Transcripts For CSPAN2 Panel Discussion On Publishing 20140413

Im hoping theyll take credit theyll take my check. They disenchantment, could we please think this fabulous panel in thank you for moderating it. And the ending question we can talk about during spring break. [inaudible conversations] the National Black Writers Panel continues now with black writing. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] ladies and gentlemen, i am dr. Linda michele bair and from your college, the Sister College to this fabulous and the two shin. I am just honored to be here to introduce the final panel for today, the state of publishing. In doing so, this is a 2014 odyssey. This is a clean start. You will have lost all of what i didnt be previously. But i do have really just such a wonderful opportunity to introduce a friend of mine from a person i can do for a friend who is in the world of publishing. I give you a little bit of information and shes going to be the moderator on this auspicious occasion. Linda atkins director of publicity at Grand Central publishing, an imprint of hatchet leclerc as cofounder of the harlem book fair, she has helped to create a nationally recognized venue that promotes literacy and literary expression with writers of the diaspora. Duggins is the creator and producer of the annual International Womens History Month Literary Festival in enough Pratt Free Library in baltimore. There is so much more about her. You have to promise me. I wont read any more if you promise to read about her. Is that a deal . Could we welcome my friend and a person youll have a pleasure hearing moderate today, linda duncans. [applause] afternoon, everybody. Thank you for making time out of your day to spend with us. As youve heard, this panel is the state of publishing, a 2014 odyssey. In my mind, we just might as well call it a 2014 space odyssey. We all know the Publishing Industry is in major flux. However, we are dealing with some of the same opportunities and challenges as we were during the very first National Black writers conference. It still is a wonderful trip. The publishing landscape is a strange and beautiful combination of culture, commerce and art. Another commerce, the 12th National Black writers conference is as you have heard black writers reconstruct in the master narrative. It is vitally important that we continue to build our presence. The black writers contribution to this literary canon. We create and must continue to create our stories because we are part of this collective master narrative. Tony marston said, critics generally dont associate black people with ideas. They say marginal people, sociologically interesting people perhaps, the very parochial. We are people, not alias. We live, we loves you guys. Today we will talk about the language of publishing and how readers and publishing professionals and those aspiring to be published later go on this journey to redefining this master narrative. We all know they are sent that mean nothing postracial about the Publishing Industry. Conversations that took base in the 60s, 70s, 80s and on a nonare still happening in 2014. In march of 2014, the board of directors of the National Association of black journalists and an open letter to news media startups. N. A. B. Shares americas oldest and largest organizations for journalists of color. They represent more than 3000 talented media professionals. Their open letter addressed the lack of diversity of noxious legacy newsrooms, but the current crop of news media startups as well. In january this year, the Pew Research Center reported on what many of us starting new. Black women read. We read more books than any other group surveyed are not. I dont even care what the survey says. Again, nothing postracial about this fact. Free black women in the late 18th and early 19th centuries in this country. Im on the board of directors of the 12yearold National Book Club Conference based in atlanta and the National Book Club Conference is an annual gathering of black book clubs around the country. Over 100 groups meet every year. The sisters hail from cities all over this country and they buy tons of books. We drew them a shop on the Creative Genius of many fell asleep day, tony barro, gwendolyn brooks, margaret walker, jay california cooper baldwin, baraka, delaney, Bebe Moore Campbell convinced terry williams. The list goes on and on. James baldwin spoke at the role of the writer in america conference in 1960 at a cisco state college. He said a country is only as strong as the people who make it up in the country turns into what do people want us to become. This country is going to be transformed. It will not be transformed by an act of god, but by all of us, you and me. I didnt believe any longer we can afford to say that it is entirely out of our hands. We made the world we are living in and we have to make it over, and code. The language of publishing is what we are here to talk about this afternoon. Economics, technology, cultural aesthetics, creativity. Look anywhere else in the world in your home, in my home, all Publishing Houses have their own Cultural Values and norms, cultural messaging going on all over the place. Are we paying attention . Can they go with the flow and be flexible . What do we bring to the mix and how do we see ourselves in this industry . Do you know who you are and are you grounded enough to hold on to your foundation while the landscape shifts all around you through your . We have lots of work to do and manage different levels. But this amazing panel and many. Theres about 95 years of publishing experience appear, yall. A lot of information these folks have them were going to step you through, nuts and bolts and talk about some of these global issues we face inside the Publishing House, outside the Publishing House, but more importantly in our own selves, truly. Panelists, we have paul combs, the founder and director of black classic press, specializing in republishing of scaring significant works by and about people of african descent. She is also held editorial positions at Harper Collins and crown publishing, and last put not least, troy johnson, an Industry Leader in marking books on the web. The webmaster o the africanamerican literature book club. It was launched in 1998 and is now the largest and most frequently visited web site dedicated to books and films by and about people of africanamerican descent. So we have a lot to talk about today. Lets talk about the bower report. They stated more than 3500 becomes were published even day in the united states, and in one form or fashion. Interviews, reviews, advertising, marketing, all is very important, but how do you convey the message to your authors and client that the real deal is reaching their readers. Troy . Okay. A large number of ways of reaching the audience. My specialty is doing online but i recognize what i do online is part of a broader