Plans for 2022

 There's actually a lot that I want to do to get my writing career (back) on track. Being that this year makes it TWELVE years that I've been a published author, there are a few things that I'd like to do to improve my writing career, and boost my sales.

First off...publish my FOURTEENTH book.  My latest novel "Second Chance Points" (Kindle Direct Publishing, 2022) will be dropping on May 6, 2022.  I'm really excited about this project being published, and hope that it gets the support that I feel it deserves.  It's a novel about women's basketball, and follows the life and career of the main character Adwoa (Ah-joe-wah) Carrington.  I loved this project when it was originally a screenplay that I wrote back in 2001.  If I would've gotten the chance to produce it, the film would be a big budget studio project. 

Secondly...health permitting...I want to do more in-person events.  The coronavirus severely cramped my ability to do face-to-face meetings with people, and do in-person events like festivals, or stand-alone book signings.  I want to get back to doing that, especially here in my new home state of North Carolina.  There's a new black-owned bookstore in Durham that I want to do a reading & book signing in called Rofhiwa Books Cafe, as well as a Latino-owned bookstore in Chapel Hill called Epilogue Books that I would love to network with.  I'm really hoping to make that happen, once I get more settled in my new day job, and Covid restrictions ease up.

 

Thirdly....I need to get back on my grind, and do more episodes of my vlog series "The Rough Draft".  I would like to expand it, a little more.  Since I now have a smartphone, I could use it to shoot some field production footage, or even do some interviews.  Hopefully, I can meet more fellow authors out here, and interview them for future episodes. 

Fourthly....I'm still considering doing an Author Clothing Line.  If I ever do any vending in the near future, I could sell the clothes for some extra cash.  I'd done 2 more logo designs, bringing the total to five versions.  I need to choose which one I'm going to use, and print up some shirts, hoodies and hats.  Plus, the clothing line would be a great identifier for anyone that gets to meet me in person while vending, or doing my own personal events.

 

Those are the main goals, for now.  Other than improving my book sales, there's not much else that I'm planning on working on.  Those are the main goals for this year.  I'm putting my repatriation plans on hold, and hoping to complete that move in 2024.  I'll keep you guys updated on my progress.

 

Keep the fist raised.

 

#AlwaysOnMyLiteraryGrind

 

 

Ringing In 2022---January Publishing Anniversaries

 What's good, my peoples?  How are you, mi gente?  Welcome to 2022!!!  We have been in the new year for a full week, already.  I hope that you were able to stay safe, and enjoy the coming of a whole new year of possibilities.

 

New Years is generally tough for me, as that was the day when I lost my mother (in 2019).  This year, I had to work on New Years Day, as that year I lost my mom.  Had to deal with a few surprise deaths in the family, as the year started.  Not to mention...we just lost an iconic actor in Sidney Poitier.  The coronavirus is still raging, this time in the Omicron variant.  It's getting tough out here.  Let's hope that things improve for us, as they year goes on.

 

Gotta get into my publishing anniversaries for the month.  In the month of January, I have two.  I have the three-year publishing anniversary of "The Chronicles of The Black Fist: F.U.R.I. of the People" (Kindle Direct Publishing, 2019), and the one-year publishing anniversary of my latest novel "Knuckle Up" (Kindle Direct Publishing, 2021).  Both projects are available for purchase in bother paperback & eBook formats through various outlets.  Please help to financially support these projects, and help to spread the word about them.

 

GOOD NEWS!!!  :-D

 

I have a new publishing project slated for this year.  I will be publishing my fourteenth book called "Second Chance Points" (Kindle Direct Publishing, 2022), a Sports Drama novel about female basketball players.  It's a conversion project, as it was formerly a screenplay (still is, actually).  I'm really proud of this project, and hope that it sells well when it drops.  I'm targeting May 6th as the publishing release date for it.  Mark your calendars!!!

