Identify for us today but thank you so much again for being part of this panel. I know some of this participants so k . Good afternoon. I know there are educators here what someone says good afternoon you give a stronger turn, good afternoon. I love it. Thank you. Iwant to apologize , the state is being held up in this case, they train the rail, not history so he had to drive here from dc. He should be coming soon. It will be here as well about 215, that show kicked me off and im going to be sitting out here with you guys but im excited about this. I am an artist but my title has always been about digital art and Digital Technology and coming down here when i start doing this i was taking about two different periods read on, before. Com in the early 90s and Early Box Office and how those two things help change the direction of a lot of black artists. Those were two of the first times i thought, online before it came black planet were one of the fewplaces you can see black artists using technology. Ive heard it before and allow for it and artists now find new audiences and great audiences so thats part of what conversation is about today is how technology can be a crutch and also, whats my final word . I want to talk again so we have on the panel today the publisher of Akashic Books and also one of the founders and producers of the book festival. Welcome a side. He is multi talented. He also has a movie on bet, theres another movie in production on tv on , also a writer and the beautiful farai chideya, tvpersonality, multiculturalist and one of my favorite people on the planet. And were going to talk amongst ourselves, i have a few questions for them but im going to cut off and goto bridges in the conversation and of course include you guys. So one of the first things that came to mind when looking at this and we were planning it was how technology can help. Because we always think of technology, the first thing is technology is supposed to push a Society Forward but you put something forward as my father say, you change the work more than you sacrifice so putting the new technology as black writers, how does it help and what do you see as some of the, the strength created by black publishers. First of all i want to thank you and thank the conference for having me, its a great conference and im honored toparticipate in it. A number of times over the years. The work that the center for black literature does is very important and its worth it, no one else is doing though doctor brenda greene, maximum respect for everything youve done. Everyone here at medgar evers college, i run Akashic Books, based in brooklyn, we published 35 books a year and i need, ithink that , i guess the first thing that occurs to me is about the technology is of course everyone being able to communicate with each other more effectively and more directly so that i think that connecting people not just locally but internationally, all over the world with technology, obviously as this incredible power to shrink the world down which has drawbacks to it but the upside is its you in terms of people being able to get their ideas out there and i think, i think that my favorite aspect about what technology has brought is that as a book publisher, publishing historically before, starting about 15 or 20 years ago was really the domain of the wealthy and to run a Book Publishing company or to run a newspaper or magazine or anything like that just required either rich donors or a corporation behind you and in this day and age, anybody can be a book publisher. And it just allows for so many more voices to get out there and i think thats very important. I still think that the Book Publishing business is really held back by, by incredible homogeneity among business. Never before, theres two sort of contradictory aspects of todays Publishing Business. One is that theres never been so many voices making it out to the public, much greater diversity of voices. In the Publishing Business, a lot of people pine for the good old days back when literature was more respected but you dont have to look very far to realize when theyre talking about the good old days that was the good old days of white male homogeneity in the Book Publishing business and so i think its actually kind of offensive when people for the good old days of Book Publishing because who would want to go back to the way the world used to be in that regard when there was only one or two type of people whose voices could be heard . So, but having said that, welltheres a great diversity of voices being heard, when you look at who works in the Publishing Business itself , the business is Something Like 89 percent white. The people who run Book Publishing business and who worked in the business which is an appalling statistic on many levels, not least of which because the business is based in new york city, one of the most ethnicallydiverse places on the planet. That is true, that is not an urban myth,it is true and most media in america is run by white males. Why does, how does someone put through the noise mark because one thing when youre doing something on the internet or using social media, traditional media does make it easier to find success in social media. Usually you get lucky, you get blessed or have an engine and i just dont want who is or who is not assigned to a major established thing or themselves through the noise to become a player . You could sell 10,000 books, youre doing well by yourself. For sure and thats a lot. First of all, what i would say is i think its worth kind of segmenting out a little bit between the impact of the digital age on creators and the impact of the digital age on people who are doing the sales and marketing of because there is an impact on both but theyre somewhat different so for johnny, johnny has been someone who i really admired for tackling the problem of how do you distribute diverse literature because Akashic Books roster is incredibly diverse and international, not just diverse black white in