ecosystem about becomes. When you ask someone how they discover a book . At it generally through word of mouth. From a friend. How does that friend find out about a book . Historically we were able to find out about books in our local book store. That become increasingly difficult. We have been able to historically find them on the web. But that surprisingly is becoming more and more difficult despite technology, despite faster, better software. Its just become much more difficult. We lost magazines so to answer the question, i can say its become increasingly challenging, and despite thed a ven of the advent of Technology Like social media you have to become an expert in a lot of different thing that writers done need to become expert in. So, that the part of the thing like to come away with, how do we expose people to books . When i first started my web site, i could sit back and wait for every new back to come across my desk and say, ill cover that or post that. 3500 books coming out a day, thats impossible. And its impossible to discover which are the good books because theres so many coming at you, like a fire hydrant. At it difficult to discern which ones are worth reading. I dont have an answer, actually. Well talk about that. As an agent, you work with all different types of writers, and as a publicist i know writers and some are very surprised that they have a lot of work to do in order to get the book out into the market place. What happens inside a Publishing House but often happens outside of a Publishing House is more important before the book is published. So, how do you help your client understand the terrain . Well, one of my important jobs is to help manage my clients expectations, meaning to make it clear to them what the Publishing House can do for them and what they cant, and for them to communicate and collaborate with their editor and their publisher, and their publicist to make sure that each one of them works to theyre greater strengths. So the Publishing House is great at getting reviews, sending out early galleys, pitching to television and radio, and the author theres a bunch of other things the awe that are can do depending on their strengths. If theyre great at social media, already have a great platform and twitter followers, i toll them to keep building on that, and put the word out early to all their followers. If they dont have a twitter account at all, theres probably not much opinion in starting one now not much point in starting one because it takes a really long time but it theyre really great at doing personal appearances, why not do some do some podcasts and send them out to become clubs and say im happy to skype with your book club or do personal appearances. I try to tailor my advice to my clients strengthses and also what kind of book they have and what the strengths of the Publishing House are. Okay. La toya . How to you help your authors . You get them obviously, the agent, shop the book, get people to buy the book, and then what happens along the way . Honestly starts in the very beginning. For me im definitely ill actually read a submission before i check out the authors credentials, and then once i follow in love with the project, ill look at the authors platform, and you cant see where their strengths are. Some authors are great at facebook some not so good at twitter. So in buying the book its more than just liking the book. At it also, as you said, seeing where their strengths are, we we can promote them. Can they do publicity, National Media or podcasts, or is it just a matter of building that . I have a lot of debut authors where they dont have any platforms and barely he web sites but theyre readers first. So their social media platform might be permanent but theyre following the writers they look, theyre in book clubs. So i say, go speak to those people, your author friends who may have an equal following you have. Tell them to talk about your book, rely on your friends and family. Its about word of mouth. Even if you dont think you loving scandal is exciting, theres a million other people talking about scandal and you can build a fan base just by talking about things you like. So, often times i tell my authors, lets build on that first. Lets get your social media platform there, because its free. And its a great way to network with people, as we edit your book, as we get the right cover, as we set up a publicity campaign, you can be kind of being yourself out there and networking with people because it is about word of mouth and notworking, and getting other writers and your friends and family to help you as well. Its not all on you. It takes a support group. And so the bigger your net, the more successful. Paul, when you created black plastic press you had one vision in mind and then a little bit down the road things shifted and crowd created a diggal part of the business. So, digital part of the business. What did you see in the publishing model that required that you had to shift . Gosh, i prepared a long answer for this one to follow troy. Well get back to it. Thats good. I got a lot out of the responses you guys gave. The thing i want to distinguish is that black classic press some people know this or dont we didnt start as a publishing company. We were a Prison Movement out of the black Panther Party and that was to provide and produce books and make becomes available as a way of actually transforming our community, transforming the people who are in jails in ways so they would come out and join the struggle in a positive way. So we really began from a place of not thinking about books in the traditional way, and it did come to a time that after we were publishing books for a while, we realized we were a publishing company, and after having successes through the 90s, we hit a wall just like most people in publishing hit in the early 90s or mid90ss. And books began to be more cutterrized, particularly in chain stores, books began to come back in after selling black books through the roof, we began to hit periods in which we w. Selling books, and instead of selling 5,000 books it was 500 becomes or less. And i ended up with a warehouse, not unlike other black publishers, with a warehouse full of books, and it occurred in that process that a change was necessary. Ive been doing some work with digital printing, prisoning books printing books on demand. In the 1995, we acquired our first diggal printing engine, and the company at that point not only published books, we began producing our books, which was part of the roger original vision. We would sell and produce books. It was at the black writers conference, linda, in 1995, actually, that we 1996 . 