 

   

I will be starting a new day job this coming week.  Yeah, I know...how many jobs does this n*gga have?!?!?  I needed to make a change.  Hopefully, this new job will be much more steady schedule-wise, and I'll actually be able to have a life (not to mention, get some actual rest, once in a mf while).  I moved out here to have peace of mind, not be a mind numbing slave, like I was, before.  Y'all ain't gonna work me to death, and keep me from having a life, and pursuing my literary dreams.  Fuck thaaat!!

That's all for now.  I'm hoping to shoot a new episode of "The Rough Draft" pretty soon.  I need to update people on my progress (if anybody even bothers to watch my videos).  Hope to catch you all up on my latest adventures.  I'll let you guys know how the new day job fairs, and any new projects that I'm planing on working on. 

Keep the fist rasised.

#AlwaysOnMyLiteraryGrind

End-of-Year Wrap-up 2021

 We have entered the last 2 weeks of the year.  The Winter Solstice starts tonight/tomorrow, Xmas & Kwanzaa are this coming weekend, and News Years Day falls on the following Sunday.  We will then be in the year 2022.  So how did 2021 stack up for me, personally...?

I consider 2021 to be another off year b/c of the pandemic.  I wasn't able to go out and physically promote my latest novel "Knuckle Up" (Kindle Direct Publishing, 2021), so I had to immensely rely on online promotions for it.  Sales were what is usual for me; basically nonexistent.  I had a sale or two here and there, but nothing major.  It's quite infuriating, especially with all of this hoopla of ppl talking about supporting authors/artists of color; oh, wait....you mean supporting establishment artists/authors of color that get promoted to you by the mainstream, or some bullshit corporate nonprofit, riiiiight...?  Either that, or some fucking clique that thinks that they're setting the standard, or trend.

2021 didn't start off well.  I tore my patellar tendon in January, and didn't realize how severe the injury was.  I had surgery for it in March, and have been working my way back, ever since.  Thankfully, I'm in pretty good physical shape, so it didn't take me all that long to recover from my injury.  I was finally hired back to my day job in May, after being laid off b/c of Covid.  I ended up leaving that job, and the state of Delaware, by late August.  Delaware just wasn't cutting it anymore (it didn't really cut it for me, in the first place), and I needed greener pastures to grow my writing career.  Not to mention, my fucked up ass roommate situation, which was another main reason for me leaving the state.  The ppl out there are mf wacky.  4 1/2 years was long enough; I couldn't take being out there any longer.

 

I've been in North Carolina for almost 4 months now.  I'm liking it so far, as I have peace of mind out here.  I feel like I can breathe, and I have room for my mental sanity.  I was able to complete my latest manuscript, and it is now ready for publication in 2022.  I know that there is still the Delta strain, and now the Omicron variant(s) of Covid that are out here affecting the populous, but I'm hoping to get back to doing in-person appearances in 2022.  I could use the boost to my writing career, not to mention, I just like the interaction with readers & potential fans.  I'm targeting a May release for my next novel "Second Chance Points" (KDP, 2022).

 

I haven't shot a new episode of The Rough Draft since moving out here.  I need to get back on the ball with that.  The show celebrated our two year anniversary this past August.  Once my day job schedule regulates, I'm hoping to continue producing & expand it, by doing field productions, and hopefully some interviews.  I might put this gd smartphone I now have to good use, lol, lol, lol, lol....

 

One sad note for this year for me was having to shut down the Universal Africana Literary Arts Movement.  That really hurt me to do it, but I didn't really have a choice.  I couldn't serve two different masters; my writing career, and the Literary Arts Movement.  Something had to give.  Covid was the reason for the shut down; maybe I can revive it down the line...?  I miss the interaction with the ppl on the Mailing List, though I don't know how many of them really care that the Movement is no longer around.  Running the Movement all by myself was a pain in the ass, and I don't know if I want to go through that all over again, by myself.  Only time will tell...

 

Looking forward to bigger & better things in 2022.  Hope to keep you all updated about my plans.  There is still some time left for the Holiday Economic Support Initiative, so keep spreading the word about these different artists, authors, entrepreneurs, and businesses that you know.  Keep posting the hashtag, and FINANCIALLY support these people!!!