america but global, truly coming from oakland so theres questions about, and i cant answer these but questions about how do you market books to an audience that can be connected through Digital Technology you may not have had access to before so on the one hand, you can be in touch with authors around the globe using Digital Technology but you can also use that technology to market books. What i see from a writers perspective is that theres a constant battle or lack of balance between the production ofyour work , just the butt in a chair, typing away or writing longhand, whatever you do and need to be your own marketer so i had a book about two months ago calling the episodic career, but very practical book about the future of jobs in america and because i had some lets say interesting experiences before with internal book publicist, i decided to hire external but book publicist but not being rich i couldnt afford the typical sort of major league publicist who gets 5,000 a month for a fourmonth campaign, thats 20 grand and i knew i couldnt afford that but i found ways to find one person who was recommended to me who only does bookings on radio shows and then two people who were friends of a friend who used to work in pr fulltime and now just do it as a side hustle so they gave me a cheap rate but a lot of what we did whether it was with the internal publicists and by the way, the internal publicist got fired we got for my book launch so i was smart to get the external publisher and thats the kind of thing you have to deal with, its like one week shes like congratulations on your next book, the next its like im leaving on friday and i dont know what happened here but its all i need to know is that im covered. But a lot of it is about two things on the writing side, you have to actually insulate yourself from the digital age, i dont think writing gets on you are on twitter 24 seven and so i actually use an app called selfcontrol which you can blacklist websites or blacklist twitter groups, facebook, whatever when im writing so on the one hand on my production side of trying to insulate myself from the outside world but on the marketing side, it helps that i have 25 or 27,000 twitter followers which is not a lot by some measures but it is a lot my other measures but its mainly a lot because the people who follow me actually Pay Attention to what im doing. Theres this need to like put yourself out there using mechanisms like twitter but at the right time and to realize that black twitter is real and you can have truly intellectual conversations about the issues on social media platforms but those should not necessarily be happening when youre writing so i leave it there but you get the picture. Theres kind of like a twofold thing for people who are producing. One is to keep yourself out of the world of Digital Technologies is actually right, the other is to strategically use it to get your message out there. I have pointed want to ask you. I want to say it right, it might not be true. I was signed to a major label, i know. Being on a major does not necessarily mean going on a major tour. Correct. Theres two parts to that but you done something i find tobe brilliant. You are able to turn being on a major to an establishment house like social media, then come back to social media which actually allows you then more space for your writing and your awareness. If you can talk about that a couple minutes. Absolutely. Unfortunately, my division of gallery books, i am the last africanamerican on the staff there it is definitely not because of that was talented writer. There are so many more talented writers out there. Ive been able to. Shes being humble but will go with that. Ive been able to understand that writing the book is half adjourned. Especially in this day and age, its the other half so because in my division i was the only africanamerican standing and then a friend of mine, a Business Partner was the only africanamerican left standing in her division, we decided that we wanted to leverage what we know, what we had learned, what caused us to be the last africanamerican authors and start our own Publishing Company which we did, its called brown girls book and we currently have 40 books, we have 27 more coming this year and we had just taken, it has gone to a whole different level and that is because we understand the importance of Digital Technology. The advancements in Digital Technology are the best thing that has happened to black writers. The advancement in Digital Technology is also the worst thing that has happened to black writers and thats because everyone who has ever had a cousin say, theres drama in your life, you want to write a book thinks they can write a book so theres a lot of loss of the craft, respect of the craft and you have a lot of people that are just putting up material on the internet, these ebooks and is making some of the better material get lost in the shuffle soyou have to find ways to stand out in the noise. Why dont you tell us what the registry is. What do you think are three keys that a writer, the writer in you has used or can use or should use to write this, ill go with noise. The hifi systems, it was annoying. I totally agree with you on the amount of work does not mean the work is better. Quantity does not mean quality but how does someone with quality through all the noise . On, i have the mindset that i work smarter instead of just harder, i work harder and smarter and i also need in thinking outside the box. Anything that simon and schuster, they sent me on tours and do all that but everything they do for me , i go beyond and i double it on my own. So they have a level of respect for that and then im branching out so what is happening is you have readers, you have other authors, other people in the Publishing Industry respect that i respect the crap and i am always thinking outside the box. When i initially self published, when i get picked up by simon and schuster and i self published because he got rejected left