Carl Weber Returns to Charleston


After the release of The Man in 3B, Carl Weber returned to the Northwoods Books-A-Million February 1.

There were not as many people who attended this book signing as the one in 2011, but Carl still entertained us with his stories, opinions and future plans.

The event started off with a laugh when my friend Cat noticed that Carl was wearing the same sweater that he wore when he visited Charleston the last time.  He said that he doesn't pay attention to those kind of things. LOL.

Carl mostly talked about his plans for the Family Business series.  He said that Family Business 2 was finished (it was released late August) and that he plans to expand the series to at least 15 books.  Since then, another book (To Paris With Love) has been announced and will be released in November.   He also talked about The Choir Director 2, which was scheduled to be released in February 2014, but has since been pushed back to next June.  There are also plans to turn some of his works to television shows and movies.

One thing that had several of my friends talking was Carl's take the book publishing world, especially the state of African-American fiction.  He said that "the experiment" between African-American writers and major publishers "is over".  He said that pretty much the only African-American authors that were still publishing in hardcover were him, Eric Jerome Dickey, Kimberla Lawson Roby and Zane.  He didn't include Terry McMillian, Walter Mosley and Maya Angelou because he felt that they were  considered mainstream and have fans of all races.  And I know there were some authors he forgot who still publish books in hardcover (Mary Monroe, Mary B. Morrison and Daniel Black, among others).  He said that a lot of well-known authors don't have deals with major publishers and some have gotten out of the writing business all together.  He also didn't seem to crazy about people who were publishing e-books for 99 cents on Amazon.  What are your thoughts on what he had to say?


Even though the crowd could have been bigger (which has me worried about whether any more authors will be coming to Books-A-Million in Charleston), the people who attended enjoyed the event.  Carl kept us laughing and had us looking forward to his future projects. Hope he visits South Carolina again soon!


Comments

  1. It's too bad that Carl has chosen to go down the street lit path with his Family Business series. It seems like he's using his place in publishing to make money off of the same garbage that others are peddling on Amazon for the $ .99 he spoke of.

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    Replies
    1. I do have copies of Family Business and Family Business 2, but have not read them. But my friend, who has read at least the first, said she can tell the difference of the two authors, based on the writing style. She said Carl doesn't curse that much, while the other author did. Don't get me wrong: there is some good books for 99 cents out there. But a lot of it is garbage.

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