oscar buzz deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or does it dream of an NAACP Image Award?

Yeah, the The Wolf of Wall Street was only been out 3 weeks before it was nominated for an award. Kam rated The Butler as the #1 Black films for 2013 I thought it paled in comparison to Mandela or even 12 Years. Of course I know these awards are biased and political, but they seem to carry so much weight. Meryl Streep I heard somewhere has relieved 18 best actress nominations--18! Many terrific actors have not had that many leading roles. "Maybe black film makers should concentrate more on telling white stories that will earn them enough money to produce positive black dramas in the future." Now there is an idea, taken directly from Steven McQueen's playbook. I watched his film McQueen's film Hunger, about Bobby Sands who led a hunger strike for the Irish Republican Army, it was really quite good. Clearly the experience has not hurt him. Maybe I should do the same thing...

Here is an alternative list to consider I'm not sure I understand why Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom is being overlooked by critics (did it come out too late in the year). It was the best film I've seen in years and Idris Elba absolutely deserved to be nominated for any award dealing with film. Naomie Harris was great as well, superbly depicting Winnie over the course of her life.

...otherwise our stories would be completely overlooked by the "Academy." Nominees for the 86th Oscars® Actor in a Leading Role Christian Bale in “American Hustle” Bruce Dern in “Nebraska” Leonardo DiCaprio in “The Wolf of Wall Street” Chiwetel Ejiofor in “12 Years a Slave” Matthew McConaughey in “Dallas Buyers Club” Actor in a Supporting Role Barkhad Abdi in “Captain Phillips” Bradley Cooper in “American Hustle” Michael Fassbender in “12 Years a Slave” Jonah Hill in “The Wolf of Wall Street” Jared Leto in “Dallas Buyers Club” Actress in a Leading Role Amy Adams in “American Hustle” Cate Blanchett in “Blue Jasmine” Sandra Bullock in “Gravity” Judi Dench in “Philomena” Meryl Streep in “August: Osage County” Actress in a Supporting Role Sally Hawkins in “Blue Jasmine” Jennifer Lawrence in “American Hustle” Lupita Nyong’o in “12 Years a Slave” Julia Roberts in “August: Osage County” June Squibb in “Nebraska” Animated Feature Film “The Croods” Chris Sanders, Kirk DeMicco and Kristine Belson “Despicable Me 2” Chris Renaud, Pierre Coffin and Chris Meledandri “Ernest & Celestine” Benjamin Renner and Didier Brunner “Frozen” Chris Buck, Jennifer Lee and Peter Del Vecho “The Wind Rises” Hayao Miyazaki and Toshio Suzuki Cinematography “The Grandmaster” Philippe Le Sourd “Gravity” Emmanuel Lubezki “Inside Llewyn Davis” Bruno Delbonnel “Nebraska” Phedon Papamichael “Prisoners” Roger A. Deakins Costume Design “American Hustle” Michael Wilkinson “The Grandmaster” William Chang Suk Ping “The Great Gatsby” Catherine Martin “The Invisible Woman” Michael O’Connor “12 Years a Slave” Patricia Norris Directing “American Hustle” David O. Russell “Gravity” Alfonso Cuarón “Nebraska” Alexander Payne “12 Years a Slave” Steve McQueen “The Wolf of Wall Street” Martin Scorsese Documentary Feature “The Act of Killing”Joshua Oppenheimer and Signe Byrge Sørensen “Cutie and the Boxer” Zachary Heinzerling and Lydia Dean Pilcher “Dirty Wars” Richard Rowley and Jeremy Scahill “The Square” Jehane Noujaim and Karim Amer “20 Feet from Stardom” Nominees to be determined Documentary Short Subject “CaveDigger” Jeffrey Karoff “Facing Fear” Jason Cohen “Karama Has No Walls” Sara Ishaq “The Lady in Number 6: Music Saved My Life” Malcolm Clarke and Nicholas Reed “Prison Terminal: The Last Days of Private Jack Hall” Edgar Barens Film Editing “American Hustle” Jay Cassidy, Crispin Struthers and Alan Baumgarten “Captain Phillips” Christopher Rouse “Dallas Buyers Club” John Mac McMurphy and Martin Pensa “Gravity” Alfonso Cuarón and Mark Sanger “12 Years a Slave” Joe Walker Foreign Language Film “The Broken Circle Breakdown” Belgium “The Great Beauty” Italy “The Hunt” Denmark “The Missing Picture” Cambodia “Omar” Palestine Makeup and Hairstyling “Dallas Buyers Club” Adruitha Lee and Robin