1996. Im sorry. We announced that we had acquired that equipment. So at it interesting. Were like going around now. And the company grew through producing books and using that equipment, the digital equipment. Troy, all panelists, in terms of the social media, the marketing, the web sites, we always talk about, can the reader find the author . Can the author find the readers . It works both ways. How does one do that . With all the changes and all the tricks with one platform or another platform . How does that work . And do the black books get lost in the shuffle . That a complicated question. Its extremely difficult. If theres an author you know, a celebrity author, real easy. But if youre trying to look for a great historical novel, or trying to look for a romance book, and you do a search on that, it becomes real tough. Ten years ago, if you did that type of search, you would come up with a variety of web sites, independent web sites mostly, that were tailored to the genre. Today what you get when you do a search is, basically three or four amazon search results, search amazon pages, three or four good read pages which is amazon, wikipedia. Doesnt matter what the search is. So, what is happening is a lot of the independent sites are being crowded out. So unless you know about the sites you wouldnt know to go there to search. So part of what i try to do is help people know help spread the word about book stores, web sites, that are promoting on literature in particular. So, one of the things ive launched well, its been two years now a site calls huria. Org, and its essentially a search engine. The way you look about ten years ago, pure research, no sponsored results. No advertising, just information that youre looking for. If you go do a search on something generic, youll get results that have been curated. All of the book sites. All of the book store web sites. All the platforms that im aware of that will be most likely to talk about us stuff. And i find that to be a good way to learn about books or authors or writers, because what you find from the larger corporate sites typically are the things that would appeal to the broadest audience or the things that are generally perceived as most profitable, and most profitable being the key thing. And what ive discovered is that isnt the stuff that actually feeds us. It is not the stuff that is going to uplift us, so if were going to be able to share information about things that really enrich us, all of you are going to have to help do that because the large corporations simply will not do it, its not in their interest to do it and havent demonstrated a propensity to doing it. One thing i feel is lacking is lately our willingness to promote our stuff, and we are losing were hemorrhaging platforms. Theres a good side and a bad side to the story. I actually brought a list of the book stores that have closed, not since i started my web site but since i started keeping track of them. The list actually this is a list of book stores that have closed those in black book stores or book stores generally . Independent book Stores Across the nation. What is the count . Approximately. Over 100. I mean, honestly, i dont have a count 300 . Well, this is how many i last this is counting the studio museums book store, the hub at howard university, so, we were to look at the number of blackowned independent become stores in this country, its less than 50, and when we talk about the number of book stores per black person in this country, were looking at numbers like 800,000 to one. States like alabama doesnt have one. The last one closed, i think, last year. The cradle of the Civil Rights Movement . Im getting a fit just thinking about it, and i dont feel this anger anywhere. I feel its a lie. These are i do it because of these stores. Before i thought about a web site, i was going there and learning things, learning about actually thirdworld press, and learning about black classic press and the authors and learning about things that matter, and that is one of the things that are changing. When we talk about the black become ecosystem, were talking about family, and at it interesting when paul mentioned the book store was born out of a project to help people imprisoned come out and be able to serve the movement in a more meaningful way. I dont sell books just to sell books and make money. Its because what i want to do is share our story, make sure it gets out and its not distorted and not controlled by corporations. By their behavior, it seemed they seem to despise us. So this is important. Social media. That was really a question. When i look at social media, and to your point about talking about scandalswhat you do is when you go up there and talk about scandles, sure, a at love poem want to talk about that but you get people would want to talk about scandals. Theyre not going to turn around and say, let me boy this persons book and read it. So, connect readers, real readers, people who are trying to learn somethingtypically are spending a lot of time on social media, and theyre just not when you engage in social media to that extent, youre really feeding that beast, and that beast is voracious. It looks for content. Looks for us to be up there all day sharing pictures and sharing information and contributing to their wealth because thats actually what youre doing when youre engaging social media. Even when im complaining about social media crowding out of web sites, im enriching those web sites. I cannot im on social media. At it almost like the nature of the world we live in. I kind of have to be there, but im working very hard to not. When you talk about social media again. When you put a link on social media, theyve changed the algorithms in such a way i collect data on all of this and i just watch engagement go down and that engagement is based upon what is being shown. Its not dish dont have control over whats being shown. And in essence i feel like im being reeled in. If i spend five dollars an an ad engagement goes up. Then then its not less effective. So they get me. So i opt out of that because, despite all the hype, we social media has not helped. Its hurt. In other words, fiveers ago it wasnt very difficult to attract people or become discoverable on the web. It wasnt. Social media is not helping. I mean, i can garner visitors using social media but has not made up for what ive lost. In terms of books being sold or authors being discovered. Well, starts with authors being discovered but translates into books being sold. I might post something if i get 100 likes, two percent might check, and of those two percent, traditionally on my site, eight percent of anybody clicks a link to buy theyre going to convert. The numbers are horrendous. A good thing that works is building an audience of high engagement, but im really emailing people who read, people who shine up, and increasingly people who pay for the service. So ive spoke a lot. But oh, well. Paul, i know wanted to tag along to what troy was saying. At it all connected so jump in. Troys carrying it in a different direction, a wonderfully different direction, and, folks, i want to second