and right, i couldnt get a book deal and every time you turn around i was getting rejection letters in my mailbox, some places i have even sent them but i believe in my work. And so i was outside the box and i know a book is about building a buzz so i would do things, i was in Oklahoma City at the time, i would call a bookstore in new york and say you carry my brothers keeper by Reshonda Tate billingsey . I call back about three hours later, do you carry this book called my brothers keeper and they say no, but right before closing i call again and id say im looking for this book called my brothers keeper and they said we dont have it but we got to get it because everybodys calling about this book. And my core, i knew the book was good. I just had to build a buzz so this of course was before the Digital Technology. That had taken off but it was all about building that buzz and getting people talking. You have to have that good writing at the core because theyre not going to talk but you have to get noticed inthe noise and that was my focus was was finding a way to get outside that box and get notice. Kind of addendum on that question, we understand you need tricks, in any kind of silly tricks , cars, home , anything that cost a lot of money or it could be some cloak and dagger but myself, how do you use community and technology and theres two different things, cards and community and technology to push book agendas, your personal agenda and also get your workout . I like the fact that you brought it back to Real Community focus so ill give an example. I have a god that god daughter lives in ann arbor michigan which is 45 minutes from detroit and i also have good relationships with some of the people who work in arts, culture and public radio in detroit so i was going out there anyway to visit my goddaughter but i would say to these freelance publicists, see if you can get me something while im there so all these things came together to make it one of the best readings i had on my torso again, my book is about careers, its called theepisodic career but there was a group called urban string , i you string, it wasnt a quartet, it was like a quintet. So its like there by a, violins, etc. Playing classical music, black kids from detroit and they are wonderful and the bookstore that we found was already doing this event with this youth strings quintet at 3 pm. They scheduled my book reading for 4 pm, this is a black own mother daughter bookstore called force booksellers in detroit thats been around for 40 years. They know community, thats how they market their books. To me, first of all the story of independent booksellers is the story of community because independent booksellers that are doing well posted them and make themselves integral to the life of the community. Theres always a place you can go to be with interesting people, hearing about interesting things so its not just that theres a place that sells books, if integrated into the bricks and mortar community so i was able to luckily find a way to be part of what was already thevibrant life of detroit. It was a packed reading and even though they had this event beforehand, almost everyone switched over so the people there for the strings, only a few of them aid for the book reading it also if youre walking by and you see a place full of people, you want to go in there. You want to get some of that energy so even if the crowd was not the exact name as it was for the music portion earlier, i think having a packed house on the street that had other arts businesses was critical so thats just one example. I think for black authors and independent authors, you have to seek people who already are Building Community so you want to tap into your own community and i could give examples of that but the reason i gave the example of source booksellers is there are people in every city in america and in some places that are cities and people around the globe who already have built that brick and mortar communityand you want to tap into that. Your mother sold me amug. Taking it back to you, everyone cannot be what my friend calls a noncreator where youunderstand the strategy behind your work. Friends who are brilliant writers who couldnt sell you 1 million, couldnt give you 1 million. Its not what they do. Does that hinder youchoose , those who do not have the ability to get you 60 but they are writing good work and they have a message or is it someone that gives you more of the 360 approach . And it still good writing, in the end a matter who it is, you need to do good writing. Thats a good question. Its definitely a factor and you know, that we do best with authors who are sort of embracing this spirit thats being discussed up here of thinking outofthebox and taking the extra steps, saying okay, on my book publisher is going to do xy and z but im going to add on top of that and do more so that attractive area these are dealbreaker issues but when you are deciding to publish a book, theres many factors that go into it and what someone brings to the table in terms of ability to spread the word on themselves is one of the factors. It goes into our decisionmaking but i also dont want to overstate that because theres plenty of books that we have published that are written by hermits, people who dont kind of ever interact with the outside world but thats just an additional challenge. Can i add real quick, browngirls but we do more commercial books. And we started out and we took some excellent books that the writers were just phenomenal, the writing was phenomenal and they sold about 10 copies. And at the end of the day, its a business so now we at one point had to shut down submissions, we had about 400 submissions coming in when we open so we had to shut down submissions so now we look at the total package. After we find an excellent book, were perusing social media area if you have Three Friends on social media, it goes into consideration because we know that that integral to selling the book so the difference between