Mathews “Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa” Stephen Prouty “The Lone Ranger” Joel Harlow and Gloria Pasqua-Casny Music (Original Score) “The Book Thief” John Williams “Gravity” Steven Price “Her” William Butler and Owen Pallett “Philomena” Alexandre Desplat “Saving Mr. Banks” Thomas Newman Music (Original Song) “Alone Yet Not Alone” from “Alone Yet Not Alone” Music by Bruce Broughton; Lyric by Dennis Spiegel “Happy” from “Despicable Me 2” Music and Lyric by Pharrell Williams “Let It Go” from “Frozen” Music and Lyric by Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez “The Moon Song” from “Her” Music by Karen O; Lyric by Karen O and Spike Jonze “Ordinary Love” from “Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom” Music by Paul Hewson, Dave Evans, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen; Lyric by Paul Hewson Best Picture “American Hustle” Charles Roven, Richard Suckle, Megan Ellison and Jonathan Gordon, Producers “Captain Phillips” Scott Rudin, Dana Brunetti and Michael De Luca, Producers “Dallas Buyers Club” Robbie Brenner and Rachel Winter, Producers “Gravity” Alfonso Cuarón and David Heyman, Producers “Her” Megan Ellison, Spike Jonze and Vincent Landay, Producers “Nebraska” Albert Berger and Ron Yerxa, Producers “Philomena” Gabrielle Tana, Steve Coogan and Tracey Seaward, Producers “12 Years a Slave” Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, Steve McQueen and Anthony Katagas, Producers “The Wolf of Wall Street” Nominees to be determined Production Design “American Hustle” Production Design: Judy Becker; Set Decoration: Heather Loeffler “Gravity” Production Design: Andy Nicholson; Set Decoration: Rosie Goodwin and Joanne Woollard “The Great Gatsby” Production Design: Catherine Martin; Set Decoration: Beverley Dunn “Her” Production Design: K.K. Barrett; Set Decoration: Gene Serdena “12 Years a Slave” Production Design: Adam Stockhausen; Set Decoration: Alice Baker Short Film (Animated) “Feral” Daniel Sousa and Dan Golden “Get a Horse!” Lauren MacMullan and Dorothy McKim “Mr. Hublot” Laurent Witz and Alexandre Espigares “Possessions” Shuhei Morita “Room on the Broom” Max Lang and Jan Lachauer Short Film (Live Action) “Aquel No Era Yo (That Wasn’t Me)” Esteban Crespo “Avant Que De Tout Perdre (Just before Losing Everything)” Xavier Legrand and Alexandre Gavras “Helium” Anders Walter and Kim Magnusson “Pitääkö Mun Kaikki Hoitaa? (Do I Have to Take Care of Everything?)” Selma Vilhunen and Kirsikka Saari “The Voorman Problem” Mark Gill and Baldwin Li Sound Editing “All Is Lost” Steve Boeddeker and Richard Hymns “Captain Phillips” Oliver Tarney “Gravity” Glenn Freemantle “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug” Brent Burge “Lone Survivor” Wylie Stateman Sound Mixing “Captain Phillips” Chris Burdon, Mark Taylor, Mike Prestwood Smith and Chris Munro “Gravity” Skip Lievsay, Niv Adiri, Christopher Benstead and Chris Munro “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug” Christopher Boyes, Michael Hedges, Michael Semanick and Tony Johnson “Inside Llewyn Davis” Skip Lievsay, Greg Orloff and Peter F. Kurland “Lone Survivor” Andy Koyama, Beau Borders and David Brownlow Visual Effects “Gravity” Tim Webber, Chris Lawrence, Dave Shirk and Neil Corbould “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug” Joe Letteri, Eric Saindon, David Clayton and Eric Reynolds “Iron Man 3” Christopher Townsend, Guy Williams, Erik Nash and Dan Sudick “The Lone Ranger” Tim Alexander, Gary Brozenich, Edson Williams and John Frazier “Star Trek Into Darkness” Roger Guyett, Patrick Tubach, Ben Grossmann and Burt Dalton Writing (Adapted Screenplay) “Before Midnight” Written by Richard Linklater, Julie Delpy, Ethan Hawke “Captain Phillips” Screenplay by Billy Ray “Philomena” Screenplay by Steve Coogan and Jeff Pope “12 Years a Slave” Screenplay by John Ridley “The Wolf of Wall Street” Screenplay by Terence Winter Writing (Original Screenplay) “American Hustle” Written by Eric Warren Singer and David O. Russell “Blue Jasmine” Written by Woody Allen “Dallas Buyers Club” Written by Craig Borten & Melisa Wallack “Her” Written by Spike Jonze “Nebraska” Written by Bob Nelson

