Word: wanly
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Putting it in business terms, some street-lit authors have transferred their core competency to publishing from other sectors. Like drugs. K'wan was still selling marijuana at the point where his Gangsta started to fly off the shelves. He moved out of public housing in 2004--the same year he signed a book deal. But he didn't leave everything behind. "In the morning I load up my trunk and hit the streets," says K'wan. "It's the same as when I was on the block hustling, except it's a different product. I hit the street vendors...
...number of authors rejected by mainstream publishers approached her for advice, she founded a company--Triple Crown Publications--in her kitchen. When mainstream publishers began competing with her for authors, she started a literary agency, ensuring herself a cut from the contracts of writers who went big. K'wan was her first author and her first client as an agent. "Even when I was a hustler, I never wanted to sit on a street corner. I always wanted more control," she says. "I always wanted to have the freedom. I wanted to be the check signer, not just the receiver...
Even among its purveyors, street lit's ethos has taken some knocks. "There are so many people flooding the market, but they're not taking responsibility for what they're writing," says K'wan. "It's just a bunch of guns. The life we live is graphic and real, but authors need to have some type of moral lesson in their books...
...kind of media, publishing is faddish. The rapper 50 Cent recently started an imprint. Vibe magazine, in conjunction with Kensington Publishing, followed suit. The expansion has left some of its authors ambivalent. "In the beginning it was about a need to express ourselves on a greater plane," says K'wan. "But now it's such a money thing. It affects how the genre is perceived by the public, and it affects authors coming in. They look at this like it's Hollywood. They don't understand that to endure this game, you have to love this game...
...China. My concern is not whether Abe will patch things up with Japan's neighbors but how he will resuscitate the economy to revive Japan. Although I'm no cockeyed optimist, I believe that a pragmatic tactician like Abe may deliver. Let's keep our fingers crossed. Wan-hay Paul Li Hong Kong...