Vickie Stringer: The Queen of Hip-Hop Lit
It’s very powerful because my first book deal was $50,000, and I literally had to take that $50,000, living dead smack in the middle of the hood, and I had a choice: Go to the BMW dealership or help [other authors]. It’s a very tough choice. …
When [Triple Crown’s first author] K’wan sent me his book and when Nikki Turner sent me her book, I was like, “Gosh, these writers are talented. I love their books.” But then I said, “My book will have to compete with their books if I help them. They’re going to put them on the shelf next to my book.” I remember going to sleep and wrestling with [having] the courage to not be afraid and [to] believe, not just in the genre, but in these books, that they were fun and necessary. So I did something that I never thought I would do, and I said, “I’m going to give you the only money I have to help [you] put this book in print,” and that’s how my company was started. And I look at the life that I live today, and I think, “Oh my God, I have sold over a million books. … OK God, this is how it works. You help somebody, and you get blessed ten-fold. …” I wondered how he was going to give me this miraculous life that I prayed for, but I didn’t know it was going to come through me being humble.