Jump to content

Web Black History by Calvin Reid, Publishers Weekly, Jan 27, 1997


Recommended Posts

This is a brief article from Publishers Weekly (PW), which is the largest publishing trade publication in the country, perhaps the world.  The article mentions several Black-owned website -- all of which predate AALBC by at least a -- and AALBC is 25 years old!

 

I have been interviewed by PW several times over the years.  One has to recognize that PW is the best chronicler of the Black Book World that is still in print.  There have been others, who did the job better, like the Quarterly Black Review (QBR) and Black Issues Book Review (BIBR), but these publications did not last very long, have both been out of print for years. 

 

We have lost many publications that covered Black Books.  The impact on the culture is significant, because the void remains largely unfilled. I try to do my part with AALBC, but it is not nearly enough to make up for what we have lost.

 

PW carries on; I was surprised to learn, recently that PW has been in publication for 150 years.  I decided to try to find old article covering Black folks, "Web Black History" was the oldest article I could find.  The online archive does not appear to go back more than 25 years. 

 

Of the websites cited in the article only one remains active, Black History.  I became friendly with the site's owner, Dante Lee, years ago.  At the time, he was just a kid really (in his 20s), but he managed several of the largest Black websites and owned many desirable domain names. 

 

Unfortunately, Google's search algorithm killed the discoverability of many websites back in 2011 (the graphic below depicts the impact on both blackhistory.com and aalbc.com).  AALBC's traffic did not fully recover for another 5 years. The lost growth of AALBC and countless other website is incalculable. Black-owned newspapers were devastated.

 

The article's author, Calvin Reid, has a senior level position with PW today and I will reach out to him to see what I can find older articles on Black in publishing that are older.

 

WOW.jpg

  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Here is the oldest article I could find mentioning AALBC on PW’s site, “A Diverse Market for African-American Books Keeps Growing” by Carol Taylor, PW Dec 13, 1999.

 

Again, they have chronicled the Black Book Ecosystem longer than any other entity --  Though PW is not Black-owned, and are a trade publication, they have been an asset to our community.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Troy said:

Here is the oldest article I could find mentioning AALBC on PW’s site, “A Diverse Market for African-American Books Keeps Growing” by Carol Taylor, PW Dec 13, 1999.

 

 

@Troy

 

 

That is so informative!

 

It is great that you were featured in PW after only 

being online for a year.  

 

I found this Reading List from back in the day and 

it seems that all of those books are still relevant 

and interesting reads.

 

I was wondering if the archives of the old discussion

forums have been lost?  I always get an error 

message.

 

 

image.gif.5d1b62c21012a351569dea15183c8126.gif

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah it was pretty cool to be recognized  in the industry trade publication so soon after launching.  PW has consistently covered the Black Book Ecosystem over the years.  Still it would be better if we could tell more our our story -- Unless you are telling your our story it ain't being told correctly.

 

That reading list page should be redirected here: The Coffee Will Make You Black Book Club’s Complete Reading List (aalbc.com)  Over the years numerous people have volunteered to moderate our book club, but no one, other than Thumper, stuck around very long.

 

@Mzuri the post from old discussion forum are still on line, and indexed in search engines, the problem is that the software used to organized them no longer works so you can not follow a conversation.

 

I did a search and found this, Thumper's Corner - Archive 2004 I'll see if I can dig up the rest of these and restore the archives in a way that a human can peruse them. 

 

I wish I could bring them onto the AALBC domain, but if I do that I risk Google killing my website.  Seriously, Google banned the entire domain from serving advertisements years ago -- an algorithmically driven decision that was final, without review or recourse, and permanent.  Google's software could have easily dealt with any issues -- they just did not give a f*ck.

  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...