While I was compiling this list I noticed another book coming out later this year with the same models. The imagine about was shared via social media. In order to avoid redundancy I could not use both covers. This repetitive use of stock images on Black book covers is pretty common. I guess there are not very many images to choose from and once we hit on a style of book cover it tends to get over used. God only know how many times this image below has been used on a book cover. It will of course look familiar to any avid reading of Black books. Just an observation... BTW anyone who can provide me with the title (or post the image) of a book using the image above will win a free book or DVD from me.

Just a few of the titles coming out later this year. Discover more: http://aalbc.it/bks14

It looks like, according to the New York Tiimes today, Rizzoli is being forced out of it's glamorous location

"One can never stop learning and to learn is, to grow." Once you do it is a wrap. Goines, along with Iceberg Slim are revered in the street lit community.

Yes he is still alive. It looks like he was sent to that Supermax prison in Colorado. He was given life, and then some, for the murder of a police officer that some how resulted when the officers were attempting to serve a warrant for a traffic violation. Being locked up in a super maximum security prison, for life, is torture. I have to believe a death sentence is preferable...

Richard I wish you were right. But it really is not that simple. Think Obama trying to push health care reform through strictly on the merits of the act: Should be a no brainier, right? But instead he has to deal with an opposing party that will stop at virtually nothing to see him and health care reform fail I've seen several terrific sites die because no one will buy books from them. Even my sites unit sales are down 19%, book sales even more. That does not even make sense?! But reasons are simple. How many times do you hear authors say follow me on twitter or like me on Facebook? Once you send people to Facebook they don't leave, they certainly are not buying books there. Some authors don't even have a website. Authors used to have links to sites they liked. But without a site, or a site that attracts visitors, sites like mine no longer get referrals from authors sites. We are programmed to promote entities that do serve us. We contribute to our own demise. Hey weren't we talking about PAWGs? PAWG discussions bring traffic, not dry lamenting over the state of the internet :-)

Kobo seems to be the preferred platform for indie booksellers, though onlydie hard supporters buy the Kobo eBooks. Everyone just buys from Amazon. It is like trying to get people to post on sites rather than Facebook. No one will really care until Amazon is the only place to buy books and Facebook is the internet.

Perhaps, Richard. The sales figures will tell the true story.