 

Keep the fist raised!!!

 

#AlwaysOnMyLiteraryGrind 

 

 

December Tidings

 We are now in the month of DECEMBER!!!!  we have entered into the LAST month of the year.  My, how time flies.  It feels like just yesterday, we were celebrating the horrible end to 2020, and wishing for new hope and better days in 2021.  :-O

 

I'm reflecting on how things have gone for me this year.  At least I got the fuck away from my fuck ass roommate, and Delaware in general.  I have peace of mind right now...just working at my day job, and staying on my literary grind. I consider both 2020 & 2021 lost years, as I wasn't able to do much to promote my works in person because of the pandemic (blasted COVID-19 coronavirus!!!).  I'm planning on going hard in 2022.

 

Sales for Knuckle Up (Kindle Direct Publishing, 2021) have been what I expected; nonexistent.  Either people just don't respect me as a writer, and are just full of shit while they have the audacity to call themselves my friends & fans... or, people just don't care.  It's a great story, and an interesting read; I've even tried to get a few female boxers that I follow on Twitter to support it.  Nope. Nada. Nothing.  Hey...I wrote it, it's published, it's in the marketplace.  I did my job.  You do yours as my so-called 'fan'.

My project for 2022 is now complete.  My women's basketball novel Second Chance Points (KDP, 2022) is ready to be published!  I'm thinking of targeting the month of May.  The cover art is already done, and I just have to come up with a back cover synopsis.  I'll probably use the one that I had set up for it, when it was still a screenplay.  Now that that headache is over with, I can get back to writing my other wip's that I haven't finished.  So much writing, so little time...

Hoping to make some sort of a literary impact out here in Raleigh, and in NC in general.  I know of a few bookstores out here that I would like to visit, and do an event, or two in.  Hopefully, my work schedule at my day job will regulate enough where I can plan some in-person book signing events, or something.  There are a number of cultural festival that I would like to participate in down the road out here, and hope that I get the chance to vend at them.  We shall see...

That's all for now.  Still trying to promote the Holiday Economic Support Initiative online.  Again, if you know of a Black-owned/Latino-owned business, or entrepreneur that you would like to help support, please use your social media influence by tagging them, and using the hashtags #HESI, and #HolidayEconomicSupportInitiative to promote them, and their business/product/project.  Also..don't forget to BUY from them!!!  Remember, the initiative lasts until New Years Day.

 

Keep the fist raised.

 

#AlwaysOnMyLiteraryGrind 

 

 

Holiday Economic Support Initiative 2021

 It's that time of year again.  We're getting close to the end-of-year holidays.  People are busying themselves with what they wanna buy for Black Friday, and get their kids their Xmas presents (and for those of you who celebrate it, Kwanzaa as well).  It is at this time that I want to promote my Holiday Economic Support Initiative.

I started this campaign around 2016, promoted in the aftermath of the uprisings in Ferguson, the killings of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Freddie Gray, and many of the others that have fallen due to the extremes of police brutality, and the systemic racism that plagues our society.  If you didn't feel like marching in the streets, as you might feel intimidated by your workplace, or just couldn't risk losing a paycheck as the sole breadwinner for your family, I wanted to create an alternative means for us to fight back.  We can still participate in the movement, but don't necessarily have to take to the streets to do it.  As I've learned in my own activist experience, not every soldier has to take the same battlefield to fight.

The Holiday Economic Support Initiative in not a boycott per se, but a divestment from the system of oppression that we currently live in.  We use our dollars to invest in OUR OWN businesses & entrepreneurs, and financially support them.  We love to constantly complain about not having our own businesses, especially ones that service our neighborhoods, but rarely do we financially support them on a consistent basis.  You also have those fake @$$ n*ggaz that'll talk shit about Black businesses having poor customer service, but will continue to spend their money with 'alien' businesses that don't ever treat you with respect, or them fake @$$ 'woke' ppl who will spout off rhetoric about supporting a Black-owned business...go ONE time...and then act like they did something important.  This is NOT that type of gesture.  This is an ideologically strategy used to bolster our businesses & entrepreneurs, and provide them with the support that they so rightly deserve.

