Bookstores & Librarians & Libraries Rock: Writers & Readers, Pay Attention

Posted on December 1, 2024 by Leslye Joy Allen (Ayọ)

I love bookstores & libraries and librarians, but particularly librarians. They are natural allies to historians or anyone doing research. When you tell them what you are looking for they can point you right to it. I love archivists for the same reason, but archivists deal with materials that are older, and rarer than the books you see on the shelves in bookstores and in public, school and university libraries. This blog, however, is more than a shout out to the folks who handle books, it is for anyone who has written or who plans to write a book.

Here’s a tip. Do your best to get your book reviewed by a librarian. Here’s why.

While most scholarly articles and many scholarly books are peer-reviewed (which means exactly what it says: reviewed by one’s academic peers), the majority of novels, memoirs, some scholarly works, and popular authors’ books are not reviewed by their peers or by librarians.

There is one advantage that a librarian-reviewed book has: If the librarians responsible for purchasing books like the book and recommend the book, they will buy it and other libraries will buy it too! Library sales are not like other purchases. Let me explain.

Let’s say you are a new author. You and/or your publisher (if you have one) get a local bookstore to buy 100 copies of your book for 50 percent off of the retail price of each book. The typical timeline to return copies of books that did not sell is around 6 months. Let’s say, all but 20 copies of your book sold, so the bookstore returns the unsold books for a refund. Now, you certainly sold more books to the local bookstore than to a public or university library, BUT libraries’ sales are final and books are never returned unless there’s some physical damage to the actual book.

So, here’s a suggestion. Scholars and Librarians rarely review books that do not appear to have some scholarly value. Yet, you can always send your manuscript—whether it is a Science Fiction Thriller, a Memoir, or a Book of Poetry—along with a Cover Letter, requesting a review of your book.

Library Journals like Kirkus Reviews (librarians read this one all the time), Library Journal, Booklist, School Library Journal are some of the journals that librarians read and publish in. If you get a positive review in any one of these, you are bound to sell a few books and potentially earn another audience of readers because Bookstores and Libraries and Librarians Rock!

“If libraries order your book, you’re golden, because those sales are non-returnable—an author and publisher’s dream.” — from Returns 101: What New Authors Need to Know

©️Leslye Joy Allen

Vice-President Kamala Harris at Bold Fork Books, on Small Business Saturday, November 30, 2024. Bold Fork Books is a Culinary Bookstore located in Washington, D. C.

#MakeAmericaLiterateAgain

Blogs written by Leslye Joy Allen are protected by U. S. Copyright Law and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Any partial or total reference to any blog authored by Leslye Joy Allen, or any total or partial excerpt of any blog authored by Leslye Joy Allen must contain a reference to this hyperlink: https:/leslyejoyallen.com with Leslye Joy Allen clearly stated as the author. Postings or blogs placed here by other writers should clearly reference those writers. All Rights Reserved.

Sister Survival

Posted on November 28, 2024 by Leslye Joy Allen (Ayọ)

©️by Leslye Joy Allen

In the aftermath of Kamala Harris’ defeat in the US 2024 presidential election on November 5th, no one took her loss as hard as Black women. Our work for her and our votes for her created that long blue line at 92 percent—the single largest and most consistent voting bloc in the United States.

My sister friends did what sisters always do. We called each other to vent at 10 PM or 3 AM. We called to see how we all were doing. We worried about Kamala. The sentence that came up the most in these conversations was: I’m done.

Baltimore’s Mayor Brandon M. Scott stated that Black women shouldn’t have to shoulder the bulk of everything with little to no help from others. And we won’t.

Sisters are worn out from over work, over strategizing, navigating inter- and intra-racial sexism, misogynoir, racism, the constant double standards, the defensiveness that rears its head whenever we dare to acknowledge double standards, the expectation that we must show up to work in everyone’s behalf, but that we must not make a mistake, and we must always be accessible.