troy. Im sitting back learning from troy, and he is such a tremendous resource and what he does with a lbc is tremendous. So, most of you havent visited the site, visit his site. Dont worry about the social media and stuff like that when youre visiting his site. The thing is, troy, youre experiencing your lessons are really shaping my thoughts even as i sit here, and they have. My response actually was to an earlier question, and im hearing this as we do. Lindas earlier question was approaching our readers. The thing i wanted to hear is that our company is a little bit different. When were publishing books because were publishing books that are largely out of print books, were not guided in that process by how many people were going to reach when that book comes out. Its not a driving force for determining how many books were going to do. It isnt a driving force even in terms of the production, like some publishers would be bound by the production. Were doing a book. Initially that book will be out this month. Probably be the time i get back well finish it and print it. Initial printing will be maybe 150 copies, Something Like that, to go into those markets that we already have an affinity to. So its not like were reaching to promote these are books were republishing, not new books. So we dont have that like victoria would have with new writers. So we have to reestablish the book in the marketplace and that means introducing the book and building the book slowly in the marketplace so people know the book is out. After the book is out so we look at a curve on books. We look at them starting slow and look at them building, building, building, and eventually reaching into a booksellers that have replaced the traditional black book stores that have gone out. Theres still a number of book sellers out there. Under books go into the black book market first and then goes to our larger distributor, which is percys books. It will take that arc as it builds. So a little different and i wanted to make that as a pound of distinction. This whole process of agenting and editorial, its clear and kind of mysterious to a lot of people. Theyre constantly trying to selfpublish. You definitely need an editor. What is the role of a literary agent and the role of an editor . Its always good to keep people informed. You mean in terms from the beginning. Aisha start with your role, how you make the determination, what project fits you . Not all agents work with all authors and titles. Well, just like the Publishing Industry has been in flux enormously, so i feel like the role of the agent has also shifted a lot. Were the first filter, the first person to whom an aspiring author comes, and so we have to make a determines about the saleable, the marketability of the book and not only the first book but in my case because i dont look for projects particular projects. I look for clients with whom i can stay for their duration of a career. So i look for one someone who i feel has potential to grow. So the first book might be wonderful but i also know they have greater talent yet to come, and part of my job is to extricate that talent. So, because i was an editor for american 15 years i spent a lot of time editing. So basically i have to make that determination both in fiction and in nonfiction. I look at not only the quality of the writing but i try to look at it through a publishers lens. And ask myself, who is the audience for this . And what is the hook . What are the selling points, how would i be able to convince an editor to good and fight for this book and ask their boss to put down 20,000 or 60,000 or 200,000 for this book. So, that already is a very, very high barrier to overcome. And then as i see the potential there is, may spend between six months to in some cases two years actually shaping, preparing, editing, through numerous drafts before i actually send it out on submission to wonderful editors like la toya. To give it the best possible chance of succeeding. And so while working both editorially, i also try to work with them about lifting their platform as we talked about, not only social media but for example, thinking about placing opeds or writing Huffington Post blogs, or other ways of making themselves known. If theyre literary fiction authors, publishing in literary journals. If theyre nonfiction authors, writing journalist pieces. Kind i do believe his platform is going to help a great deal in marketing his next book. He started a blog and had such a unique voice and such a unique way of thinking about the world, that it quickly took off and the atlantic jumped on it, and offered him a position as a blogger, and now he is a Senior Editor there. So, its a kind of instance where social media actually can count for a lot, but he works with what his strengths were. So, that is in short what i do. La toya . Okay. Oh, boy. So, my job is wow. Okay. I basically work with every single department, and so when i get in a submission, i read it, i follow in love with it, okay, but thats not thats only probably a third of the actual job because once i read it, im like, okay, who is the audience . How can i position this . What format . Hard cover, trade trade paperback . I have to look at the mark as a whole. So, if you write general fiction, what general fiction writers, successful writer, has written in a similar way . I have to convey to sales and my editor youre board why we should pay you to sell your book. The while point especially with corporate publishing is dollars and cents. If we can sell your book well pay you for it. Doesnt matter the content, whatever. If theres an audience and we can show theres proof this book will sell x amount of companies, that is what determines. There are sometimes where a writer can write something our instinct there is nothing like and it the publisher will take a chance on it. Usually it comes down to the numbers. So when i share a submission i really love with my editorial board, i have to have in my head, this book is like this, that and a third. We will pay you this now to put out that. We still havent talked about how many books who will acquire. I will talk to linda or another publishing or marketing person and say okay is you think we can promote it because all of this stuff is part of the publishing plan. Its not just this is a great book and should be published. If that were the case i would publish my book. If you can write, im down to publish. Unfortunately for me as an editor, thats where things get complicated. If i cant be too a boat, they dont care how good it is feared at the end of the day at alchemy make this big, hot clinic money . Its great if you do, that platform. It is so much that goes into it a month is acquired, that is a whole other of. He has the editor, under spokes person. I will fight. I will make sure marketing people are advertising. It doesnt make sense to pay 25,000 for a subway