If you want to participate in the Holiday Economic Support Initiative, you can participate via social media, and use you social media powers/influence to help promote those businesses and entrepreneurs that you know & follow.  Use either of the two hashtags #HolidayEconomicSupportInitiative or #HESI, tag a business or entrepreneur that you know, and help promote their product/company/business to your followers.  Everybody needs a little help with promotion, especially if you don't want to seriously come out of pocket with it.  Some businesses & entrepreneurs may not have the financial means to pay some outrageous fee to promote their business, or their products.  This is a strategically grassroots way for us to promote our entrepreneurs & Black-owned/Latino-owned businesses to the masses.  The Initiative lasts from Black Friday, all the way up until New Years Day of the following year.

 

Please use the hashtags to promote any businesses & entrepreneurs that you know.  I will include my own works into this campaign.  If you are worried about the "supply chain slow down" that's affecting most of the country (if not, the world), my books are ALL available in eBook format, so you can easily download them, instead of having to wait to get the physical copy.  They are available through Kindle, Nook, Kobo/Kobo+, iTunes, Scribd, and internationally through Tolino and Vivlio.

 

So, for this year, and hopefully beyond, don't spend you money with the big box stores and major corporations.  Spend that money with your own.  Support the small businesses.  Support your local entrepreneurs.  Buy Black.  Buy Brown. Shop Latino.  Shop local.

 

Keep the fist raised.

 

#AlwaysOnMyLiteraryGrind

 

     

November Anniversaries!!!!

 We have now reached the month of NOVEMBER!!!  The second to last month of the year.  Time has surly flown by, this year.  Weren't we just celebrating new years, just last week...?  Now the year is almost over.  It seems like the older you get, the fast time goes by.

 

As we are now in November, help me to celebrate the TEN YEAR ANNIVERSARY of this blog!!!!!  Ten years ago in 2011, I first started this blog (November 10th, to be exact).  I wasn't really sure if I should start a blog or not, as I wanted to be consistent with its content.  Starting the blog was a testament to my desire to build my writing career, as I was in the process of releasing my second book, at the time.  This blog was to be a platform for both my political activism, especially concerning Afro Latino issues & affairs, as well as a vehicle to help me promote my books, and later, novels.  I have to admit, it's been a struggle to maintain this blog.  People have fallen off with their support, and there were times when I struggled to have content to post here.  People seem to not know that I get viewership analytics, whenever I log into my account.  Basically, I can see how many people have actually viewed my posts; recent, or otherwise.  But...I'm still doing it.  The blog is still here.  I'm still posting content, and promoting my works.  In certain ways, it kinda beats having an actual website to maintain, but it also has its shortcomings.  Here's to another decade of posting content, and spreading my philosophy....

 

November also marks the ten-year publishing anniversary of my second book "Raise Your Brown Black Fist 2: MORE Political Shouts of an Angry Afro Latino" (Outskirts Press, 2011).

 

 

Ten years ago, I published the follow-up sequel to my first book.  I expanded the "Black Thoughts" essay series, and expanded it to sixteen essays, from the original seven.  It was warmly received when I originally published the book.   Of course, there were a few folks who shitted on me, and didn't support it, claiming that they had never received their copy of the first book, so they didn't want that to happen with the second book (even though I used a totally different publisher with this book).  But, yet...niggas never called customer service to let them know that, or even me for that matter, and I paid for it with their nonsupport.  But....I digress...

 

RYBBF is available in both paperback AND eBook formats.  If you don't feel like buying the physical copy, you can always download it for $1.99 through the various eBook outlets of Kindle, Nook, Kobo, iTunes, Scribd, and in eBook format through libraries, as well.

 

November marks TEN months that "Knuckle Up" (Kindle Direct Publishing, 2021) has been released.  Sales are still stagnant, though I'm doing what I can to promote it. Haven't received any reviews for it, either.  I've tried promoting it to actual female fighters through social media, but that has been a no-go.  Oh, well....it's out there, and I'm still promoting it.