A few days after the election and shortly after I reviewed a NAACP report that concluded that one-in-four Black men under the age of 50 voted for Trump, the poem below popped in my head. It’s reposted here at the request of a friend. I wrote it in 4 minutes to the delight of every one of my former English professors. Every sister that read it, got it. And their responses were all along the same lines:

“Girl, I’m done killing myself for people that never support us.”

“So many men and so many other people only pay attention to Black women when we are fighting for them instead of fighting for ourselves.”

We sisters are not the same people we were the day before the election; and whatever is left of us that still resembles us is on hiatus.

©️ Leslye Joy Allen

A Holiday Thought: What Educators Cannot Do Alone

Posted on November 27, 2024 by Leslye Joy Allen (Ayọ)

©️ by Leslye Joy Allen

In my previous blog about the USA’s Literacy Crisis, I mentioned the tragic fact that only 25 percent of American adults read above the 6th grade level; and the consequences of not reading is a poorly informed population that voted against their own interests in this previous presidential election.

But this blog is not just about reading, it is also about developing a wider sense of civic responsibility in the aftermath of this presidential election because not all reading serves equitable and fair purposes. The literature so many members of the Right Wing want to ban are books that often tell inconvenient truths; truths that make some people uncomfortable. But here is another uncomfortable truth.

I can never forget that when the Nazis came to power in 1933, Germany was one of the most literate nations on this earth. Nazi Germany effectively used written propaganda to foster public support for a corrupt and merciless regime that ended the lives of over 6.0 million Jews, along with Afro-Germans, Gays and Lesbians, Gypsies, and the disabled. The Nazis also burned well over 25,000 books that are lost forever.

Therefore, a literate and book-loving population alone will not save the USA. (God knows the folks who purchase a Trump Bible are living proof that literacy isn’t a perfect cure.) Nevertheless, many US Teachers, Instructors, and Professors will inevitably choose books that the Far Right will dislike. In the coming months and years, I anticipate battles between Republican officials and school boards, and challenges to college curricula. Yet…

Educators cannot fight alone. So, from Black Friday to Christmas Eve, if you know any children—your own and other kids—forego the video games and high-priced sneakers, and other useless items for Christmas. Go to your local bookstore and buy them books.

If you know kids that do not have a Library Card, take them to your Public Library and get them a Library Card. While there, ask them if they are interested in any particular thing and let the librarian introduce them to a new subject or area of interest. This is not a miracle cure for what we all may be facing in the next four years, but a better informed population beats one that is not informed at all.

The recent presidential election proved two things: people who don’t read often lack critical thinking skills and can be led to vote against their own interests; and many more can be led to not vote. I just had a heated discussion with someone who did not vote; and I don’t have the strength to write the details of the 45-minute lecture I gave to this individual.

©️ Leslye Joy Allen

All blogs written by Leslye Joy Allen are protected by U. S. Copyright Law and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Any partial or total reference to any blog authored by Leslye Joy Allen, or any total or partial excerpt of any blog authored by Leslye Joy Allen must contain a direct reference to this hyperlink: https:/leslyejoyallen.com with Leslye Joy Allen clearly stated as the author. Postings or blogs placed here by other writers should clearly reference those writers. All Rights Reserved.

Finding Humility

Posted on April 25, 2017 by Leslye Joy Allen (Ayọ)

by Leslye Joy Allen

Adire Eleko cloth (Yorùbá, circa 1960)

Imagine you have just graduated with an architectural engineering degree from a prestigious university. You rank at the top of your class. You cannot wait to build skyscrapers and office complexes and churches and do the remodeling and refurbishing of old buildings. Yet, you cannot build a bird’s nest. A bird builds its nest without any training or instructions; and that bird’s nest often withstands torrential winds and rains and storms while buildings lose shingles, windows, and some even collapse. I watched this happen once during a storm well over fifteen years ago.