atmosphere market is not subway. Maybe you should advertise on a spoke. It depends on what your audience is and where we think they are good and as an editor, most people think i copyedit. I dont copyedit. I do some light editing, but for me i want to make sure yours tories as strong as it can be. Thats your plot. Thats the language. Its a cliche. People dont speak that way. Even if its fiction, we want to make sure people can get something and believe it for 300 pages. So that is my job as an editor. Im your partner. Im your advocate. Im helping my company see your brand and believe in your brand to the best of my capabilities. What is the thought process with the different formats . A lot of times when books come out in print and eat digital the same time, it looks like a good idea. Whats the thought process when you have a potential client and Start Talking about digital rights. Weve been publishing long enough. Remember . That sold the heart of it. How is that determination made if its going to be enp at the same time or maybe a month or two after . What is the thought process . Well, i dont make that determination. The publisher makes that determination and unless i have a john grisham or a stephen king, i dont even abrogate the rights that dont also include the digital rights. The publisher insists on taking those digital rights. The only time when that is different is if the author is already a huge success in the digital realm. You now, if theyve achieved that sell them on amazon or whatever, you can leverage that and go to the publisher and say, would you like to talk about distributing the print books for my client and he retains his eve rates because he 30 showing him that he is very successful at reaching its audience directly. I feel like it is that space right now for editors for aspiring not there is that presents all kinds of opportunities for them to retain the right over their own work rather than having to give it up to the publisher is wonderful as they might be. And also to go to their audience directly. I feel like all the ways in which stuff right now im publishing, that is the good part here for authors if they know how to work and to leverage those opportunities because then they can cut out the middleman. They can cut out meat. They can cut out latoya and go directly to their audience if they know how to find not. I do want to say this is real interesting because in our case, we will do 150 copies. The book is everything set for digital and digital will go out immediately because our task we are not competing. We actually have to do all we can to build the ark in the digital book will help build iraq. It will probably have more success out of the country, which is also our market. Our job is bringing our job, my passion, it really is bringing the old books back into print. Thats what we do. And that sense, literally all of our titles now are in the ebook version and weve begun to see very good returns coming off of those the. This is some being a necessity with the right top. Our ebook rights are split with our authors, like we do a 50 50 split with our authors because we believe that my nation as much as possible go to those authors and it has been very, very successful and very well received by the authors at this point. I know that online to see the three bucks. Its free, forget about it. I think theres something to this whole offer it for nothing and you get these folks coming back for more. I mean, the issue like up with free books was about how they are whether its free or not, people dont want to bother with it. I was the campaign poorly executed . I dont care if its free, but theyre certain times when that actually takes off. How does that play in the marketplace . Is a helpful or not . I think it could be helpful for some authors. Permit for sellers is, it is not the greatest news in the world because thats the books become more popular, they cost less and not a civic commissions for nine our last. So a few bucks on a hardcover book, i literally make pennies and if its free i make nothing. Theres not an advantage on my tired tcell, quote, unquote, free ebook. I can also say that 40 of the ebooks that are quote unquote sold are free. So 40 of what is on my website generates commissions. For some authors, theyve been able to develop an audience because people can be enticed by free and 99 cents, which is essentially free and i can work it to writing good. So you download about you the incentive to reduce lower. If you do happen to read at any like it, that can work. Its a competitive environment and theres a lot of people doing it and said now is a writer or not there, you feel pressure to give away what youve done because so many others are doing it and its a competitive environment to give stuff away. No, i hear you if you can have a show of hands how many questions are beyond its . I want to gauge the time. I really would like you to ask these 95 years people up here. Raise your hand high so i can be. Lets start the questions. While youre lining up over here wherever, i have a question or statement for the panelists. Id like each of you to give me five words on what you think the state of publishing is going to be as we move forward. I know its tough. Five words. You guys write books. Come on. Opportunity, opportunity, opportunity and opportunity. I see the future is promising, especially for independent publishers. I will follow that a. One of the best characteristics that this man as he is an internal ms and their problems are little more cynical. I will certainly say opportunities, but ill temper that with challenges and i will temper that with the next word. Im going to add love in there. That word was mentioned quite a few times on the last panel. A bookseller really operates out of love. I mean, youre not going to become rich selling books. Im going to open that. All of us in this industry, we operate out of love. Its not for the money. Okay, toyota. I guess because i work a lot with digital, if you read, youll read the because in the very beginning that 17 words, latoya. I have to explain. Know, five words. Youll find the format. Do not believe. That is one. Reed, love, and fire, shared. Share. . I am used to words. I want to add more. Read more. There you go. Ayesha. I would say independents. The independent booksellers. Vertical, specialization, innovation and creativity. Actually real quick, just want to go back because its on my mind when you talk about a determined format. Its all about the market. If you write a nonfiction that generally your comparison titles are hardcover, usually the publisher will to hardcover. The way we determine e. U. First for a genre fiction like what they romance, a lot of times the readers want theirs off right now and we dont have the time to put it in print, so we look to the ebook first as we produced a print and thats how we determine if it should come first but