Fans of the street-lit imprints see them as a...marriage of entrepreneurship and a cultural aesthetic. Critics—and there have been many—say that the books often feature racially stereotypical characters, are badly written and eat up the shelf space of more serious writers...[Troy] Johnson of the African American Literature Book Club said his concern about street lit was that it emphasizes marketing and celebrity more than good writing. “...the urban fiction imprint is an easy way out,” he said. “They seem to be encouraging the reader to connect with the brand instead of the writer.” Asked about such criticism, [Johnny] Temple of Akashic wrote in an e-mail, “There is obviously no single black experience in America (or anywhere else).”
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