Oprah Winfrey posts lists of Black Bookshops

[Delano]

https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/books/2020/08/27/oprahs-magazine-makes-guide-117-black-owned-bookstores-america/5651873002/

[Pioneer1]

Maybe Oprah and Gayle King should go on a nation wide Black Book Store tour as part of a promotion!

AALBC could also be featured in it.

[Troy]

Thanks @Delano I noticed this and wrote about how they sourced AALBC for the list without attributing it to me.

 

You know @Pioneer1 that might actually be a good idea.  But nothing they'd consider doing during a pandemic. 

 

They could commit to buying books from our websites.  But again, this opportunity was missed as I described in the article I linked to above.

[daniellegfny]

I am going through the list and find many don’t have social media.

[Pioneer1]

My, my, my..........

Well they need to get together and do SOMETHING to keep the momentum of AfroAmerican books sales going.
 

 

 

[daniellegfny]

I started following some of the stores on Instagram and Twitter. Some had Pinterest and Snapchat. I don’t use those two that much.

 

 I noticed that many of them use the bookshop platform. I wonder what people’s experience has been with it.

[daniellegfny]

What be most useful is if they gave all the bookstores websites a makeover for e-commerce and social media performance.

[Troy]

Exactly. E-commerce is not our strength.

 

Bookshop is not Black-owned, but they have capitalized on our collective weaknesses. They are marginally better than Amazon.

 

The longer term problem is that Black booksellers will never achieve true independence while they hand over their online business over to Bookshop. 

 

Amazon was appealing too in the beginning. I'm not going down the same road eith Bookshop, plus they already treat AALBC as a competitor. 

[daniellegfny]

This is why we need to turn Aalbc into stronger online advocates. I don’t see #readingblack being used fully at Twitter. 

[Troy]

My goal is not to use the Twitter platform, but to use this one. Twitter is a tool to amplify this site not the other war around.

 

Getting folks to use the #readingblack section of this site is up to the participants.

[Pioneer1]

I didn't even know you had a "readingblack" section on this site...lol.

Every few months or so I'll log in and see more forums or a new forum I hadn't noticed before.  

Since I have a pretty domineering presence I try to limit my activities to the Culture, Race & Economy forum and venture out only when asked by someone to...so as to give others enough space to express themselves without my interfering.

[Troy]

The software does not make any of the clubs really stand out. You kinda have know about them. 

[daniellegfny]

Ok I will stop using the hashtag on Twitter. 

[Troy]

Is that an action you are taking because of something I wrote?

[daniellegfny]

@Troy yes because you indicated that you were not interested in gaining Twitter exposure for the hashtag. I had made my first statement on the basis of the results shown on Twitter when I searched #readingblack 

[Troy]

3 hours ago, daniellegfny said:

you indicated that you were not interested in gaining Twitter exposure for the hashtag

 

I reread what I would and don't see how you drew this conclusion.  To clarify #readingblack lives here, not on Twitter. 

 

I'm happy for people to use any means at their disposal promote #readingblack or AALBC.  The can use social media, email, post cards, or shout it from the highest roof-top.