I have both a nook and Kindle (no a freebies, I paid for them). I don't use either right now. This does not count the additional eBook readers purchased as gifts. All in I may have purchased 5 ebook readers. I see no reason to ever by another dedicated eBook reader. Instead I'll just buy a tablet (maybe) for now my my cracked screen iPhone 4 is good enough. I also have all the eBook reader aps on my phone -- including the Kobo. I've never downed and read a Kobo book, has anyone? Overtime, I've discovered that I prefer the printed book. On the rare occasions when I feel the need to carry multiple books. I simply carry the multiple books. Sure it is cool to have hundreds, or thousands, of books at your disposal, but that is over-kill. One or two at my disposal is generally good enough for me. The only time I download ebooks now is if I want to check out some author I never heard of or if I want to take advantage of a freebie. Usually I never get to the free ebook and actually read it. I generally opt for the printed book I actual purchased or obtained from the publisher. I no longer keep most of my books donated them selling them or otherwise giving someone else the benefit of the books contents is a big deal.

Richardmurry, you are right but keep in mind the game is rigged against small sites in a way that it was not just a few years ago. I've written a lot about this over the last two years and will give folks another example in a different post. The only reason I have a chance in 2014 is that AALBC.com is old and big. Plus, I'm passionate about the subject, keep overhead low and have some technical skill. In 2014 I'm working on building community support for what I establishing more partnerships with like minded entities. Xeon, we have lost a lot over the last few years. In 17 years I rarely deleted posts. One time I had to delete posts from someone posting as a known journalist. Sometimes I would delete posts of people who just blatantly pirated complete articles from another indie sites. Occasionally I've had to delete images that were just too graphic, XXX in nature. Xeon, I've even been banned by Google for serving ads in the old Thumper's Corner, because it violated their "standards" I looked at the pages most Kola Boof's rants. But instead of removing the offending posts I removed the Google Ads. I HATED Google telling me what I could post, and preemptively banning the site. Sure I lost revenue, but keeping the site's freedom was more important. Now Kola Boof is doing her thing on Face book and no longer posts here. As Cynique would say, "...and so it goes." I simply do not believe in banning posters. If I want to go somewhere were no one disagrees with me I'll go to Facebook.

Amiri Baraka, former N.J. poet laureate and prolific author, dead at 79 Read more coverage AALBC.com mourns the loss of Amiri Baraka. Here is a short documentary we produced on his work. Baraka does not appear the the video, but it will help your appreciate the magnitude and scope of his work.

DT I think you've hit on something man. I think if you got a pro to do you cover design I'd be willing to bet your sales would improve dramatically. I like the premise, the price and length is right (I would avoid discount to $0 -- anybody can spend 99 cents).

Thanks Richard. Here is Yarboroughs song Take 'Yo Praise: Here is Fat Boy Slim's Version I have to admit he did a good job with the remix, of course all the soul has been removed but it is more danceable and he briefly exposed Yarbrough to a new audience.

Hi Cynique, yes there is a reason. Here is the long winded version :-) As you know I started working on AALBC.com back in October of 1997 it was not exactly the high point of African American Literature, there simply were not a lot of books written by or featuring Black characters and stories. I could easily keep up with all the Black books that were published back then. A few years later, there was a surge in the number of Black books being published. This was driven by the success of self published authors like E. Lynn Harris and Terry McMillian. Advances in technology was like pouring gasoline on a fire. The growth in the number of Black books literally exploded. For a time Black writers truly benefited. Today most of that benefit, and I mean financial benefit, accrues to a handful of large corporations. Black writers are, in my opinion, worse off collectively than they were in 1997. This is not hyperbole. Since writers are worse off readers are worse off as well. I have faith (hence the new profile photo), that this will change. But we have so far to go. First we have to really understand that no corporation has our best interest at heart--especially this ones profiting the most. The only way we will turn this around is to do what E. Lynn and Terry did back in the 1990's and that is do it ourselves. But McMillan and Harris had it easier in the 1990's, than we will have it moving forward, they did not have to compete against social media (the opiate of the masses) to garner readers. , There is absolutely nothing we can do on some social media platform that will benefit us collectively. Until people recognize this, and more importantly care, things will only get worse for Black writers, readers and Black culture. Reversing the trend will take effort, sacrifice, money and organization. This holiday season, I was looking at Maulana Karenga's Seven Principles of Kwanzaa and realized, for the first time, what they meant for Black people. I just thought of Kwanzaa as some replacement for Christmas, made up in the 1960's, by some uber-afro-centric dude. I was not until I got off the corporate plantation (working in corporate America) and begin working as an entrepreneur in the Black community that I realized that much of what ails could be quickly remedied by adhering to the principles of Kwanzaa. I changed my profile photo to the symbol for the 7th day of Kwanzaa Imani (Faith). I figured it would give me an opportunity to talk about these principals to anyone who asked what it meant. I saw this video for the first time the past weekend. Here H. Rap Brown (Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin) talks to Gil Nobel about way it will take to organize Black people. Interview is about 1/2 a century old, but could be given today and have even more relevance. Brown headed SNCC after Stokley Carmichael.

