My name is Therone Shellman and I'm the President of Third Eye Publishing, Inc. I'm also the author of quite a few titles, one being "The Secrets Of Self Publishing" A Booklet To Guide You.
When I first came in this industry I was all fired up about young black people reading. But then as the years progressed I realized that reading is not necessarily a good thing if you are not reading literature which will help you grow and expand your thinking beyond your normal every day conditions and circumstances. In 2007 I got involved in street distribution, and I financed a few vendors. Ultimately in 2008 I winded up selling a lot of other African American publishers titles to the grass roots following I had built here in the north east. I didn't see what young people were learning that was beneficial to them but nevertheless I stayed doing what I was doing because I thought to myself maybe I was being too analytical. I would listen to their conversations about books and for the most part I did not hear good things. When I started to see our young black men who were gang members relating to titles with gang activity and crime I realized that learning was not going on in but instead the lit was entertaining and maybe even driving them more deper into the state of irganorance that they are already in. I grew up listening to hip-hop and music that was about educating yourself, black empowerment and when I started reading it was with books along the same platform. So let's just say that I'm totally lost with the state of black entertainment right now. In the beginning of 2008 I already made the decision that the direction of Third Eye Publishing was going to drastically change. No longer would the company publish literature just to entertain, and we would build a platform around education. By the time Oct kicked in I realized that I could not have one fit in the door and one foot outside just for the sake of profit, so I stopped selling other publishers titles. In the future we will once again resume distributing and selling AA lit once again but our selection will be based around education.
The future of Third Eye Publishing, Inc will be based on literature within the following genres: Childrens Books, Young Adult Literature, Adult Literary Fiction and some Non Fiction work
Visit: www.thirdeyepublishing.org
Listen to my online radio show: www.blogtalkradio.com/keepingitreal