normally theyre simultaneous. Folks signed up, with questions. Questions. Not talking. Right . Whoever doesnt have the . First question. So im a blogger in my blog has really taken off so i typically write narrative nonfiction about my daytoday come at being 26 years old, going through mfa program, what have you. Im getting like 30,000 viewers a month. How does someone because typically when i read narrative nonfiction theyre older, more mature, triumphant and shamanic experience is. How do some of irish create a hook . What do you look for . How do i use my platform that i have now to pitch myself to a ayesha or latoya . Well, we actually have published several blogger to the people. I think it really is it really boils down to the editor and or agent in my opinion because ive seen quite a few bloggers. Lets say youre thing as relationship advice and you give a ton of relationship advice cd at 40,000 shares, 60,000, the whole bit. A book should be relationship advice book. Your editor would work to develop the kind of idea and the hope is we can reach even 30,000 of your 50,000 or 10,000 of your 30,000 fans. Or maybe you can create a fictional town of some of the stuff you talk about. Maybe some of the ideas or things youve gotten big responses on if you post a certain topic and you get huge response, maybe theres a fictional novel in their that may be based on life events because fiction is really a fictionalized tale of what you experience. So it just depends again who discovers you. If you start writing fictional pieces, you might catch the eye of an editor or agent that could just be a development between you and me to your agent or editor to find out what the right book would be for you. Thank you. Next. I have a question about International Market. In films, the word is black films dont do well a broad. What the knockers are really pressing to change that has you in the industry. I would like to know what is the equivalent of publishing . My own experience meeting with a Major Corporate publisher came when the New York Times did a front page article about the research and the agent who picked me up had just sold something 4 million. So we met with Simon Schuster and the discussion was lifechanging because i went in thinking my readership is black readers because thats who had been communicating with. The editor clapped her hand and said fabulous. The genealogy market is 50 million. So even if we get 1 of that comment a bestseller. I had never thought about my market is that market. My question in relation to the International Market for black writers is do we underestimate our market by not looking internationally as well . I think its very difficult to predict in advance. You know, if and what kind of an International Market areas. But i feel the most important bang is to focus on your core audience to figure out your core audience is into focus on not if, you know, if you get discovered by other markets, other audiences including the International Market, that is wonderful and you have to be sure that you havent agent and publisher that knows how to exploit that. I dont think once you have do a project with that sort of yes i can sell file over the world because youre defusing what youre trying to do too much by trying to be two different people. Too many different people. Greetings. My question is directed towards the ladies because the gentleman havarti embraced afrocentric writers. I would like to know as the writer of the african dyaks are, what it rights do you have for someone who is not famous, mainstream, et cetera based on the information you just offered in respect to the profit and loss statement you have to make in the pitch you have to make to assure his theirs readers. What does someone like myself who doesnt automatically fit in that category, what can we expect in terms of possibilities have been published by an agent to such as hewers . Im always very honest when i read a submission. Often times i rate projects that are phenomenal, but i know my house does not specialize in that particular subject matter or type of book. Ill be honest and say this is not right for my house, but that doesnt mean its not right for someone else for a different house or in print or press. So there have been times where the brief something in a know it may not be Grand Central in general. Grand central does commercial action and nonfiction. If its more literary or a topic i feel like we can publish, i will share with other editors that i know might be different house or try to recommend somewhere else for the person to be published. At the end of the day, it should be more about whos going to do the best for your project. Ive seen books do phenomenally well that are published by smaller prices because they were really dedicated and he knew what the market was, whether audience was, so they get it right. If you get published by a major and theyre not quite sure where your readership is, they can kill your career. Its not always have to be published by a major. You could make it by being published by a Small Publisher that does how to publish her book well. I would say its just the same to me legwork like finding your market, finding the agent doublespeak the best year project can be the best work for your project can go from there. I was actually interested in your particular regency and what you are presenting based on the idea. The macbook air, cool. Lets talk after. This question is in response to these for to which you explained. But first, i was interested of your perspective of how social media now can influence people to buy your products or read them or read your products while at the same time diminishing the national the hard work you have over the years. I believe it is more of a double standard. While its true that sometimes social media when it comes to promoting certain products do diminish the hard work by at the same time it attracts and the reason people who are interested in becoming writers, et cetera. My question as, throughout the years while the sisters of of your motivation and i are due to become writers and authors in such today . Feel free to answer. Okay, for me i always loved reading, even as a kid. My mom was huge and buying books versus toys. I did get toys come on but she was big on books. Love my mama. It started with disney coming up, little books of cassette tapes, audio and then it went to scholastic did when i got the opportunity to work with terry was, to me that was like my god cousin was a reader. To work with an offer that was huge for me. Honestly, one thing and trying to do more of now is really with College Students because someone was in college until i worked with terry, i looked books, but i didnt give a Second Thought to where they came from. You think about tv and music. It wasnt until i worked with terry that i was like wow, i can get paid to read and do things i love to do anyways. I was always