Power lines were down; branches of trees were down; some trees fell in the streets and across yards; some roofs had missing shingles and damaged gutters; there were a few broken windows; and even the tree in my backyard with a three-year-old abandoned Wren’s nest fell down, but the nest itself was still intact, as intact as when I watched Mama Wren build it. That nest had no glue, no concrete, no cement, no steel, no aluminum, no iron, no rubber, no mortar. It contained nothing that we humans associate with the secure building of anything. Yet…

a Wren is just one species of bird, right?! You could argue that a Wren will never earn a college degree, build a skyscaper or play a guitar. It was not designed to do any of that. Yet, the Wren that built that nest in a tree in my backyard simply did what Nature and/or God (or whatever you call this “Life Force”) designed and created it to do.

The leaves change colors and drop from the trees every year in the Fall and then, in the Spring, the multi-colored blossoms appear everywhere on all kinds of flowers and trees. This all happens without a stop watch or a clock or a wake-up call or even a calendar. Creation, great and small, does what it was designed and created to do.

We, humans, are not so pliable or obedient. We find humility and our place only when we recognize that it is not so important to be the first to do something or to be able to do something that someone else cannot do. When we recognize that we are good at something, we must also recognize that someone before us did something that made it possible for us to do whatever it is we may be good at doing now. And someone (or some creature) also has talents we do not possess. Humility is always found in that place where one finds his or her niche and recognizes that in that niche, they make their contribution just like everyone else. It’s just that simple, and just that complex, all at the same time.

Àṣé!

This blog was written by Leslye Joy Allen and is protected by U. S. Copyright Law and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Any partial or total reference to this or any blog authored by Leslye Joy Allen, or any total or partial excerpt of this or any blog by Leslye Joy Allen must contain a direct reference to this hyperlink: https://leslyejoyallen.com with Leslye Joy Allen clearly stated as the author. All Rights Reserved.

How I Maintain Peace and Equilibrium

Posted on March 24, 2017 by Leslye Joy Allen (Ayọ)

by Leslye Joy Allen

The following is simply a few of my methods for maintaining a sense of balance and a sense of peace. This is not for everyone, nor should it be. Each individual must find where their sense of balance is…The following I learned from my late mother and father, a few late cousins, several former professors, some friends, and from my students and the young people I mentor:

I believe in spending time with and listening to young people. Children, adolescents and young adults not only need guidance but I also need their guidance. Only they can tell me how they feel or how they arrived at a particular opinion. I ask them to teach me something and they always do; and just as I learn something new, they also feel empowered because an older person needed their assistance and advice and respected their capacity to give it.

I avoid negative people. That person (or people) who never has anything nice to say about anything or anyone can ruin an otherwise great day. I avoid them as much as possible or altogether. (Included in this group are whiners, complainers, moochers, and those who are chronically lazy.)

I expect good treatment and greet almost everyone with a smile; and 99 times out of 100 I get that good treatment and friendliness back. Most people will smile back and speak, but even if they do not smile back, I do not lose anything by smiling and being friendly. A kind word to a waiter or customer service representative has often gotten me a few perks.

I stop from time-to-time to take a snapshot of a flower, a sunset or a view that catches my attention. Occasionally, I have pulled over on the side of the road to do this. When I look for beauty I often find it.

I turn off the news. I have purged myself of the affliction of addiction to bad news, to horrifying news, to doom and gloom. Yes, there are plenty of problems that need and should have my attention and my activism. Yet, a combination of activism and cynicism does not work for me; neither does feeding off of the gore and bad policies that have overtaken most news outlets.

I pick my battles. Not every battle is worth the tension and heat it generates. If the battle only allows me to blow off steam, if it resolves nothing nor makes me any income nor pushes me any closer to my goals, then I do not need to participate in that battle. When the battle helps me or someone else, then I might fight it.

I maintain an inquisitiveness about spirituality, the arts, about my ancestors, and I do the research. For example, I love the idea that the Yorùbá people (along with their many Afro-American descendants in the Americas) believe that procreation is also a form of art. A sense of wonder about creation and creativity (artistic and otherwise) without the rigid dogmas of organized religions is a better path for me to stay connected to my Creator, and all of creation.

I hope anyone who reads this finds (or has found) his or her own path to peace.

Àṣé!

Leslye Joy Allen

Social Commentary, History, Theatre, Jazz, and the Environment

Category Archives: intellectuals