into a market that welcomed her with open arms . Pam felt that lightning could strike more than once , and there were enough authors with dynamic writing styles and well-crafted books to assure that there would be something everyone would enjoy .
Pam ’ s concern was legitimate . Because Black readership only accounted for 1 % of the market , publishers , distributors , and big box retailers kept their focus on the other 99 % and catapulted the careers of authors who already had a stronghold in the industry .
During the Wal * Mart Tour , we were treated like literary royalty — ate at the best places , stayed at five-star hotels , traveled to the stores in a luxury tour bus . Pam put her reputation on the line with this tour . So many believed it would not be fruitful , but she proved them dead wrong !!! Printed playbills pre-selling our work were distributed long before we arrived . The reader turnout was phenomenal from store to store ; the sales in four days hit close to the 3,000 mark and that ’ s not counting the ones sold at the culminating event at the hotel that brought even more readers . The sales impact on our careers was astounding . Not only did the twelve stores in the Midwest know of our existence , but stores nationwide carried the work of all 19 authors during the weeks after the Tour .
During the tour , I wrote a daily blog that I posted in one of the Yahoo reading groups I was in at the time . Later , I pulled the text from that blog , dropped it into a fiction novel I was working on , and told a few juicy secrets about some of the things that happened on the tour ( for instance , not even the authors on the Tour were aware that there was one store that posed a danger to us all ).
The first half of Was it Good For You Too ? is all about the time I spent with Brenda Jackson , Beverly Jenkins , Francis Ray , Donna Hill , Tracie Howard , Crystal Hubbard , Earl Sewell , Nikki Turner ( still waiting for that Spades rematch !), Grace Akallo , Terri Woods , Selena Montgomery , Lori