passionate about reading and thats where it came from and i just kept going with it. My apologies if my question kind of startled all of you. But thank you for answering my question. I spoke some to mine. Initial motivation. I came out of the black power movement. My initial motivation was to use books of bullets, to kill ignorance. To set my people free. That was my initial motivation. I didnt know anything. I wasnt really concerned about publishing. I was turned about taking the words the elders had left for us in making those words available again in restoring my community. And so concerned about that. Im still very, very passionate. If i talk longer i will cry. It gets me up every day. Thats my initial motivation and still is. The example of our elders before us. The force of liberation for us all. And i can tell you in my experience, the reason i do this is because of people like paul. He may not know this, but i started my website as an experiment. I would build websites for other companies. You know, this was in the mid90s coming in now coming in now, when most people didnt have a computer, let alone internet access. As building websites for people who sold flowers and insects. One day i wanted to build one of my clients complained they werent making any money from their website, so i decided to build a website to make some money. That was how it was. So i built a website to sell books. It was a commodity. Barnes noble had an Affiliate Program at the time so i put this site. I read. I went to school, but i read for information purposes, never for pleasure. Sms i put this website together, i met people like paul, like a lot of the writers out here, people like linda. You know, linda cofounded the harlem book fair. The people that ive encountered are conscious, interesting. They tell wonderful stories. I learned a lot. I used to always say i was the best client because while i was reading and excitedly sharing information with others, i was learning as well. And that is my motivation is to share all of the stuff we had. And now, what thats about all the challenges ahead, and still meeting great people. The people who run clarence reynolds, the people that run the center and make this possible, youre not going to find a better caliber of people. Even folks reporting this, cspan, they are doing us a service. But tv is a tremendous service. I am working with people who produce programs called, for example, a hardhitting books from paul cote neighborhood. These are people who are so constantly struggling to do what we all do in some respects. That is a powerful motivator. You know, i made a lot of money working in corporate erika, but i was never as passionate about doing what i do now, as difficult as it is, dan anything else in my life almost other than a family of children. This is important work in your attendance here is a testament to that. It should be standing i feel. Each and every one of you sitting here are extremely important. Is a great question. I have to think about it myself. Said he cannot have it consciously. I had to learn finance the learning. Thank you. I joined publishing for the usual reasons. I love books, im so excited about reading and working with books, but when i joined crown publishers, the editor are placed as editor and she had left and i took over last. And it was the beginning of a very, very steep learning curve for me, when i realize and this was in the 90s. It was the heyday in retrospect every lettuce was the heyday of wonderful, and lots and lots of American Publishing happening. This guide to some of dirt please as far as thats concerned now because not even a fraction of those kinds of numbers of books are being published now. One of the things i discovered was only a certain kind of work was being published by black authors. Hardly any other books by people of color were being published and there were no people of color in publishing at all except a small handful of dedicated pioneers coming you know, kind of laboring away, constantly being put in the position of having to ask lane and educate because there was only the people who just misunderstood or didnt get it or didnt understand. That was for me the beginning of my past that im still on today, where i feel even as the nation, bringing writers of color, writers from other countries, multinational writers and trying to shape them and touch away that their voices can be heard. That is what keeps me going every single day. Thank you all for answering my question and i wish you the best of luck to continue spreading the knowledge that each of you experiencing game towards next generation in my generation continue after that. Thank you. I love the young generation. So i am all the way from california. Thank you, sister. Really its because of the green just was not even aware. Its just aint, but thats why you come to places like this, right . So you can go away empowered. But troy, when you said theres less than 50 black bookstores left in the country, that really strikes a chord with me. So i am asking you, does that have any interview was like i say in california, burned the nobles, borders, those bookstores are often out of business. Theres very few left. I live in silicon valley. Very few left of those bookstores, right . I am wondering if that trend camino as they say, why did we get a call . Did we get pneumonia or something . I am wondering if that is symptomatic of just the industry. It is a function of a lot of things. I think in our community however, it an issue of economics. If you read the wider media, you would think things are a lot busier than they actually are. We are read in a depression, if you know what i mean. Meaningful. All of that is increasing the environment where with 140 characters is whats valued, thats what we work towards, and so when i first started building websites on the content to the paragraphs one of the disadvantages of my website is that it is returned to 12 grade level so i need to dumb it down by attracting more people. You cant communicate very much in depth than 140 characters. Its also hard on the other social platforms and then what also happens is that it disappears and you can find it a year later. Im creating an archive. If you look from 15 years ago to ten years ago you get a snapshot of what was happening, what we thought was important and popular. Its not just my site. They are not being updated because we are valuing them, we are not supporting them. We need to spend less time on the sites and more time on hours and then we can bring in more information. So im thinking he is republishing the book. Im going to share that next week there will be people that discover it but were unaware of it and thats how information is spread. That doesnt happen in the social media and if you have a lot of money absolutely. But if you are an obscure and unknown author, you have a challenge and it wasnt always like