Trials of a Ronin Poet: It is the year 2005…

Let’s finish this story. Where was I?

My concentration became more focused on lectures throughout 2004 and at the beginning of 2005. But, the circuit crumbled because of egos, and remains in shambles to this day. The summer of 2005 made me re-think my direction. DCP moved to Atlanta. I followed, not knowing that Atlanta is a hard place to find an editing job. In the meantime, DCP and I reworked The Ronin Poetz. I added the prologue and split the poem into five acts (each Act is cleverly named after segments found in the second epic poem.) DCP made a deal with worldwide distributors and another printer to cut costs. Despite what sounded like good news, there was continual drama in DCP. I walked away as a contributing author, but stayed as an editor, eventually becoming freelance. I returned to New York. I was able to continue business through my own company, Ancient-Art-of-Facts, which was established in late 2002.

After failed attempts to secure an Artist-in-Residence post at a Historically Black College or University, I decided to toss aside my lecture series (and books reflecting the material) and catch up on creative writing. 12 Stories High was the focus. It was outlined in the summer of ‘05 and work began in October 2005. The book was released in spring, 2006. I was terrified about the cover, trying to get the pagination correct to fit the book for the printer. It came out wonderfully, on point. The operation to put 12 Stories High together was a success. I learned a lot from watching DCP grow and was able to smooth the business process out by knowing what not to do. Simple Internet advertisement pushed the book, and I was very surprised at the reception. Radio interviews and Internet podcast interviews pushed the book. Even with no book signings, 12 Stories High was still pushed well. Thank goodness. I needed the few dollars the book earned.

12 Stories High still suffers from some editing issues, and the cover needs the re-vamp. But it was just me. Now, with a small team, a re-work is underway.

It only took 2 years.

B write black. So stay write, black.

Trials of a Ronin Poet: First Run (2002–2003)

Finances are always the (first) problem of a startup company, then advertising. But DCP had a hold on advertising. I wasn’t the only client. DCP had to pull off an amazing opening. DCP was able to cut publishing cost by dealing with an Afro-Cuban printing press. 2000 copies of The Ronin Poetz were created. Post 9/11 fear gave booksellers the opportunity to keep The Ronin Poetz off shelves. Scheduled book signings and tour dates were canceled. But Black bookstores and venue spots kept the door opens. A national commercial was created for the epic poem (the first African American, narrative epic poem) and a NYCity local commercial ran in Spanish. The first run of The Ronin Poetz sold successfully and garnered positive reviews. Some critics had problems with the ‘4’, ‘2’, and ‘u’, Prince-inspired scripting. (At least there wasn’t a graphic of an eye for the word ‘I’.) But that was a minor hiccup. People were accepting The Ronin Poetz.

The Ronin Poetz's first run was also bare of the prologue, and had two errors that have since been corrected. My tour took me down the East coast, into the south, and parts of Cali. It was badass. I do regret that I wasn’t able to hit-up Chicago and Detroit. A major college tour was planned, me hooking up with two other poets, one of which inspired me to turn The Ronin Poetz into a stage play. The play was written. The college tour fell apart. The poets disappeared, mainly because we weren’t getting paid thousands. They didn’t want to split the couple thousand we were getting as a whole. Egos decided that we should get a couple thousand each. And as much as I’m sure we were worth that, we were barely known. So, I stuck to my small tour. The Q & A sessions led to lectures. I started lecturing in the summer of 2003 with a grassroots company. Queens and Brooklyn became my spots, for performances and lectures (respectively).

The copies of The Ronin Poetz were sold out by 2004. DCP broke a little more than even, and towards the winter of 2004, started to secure a deal with distribution and printing that was extremely easy on the wallet.

It's About Time

Amazon and Barnes & Noble are now featuring the cover art for Code-47. It's about time. I was just about to curse out the distributor. Now y'all can judge the book by it's cover.

Dig it like this. I've been waiting weeks. About 8, to be exact.

It's late. Gotta get some sleep. Kinda excited.

B write black 2morrow, er, later today.

Trials of a Ronin Poet: (prt. 2)

Starting Company: Working with a startup company was a curse and a blessing. First off, DCP (DaChosen Publishing) loved the work and was willing to take the risk with such ‘militant’ themed literature (snicker). DCP was eager to find works; I was eager to supply mine. But startup companies can also be a haven for sharks. DCP was no different. God bless Tracey Wingfield for staying strong when so many tried to con her out of her company. However, staying strong did result in power struggles with people that were looking to take advantage of DCP’s growth, taking up time. The company made several moves, shifts in physical location and business dealing. I stayed because I didn’t want to go back on the search for another company, and I believed in what Tracey was trying to do for Black authors, which caused a stir with banks (for loans) and grants. She was making sure everyone got paid, including her, but most importantly, the artists.