As I listen to Vaughan sing Snowbound I key my reply I see now why your videos do not embed directly. You are using the shorten URL which look more like this which is what you get when you select the sharing code in youtube. The best thing to do is simply copy the URL in the address bar at the top of your browser. The weather is pretty odd. December 22nd it hit 70 in NYC, obliterating the previous record by 8 degrees. Monday it as 55 degrees, which melted all the snow from a storm two days prior that dropped about 8 inches of snow. Today, we will likely break the record low which is 6 degrees. I can't even wrap my head around the Chitown weather multiple days of snow, -16 degree temperature and winter has just started! It will take a lot more than Sarah Vaughan ain't enough to pull me through that.

In I noticed there were hundreds of books that I've sold, over the last three years, through Amazon's affiliate program, for a penny! I, as the book seller, don't make any money (commissions on a $0.01 sale is $0.00) and the author does not make any extra money--that is assuming they made royalties off the book in the first place. I have to believe some of these books selling for a penny never made it into the marketplace. The the only entities who profit off of these sales are the shipping companies and Amazon. While the book costs one cent the shipping cost is usually $3.99, which is where the profit is generated. At any rate, I've listed below a few of most popular books that are selling for a penny, on AALBC.com. All of the books have made multiple appearances on AALBC.com bestsellers lists and are excellent reads. As far as I'm concerned if this model gets good books into the hands of readers that might not otherwise get to these books I'm all for it. There are enough people who pay full price and these secondary markets would not exist without them. Age Ain't Nothing but a Number: Black Women Explore Midlife Edited by Carleen Brice A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines One in a Million by Kimberla Lawson Roby Wild Stars Seeking Midnight Suns: Stories by J. California Cooper

I'm trying to better understand why eBook sales, relative to everything else, I sell, in particular physical books, has not shown any additional growth despite growing rapidly from nothing starting in 2009. The table below shows the average sales price of physical books and Kindle eBooks sold on AALBC.com. These figures do not include products "sold" for free (priced at $0). The range in prices for ebooks, during the three year period, was $0.79 to $29.99 and the range for physical books books sold was $0.01 to $133.99. As you can see the average price of eBooks has actually gone down each of the last two years (down 23% since 2011), while the average price of a physical book has gone up each year (up 15% since 2011). Now that the average eBook costs less than half of the price of a physical book, one would think eBook sales whould have continued to climb ever higher relative to physical books. Despite increasingly lower prices ebook sales have not grown relative to physical book sales. There is one other factor to consider my sales of the Kindle eReader is way down in 2013, compared to 2011. I suspect everyone who wants an eReader has one. Or if they want one they can't afford it in this economy despite Amazon's aggressive pricing (Kindle Fire starts at just $139 and the Kindle dedicated eReader is only 69 bucks). If you are wondering, as was I, what ebook is selling for three times the price of the average physical book, this is it (price subjects to change). This is the most expensive physical book sold. There were tons of physical books that sold for a penny I have shared the most popular ones in a different conversation.