that. We have an Education Network that we are starting nationally into this progressive for bringing quality specs to the school. I think its important publishing 40 years before that we operated in the box, so in 35 years before the operating bookstore but the thing about the bookstores you dont want to lose track on this. One of the earliest in the country most of those bookstores almost all of them and i guarantee i know 90 of them almost all of the booksellers began because they were business people. They didnt begin with a Business Plan they didnt believe in financing. Most of the stores were the model that was gone. What i am more interested in on the one hand, what are we doing to create the models for getting folks out. There isnt anyone that has an interest in this day. That is a good point. The collaboration and collective. I work in a Publishing House but you Better Believe i am a community person, so im doing work where im from because the literary tradition which is why the conference is important we geits you and me and thats re. I am a member of the writers workshop. [applause] i was wondering if anyone on the panel could speak to selfpublishing publishing in the corporate sense. I want to add one thing about that in my research for the panel i found that they were the best selling authors in 2013 so that is a big confidence right there. I want to take this one because i work a lot with the authors who have made themselves successful and what i found is that a lot of them that are successful were published at some point so they take the lessons that coul they learned m their Publishing Houses. They kind of take all of the lessons they learned about the campaign and they do it themselves. A lot of the authors that kind of cradle to build a platform on social media and self publish a lot of them are going back to the Publishing Houses because its less work. Thats one thing i tell my authors dont stop promoting yourself because you got a deal. You have to be there every day to make sure your writing that best product and reaching as many people as you can reach but with the publishers provided is the editing, handling of the production which is the art and pay for certain advertisement and stuff like that and so we find that with some of these authors, they want to focus on branding and writing and they dont want to focus on the mechanics that it takes to put out a book. So it depends on you and what works best for you. It would be to pay different tools to put your book togetherr then by all means, do it. It depends what you want to do. Some people try to and then it doesnt work out. If you can get an agent and get it published i would say do it but if you want to put it out, just know that there is a lot of work. I would like to add something to that as well. One that became popular also know that a lot of my clients are authors and i saw advertising so will remember that. But one of the things i noticed increasingly in the traditional selfpublishing there was a vetting process not everybody got published and most often didnt work out to our advantage that you can assume that in the entire process to Companies Like hers put a book through and its going to be a decent product. So the published books however run the gamut. In a terribly rude and ugly book cover not adherence to any of the conventions of what the product looks like something spectacular and everything in between that we are in an environment its not the best book that makes it its the best marketed and in the self published arena if you have someone that is hungry and aggressive and willing to stand up in front of the bookstore or any store and out there day after day after day its almost hard to hold that back. So it was interesting to see that the most supportive people were formerly incarcerated. She was locked up and selling books like crazy but when she came out, she buys ads, she has one running on the site right now. She is an amazing person but when you look at you dont see that as much from those inhou inhouse. Its not someone that was typical. She supports booksellers, she goes out of her way to support. Theres a few others i could mention and i apologize for not being able to do that every book she got that comes out, she buys it. That type of support is critical but for self published authors, you are either a genius at doing all the stuff and marketing which is important meaning it is very universe of universes of people out there. There is some number. They have the formula. I use a marketing expert. Theres a lot of things you need to know and if you dont have the time, the money or the energy coming you have to have all of them that if you dont, youre going to be dead in the water i dont care how good your book is. If i can say anything i would say money first. I have to get that in because i know she probably wont do it. [laughter] youre a publicist. That is one down. It wasnt a question that i wanted, but you did Say Something that was very informative to the guest to those of us that either have self published or are thinking about it. For the authors and many of us here that are authors, will be, we dont know you. Many of us will send manuscripts to people who will reject them without reading them because they are too busy. I know i had that experience. How do authors know to get in touch with you all for people like you because i couldnt find anything that says these are the agents who are interested in black work, black historical fiction for example from say the 18th century, which isnt really out there selling that is the sort of thing that for example i write. Normally been any older asks me for an agent or publisher recommendation technically we are not allowed to give them so i would say whatever books you like to read or field white represent the kind of book that you are writing, check of the front matter. You can do that with amazon look inside. But most of them think theyre agent. Websites also provide that information and most publishers have editorial brochures where they tell you whos there and what they are requiring. Its all about the research. Workshops, writers conferences often times have editors and agents who are there representing their companies, so taking a peek at who is where it is also hopeful that i helpful s down to knowing your market as well. You have to know who your audience is. You have to reach those people who are going to the parks thats what people are doing with and without. Its about checking out the publishers. You can do a search and most of them will pop up. They write similar subject matter and things like that and just looking at the front matter of the website they will tell you who the editors and the agents are. Im the author of a Coffee Table Book and i worked on two others. The culture is so rich what advice would you give to those that want to document visually i mean Coffee Table Books with ot