I never had a chance to recap my experience at the Indiana Black Expo. (I’m off at WorldCon right now, which means, at this rate, by sometime mid-winter I’ll be done recapping my summer adventures.) This is part of my on-going experiment on how best to serve an underserved market. You see, a long time ago, I once posed the issue to the genre whether or not we, as black writers, would be better off trying to break into the largely ignored black (audience) market rather than concentrate on being well known in the horror community. Maybe the debate isn’t limited to whether or not black writers, as opposed to all of us horror writers, should pigeon-hole ourselves into the relatively small horror buying market that barely seems to keep the small presses afloat. After all, isn’t the point to reach as large an audience as possible? (This would be the flip side to my comments at another convention where I was on a panel and had the audacity to suggest that black people read so maybe it would be prudent to, you know, market to us.)
So putting my publisher’s money where my mouth is, I had a booth at the Indiana Black Expo to sell copies of my Knights of Breton Court series. Even though it was a down year in terms of attendance for the Indiana Black Expo, as a non-genre “con”, it had a cross section of black people from which I could extrapolate many lessons:
1. There’s not a lot of/enough competition. I was the only author selling anything speculative fiction. I was largely up against self-help/empowerment, romance (largely of the “baby mama drama” variety), and crime novels. Plus a disturbing amount of conspiracy/origins books.
2. Horror does not play to the blue hairs. This is still Indiana. We’re still in the shadow of the Bible Belt. Plenty of folks don’t take too kindly to folks playing with faith. My fellow author Wrath James White would have been proud about how many good church folks gave me the “FU glare” after studying the covers of Orgy of Souls and Dark Faith.
3. Speculative fiction is wanted. The number of folks who stopped at my booth just to shake my hand about wore me out. The comments ranged from “we need more black super heroes” (referring to my books, not to me, sadly) to “why can’t we write our own Lord of the Rings.” [Okay, to the person who asked “Are your books like Harry Potter?” I probably shouldn’t have answered “yes, yes they are” to make the sale, but, come on: my dude has a sword and a gun on the cover!]
4. I can say I write urban fantasy and have it mean exactly what I think it should mean.
5. Self-publishing has never been frowned upon in the black community. It’s part of the DIY ethos at the heart of how we’re used to getting things done, as anyone who has bought tapes/CDs out of a car trunk can attest to.
6. My ideal demographic is black geeks and/or young males. This makes me think that Onyxcon should be on my radar for next year.
7. Never tell your mom that you have a booth at IBE. I can’t emphasize this enough. My mom, who returned from her retirement home in Jamaica largely to go to Indiana Black Expo, turned my booth into her base of operations. As if my booth only existed for her to drop off her bags. And let me tell you, there’s nothing like having your mom drop off bags full of free condoms she’s managed to scoop up at the health fair. In fact, I’m repressing that memory right now.
Free condoms?!
& I see what you mean about CDs sold from the trunks of cars – didn’t many famous rappers start out that way? But I thought you weren’t into self-publishing?
This thing about your “ideal audience being black geeks” – was that just because you were at IBE? What about – white geeks? Geekesses?
(Actually, I regret not being enough of an Arthurian nerd to appreciate all the references in your works! This is for – reasons I shall have to email to you! But basically the English education system is too lacking and narrows down far too early: it did in my day!)
As for a black Lord Of The Rings – I’ve thought for a long time that you could indeed have one – based on (pan)African mythology! The thing is,I don’t know how well the Dark Lord trope and all the moral dualism would fit into that -*are* there any gods of evil, in African mythology? (Your chance to educate us!) I always thought the lwa were rather like Norse gods or any pagan gods, in their function: you know, each one has a specific job!
Everybody’s useful: all very inclusive!
&there’s always a Trickster around, to tease people! 
How about an *internationalist* work of epic fantasy, with writers from all continents to represent lots of mythologies! Goodness knows what the overarching story arc of that one would be, though!
Well I can see you’re busy – lots of conventions to attend, as much as anything! Act locally but think globally, dear fellow!
Coolness! I never considered going outside the genre cons, but now you got me thinking “outside the box”. Course, I need to get my book done first…
We are working on revamping the Carl Brandon Society’s webpage, btw, so we have authors to point to when black folk say, “We should have a black Lord of the Rings!” (and there again, I need to get my book finished…sigh…)