The Cover: Two words: Unnecessary drama. It started cool, Star Wars posters as inspiration (look carefully, you’ll see the resemblance between The Ronin Poetz cover art and a Star Wars poster). Next came the setting: an apartment in San Francisco, California, a scheduled meeting with artist Raymond Cosico. Ray was unable to commit to a finished product. He was working for a videogame company and didn’t have the time. But he did agree to draw a sketch that another artist could work from.

Ray’s sketch was so badass that people at DCP wanted to go with it. It was really cool. But Ray considered it unfinished, artistically, and his artistic insight was respected. Unfortunately, he could not commit to finishing the project.

On travels to Louisiana to continue filming for Still Remains I met an art student at Southern University. This is where the drama begins. His artwork was okay. To be fair, he was following up the great Raymond Cosico, God of the Pencil. Ray’s work was just a sketch, but it was amazing. To the young guy’s credit, he made more than one sketch that was for use in a series of Ronin Poetz commercials. Tracey made the young man a generous offer for the artwork. When I returned home to New York, I made the commercials. They were great, backed up with music from my brother, Bryan Thomas. But people at DCP were infatuated with Ray’s sketch, high on his art. What I did like about this new artist’s rendition was that in the commercial sketches there was a visual of Tag and his diabolical weapon, made even more special by this artist’s imagination.

As luck would have it (good or bad), this new artist/client was emotionally unstable. Without giving up too many details, the artist was dropped. He has his story. And then there’s the truth. The incident almost had me dropped from DCP. It was chaotic. I still thanked him in the acknowledgement section, even after our climactic lightsaber battle on that volcanic planet. Years later I found out how grateful he was for the acknowledgement and the opportunity that was passed up. He cursed me out in an e-mail.

Anyway … I tried to put together a cover consisting of pictures of the idols of the 4 lessons: the word, the cup, the wand, and the sword. It was sloppy.

Ray Cosico stepped back into the picture to lend us the artistic abilities of a friend of his. This kid’s finished product of the cover was badass too. But it was too dark in theme. I loved it, though. Then there was a weird kaleidoscopic version of Ray’s cover presented to DCP. It was awful, and left everyone with a look of “WTF?” Ray started to feel obligated to finish what he started. In less than 2 days DCP had the cover that is now presented to the world. Ray, with some free time, buckled down and whipped up an amazing finished product. He also proved that when an artist says something is unfinished, they mean it. People at DCP (and even I) understood the difference between a sketch and finished product. Ray delivered well.

Trials of a Ronin Poet (prt. 1)

Putting The Ronin Poetz together for hardcover publication got me to remember all the madness that happened eight years ago when it was first completed. I still have the rejection letters from publishing companies about The Ronin Poetz. The letters were interesting. From Black companies, they wished me well in finding a publisher and my career. But they all stated that the concept was too heavy for them to publish. I appreciated the honesty. One publishing company really loved the story and wished they could take it on. But they admitted they were too afraid of the piece’s commentary. When I skim through The Ronin Poetz, it’s actually tame. There are a lot of tongue-and-cheek moments, cutesy and a little corny, sing-songy rhyme—all in fun, amidst the backdrop of heavy commentary. There also are a lot of pop culture references and citations. I use ‘lightsaber’ with no apology. But that’s just the zeitgeist. After all, some of the inspiration was Wu Tang Clan (as they have a guest ‘appearance’ at the end as the 36 Staten Fiends)

Oh, well. It’s out now.

Thank you DCP (DaChosen Publishing) for taking the risk.

Oh, well. It’s out now.

Thank you DCP (DaChosen Publishing) for taking the risk.

New Edition

The hardcover to The Ronin Poetz is gonna be something else. There's been more poetic content added. Readers will get a glimpse of a master and student battle, once a character is redeemed. The final product has been sent to DaChosen Publishing, so it's all on their end now.

It was an endevour. I didn't realize how much we bootlegged putting The Ronin Poetz together, to finalize for print. Now that we all know what we're doing (and with better publishing programs), this job only took one full day, and that was because the bootleg job had to be undone.

Re-paginating, section splitting, shifting the page order, and aligning the pages upright ... some of these tasks I didn't know needed to be done until the work was finalized in the document. Pages were shifted the wrong way; the alignments were off. I started last night, wanted to finish up this morning. But once the parts were put together in their finalized form, more work needed to be done. I thought I would have to start all over again. But, I found a simple way around it ... and it all worked out.

But not before I got frustrated.

I took a deep breath and just worked around the hiccup.

Still having trouble with the cover, though. I hope that doesn't need any work.

I'll know soon. Left an e-mail with Tracey Wingfield, head of DCP.

Best news is, I got a new video game. Gonna relax.

That’s not repairing. That’s rebuilding.

This weekend I will be working on putting the contents together for The Ronin Poetz hardcover. DaChosen Publishing wants to release a hardcover Ronin Poetz, and they want me to help. The move to a hardcover copy has been in the works for a while now.

Putting together the book was bootleg-esque. But now, with different software applications, and a matured company (instead of flying virgin-blind like we were doing) it will be mad easy, though still a handful.

Let’s dive back in.

And HAPPY BIRTHDAY, bruh!!!