Another Black Bookstore Bites the Dust

From Shelfawareness...

After "the worst holiday season in record," James Drayton is closing the African American Heritage Bookstore, West Palm Beach, Fla., which he bought 15 years ago, according to the Palm Beach Post. The store was founded in 1991.

Drayton indicated he believes the economy will get worse and won't improve for at least two years, adding, "I don't have that kind of financial staying power for that period of time."

This marks the second African American bookstore to close in the last week. Last Tuesday, Karibu Books, with six stores in and around Prince George's County, Md., announced it was closing. In its case, the cause was not the state of the business so much as what CEO Simba Sana called a "destructive" dissolution of the company's partnership (Shelf Awareness, January 22, 2008).

Okay. I'm very concerned. Granted, Christian Fiction Blog book sales have increased last year, we need black bookstores. We need a place to connect with our readers kneecap to kneecap across the cafe tables. What are we going to do y'all? And how does this affect Essence bookstore reporting?

Join CFB's Twitter Book Tour Experiment

A few of my Facebook friends have a superlative for me as most creative. Thanks, guys. And I don't know--the idea of me being most creative gave me an idea for the blog. This month I was asked to participate in my friend and fantabulous author, Jill Elizabeth Nelson's The Reluctant Smuggle Blog Tour. I was sent the book to read and review. I love the book. And Jill has been nice enough to participate in my 1question author series this month. So of course who better than to do this experiment with than her. She's game for anything. But what about you?

If you're a Christian Fiction community member, author or book reader why don't you participate? Let's see if this experiment really works.

So what the experiment, Dee?

See that pretty blue bird at the top of this post. Her name is Twitter, She is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to send "updates" (text-based posts, up to 140 characters long) to the Twitter website, via short message service, instant messaging, email, or an application such as Twitterrific. You can also send messages through your cell phone.

We are going to use her to talk to each other. Why?

It's faster.

• It's easy to read.
• Comments are kept under 140 words.
• You don't have to log into your blog or email to read and respond.
• You can use your cell phone.
• You can meet a lot of people very fast.
• You can share your life with a lot of people very fast.
• It's a great way for people to learn about Christ without even knowing it.
• It's a chance for you to see how twitter can help you promote your ministry or book.

Fare enough?

So what do you do now?

1. Click on the blue bird. It will take you to Twitter.
   
2. Get a twitter account. It's free.
3. Then find me. I'm right here.
4. Come back to Christian Fiction Blog and leave a comment that you're ready to chirp with me and Jill.
5. Come back tomorrow as I talk about Twitter and how this tool can help you chirp with your readers better and promote your book to an audience who would not have known about you otherwise.
6. Thursday we will meet Jill at Twitter and talk Christian Fiction, smuggling art, white collar crime and the Twitter Novel Phenomena.
   

Chirping,
Dee