 

November also marks the beginning of my Holiday Economic Support Initiative.  Lasting from "Black Friday" until New Years Day, this campaign is meant to bolster economic support for Black-owned & Latino-owned businesses & entrepreneurs.  If WE don't support our businesses & entrepreneurs, who will?!?!  Don't be talking all of this rhetoric on social media, and then you don't even back up that shit you be talking about.  Stop trying to act all 'woke' & shit, when yo ass, ain't!  I've being doing this initiative since 2014; if you want to support, you can tag a business of entrepreneur that you know on social media, and use the hashtags #HolidayEconomicSupportInitiative, or #HESI to help to promote & support that business, or entrepreneur that you know, and have actually supported.  Also...SPEND YOUR MONEY WITH THEM!!!!  I'm hoping that this campaign will catch fire, and cause us to actually support our own.  Considering how corporate America disrespects us, and our community (and the larger society, for that matter), let's try to hit them where it really hurts.  You don't have to be marching in the streets to be involved in activism.  Let's start using whatever social media powers and influence that we have for good, hmmm....?

 

That's about all for now.  Help me to celebrate my anniversaries, and to support my economic campaign.  Also...buy a couple of books....and leave a damn review, while you're at it!!!  I'll keep you guys updated on my progress.

 

Keep the fist raised.

 

#AlwaysOnMyLiteraryGrind

 

 
  

Falling Into October---Birthday Vibes

 We are now in the month of OCTOBER!!!  My birthday weekend just passed (it was on Friday, the 8th), and we've just finished celebrating Indigenous Peoples Day/Columbus Day.  It was a quiet birthday, as I am new to the city, and don't have any friends out here (yet).  I spent the weekend working on my latest literary w.i.p, and just reflecting on the way my life has gone for the past (now 47) years.

I don't regret moving out here to Raleigh, but the new day job COMPLETELY sucked ass.  Currently looking for a new gig.  If worse comes to worse, I can always try & work for Amazon.  I've heard the horror stories of working in their warehouses.  At the same time, I have a friend back in Delaware who works for Amazon, and she loves it.  To each, their own...

We are now in the second half of celebrating Latino Heritage Month.  Being new to town (and not having my own place of residence), I haven't been able to organize any events, political or literary. I'm still trying to get my bearings out here, so I haven't really had time to politic with any local activists, or fellow scribes and creatives, out here.  Not to mention...NOT trying to order any books, and then they can't be delivered to the hotel I'm staying at.  That would be a waste of money, and a headache to go through.

 

Speaking of LHM, my eBook publisher Draft2Digital had a sale going on with one of their distribution partners to celebrate the cultural month.  It's actually been able to help me with sales;  I had 4 eBook downloads last month through OverDrive to libraries in Ga & TN, and 1 eBook download this month, so far.  Hey...my stuff is in LIBRARIES, now!!!  That's an achievement!!!  To me, that's progress.

 

My current w.i.p. "Second Chance Points" (KDP, 2022) is going VERY well!  I'm just about done with the editing process.  All I really have to do now, is create the cover art for it, and choose the month that I want to publish the book, next year.  I should be done with everything for this project by the end of November; that's usually when I'm done working on a new literary project.  The fall season always seems to be my month of completion, usually going into Thanksgiving, or immediately afterwards.

Haven't really done any new episodes of "The Rough Draft".  Haven't really had any ideas to do any episodes on.  Being personally in flux doesn't help, much.  I still don't have a permanent place to live yet, and the job situation has been unsteady, at best.  At least I'm able to get some writing done.

Anywhoo...that's all for now.  I'll keep you guys updated to my progress.  Things are going okay, so far.  I just want to start working on some of my other manuscripts projects, now that 2CP is out of the way.  Maybe now I can get back to writing Books 3 & 4 of The Black Fist book series.  We shall see, Galvatron...we shall seeeee........

Keep the fist raised.

#AlwaysOnMyLiteraryGrind