Guest Blogger --Bakari Akil II

This is an interesting (and intelligent) man who isn't doing commercial fiction.  I like that he's tackling something serious that there doesn't seem to be much of a market for yet.  Anyone who is willing to get on board now,  has my admiration.  Our day will come, too.

Who are you?

Bakari Akil II

What do you do for a living?

I am a professor and I teach communication courses.

What would you like to do for a living?

I enjoy being a professor but if I had my way I would write professionally for a
living.

What’s your educational background?

I have a Bachelor’s in Law and Society, a Masters in Social Science and I earned my
Ph.D. in Mass Communications from Florida State University. Go Noles!

How did you become interested in writing?

I have always been attracted to writing. Even as a child I would always be putting
together little booklets and trying to tell stories. In high school I wanted to be a
comedy writer so I would often write funny little stories and force them on my
friends. I’d also leave them in random places around school and then sit back and
watch people’s reaction to the material I wrote.
How did that work out?

Not too well! All I write now is non-fiction.

You also write for Psychology Today. How did you become interested in that
type of writing?

Once my desire to be a comedy writer died down I still continued writing. I never
viewed myself as a writer and I still don’t but I was always typing something up
or writing something down. Even when I didn’t have an audience I always had a
need to put my thoughts in a coherent form. Whatever I was involved in I wrote
about. I still have notebooks filled with writings about topics I was interested in my
twenties with subjects like Spanish, history, comedy, philosophy (mine of course),
city planning and the list goes on.

As an undergraduate I became very impressed with scholars and their contribution
to the public’s understanding of complex topics. When I became a graduate student
I became interested in academic theories and its ability to explain human behavior.
That is when I decided to become a public scholar. I wanted to be the link between
academic scholarship and the public.

At first I didn’t know how to do that and so I turned to journalism. When I learned
something or experienced it I had an immediate need to share and journalism
offered me that opportunity. But then in the early 2000s I started to read books like
Idea Virus, The Tipping Point, Everything Bad is Good for You and a lot of books that
were about looking at issues in a counterintuitive way based on academic research. I
realized that I had found my niche.

Why did you feel qualified to write this type of material?

First, academic ideas had already started to creep into my writing because I was
one. Most of the authors writing these types of books were not academics, per se,
but they were willing to do the legwork to gather the material and then translate it
for a public audience. For me it wasn’t legwork it was a huge part of my professional
and personal life. What made the leap easy is that I also wrote non-stop for public
audiences.

By the time I started writing my blog, Communication Central, for Psychology Today
I had been writing that type of material for about eight years.

You also have a number of books strictly available for e-readers. Why did you
decide to go the e-publishing route?

My first and only book deal (in 2008) was a terrible one. I was more anxious to
have my book published as an academic as opposed to being concerned with what
I would get out of the deal so I did a lot of things that violated Rule 101 for authors.
I signed a lousy deal and put not just the ball, but also all of my equipment, in their
court. I signed away the rights to use that information how I see fit, didn’t ask for an
advance and I have never seen a penny for my efforts. They also priced the book as
high as a college textbook ($100) so it is not and will never be a practical purchase
for anyone.

I vowed not to do something like that again. As the publisher sought me out I still
had no plans of writing a book for public consumption. But my writings on different
subjects were getting longer and longer. Finally in 2009 I had about two or three
manuscripts around the house and I was considering just blogging the information.
I was already a professor and had a comfortable lifestyle so I didn’t feel like going
through the trouble I’d heard so many authors talk about in trying to score a book deal.

But as I looked at the amount of information I compiled something bothered me
about doing that. My wife and some other people thought I would be crazy to just
release it on the Internet and argued against it. At the same time I had begun to
bump into some of Joe Konrath’s work (just like everyone else it seems). That’s
when Amazon became an option for me.

How many books do you have out and what is your latest?

I have eleven books published through Amazon, Barnes & Noble (Pubit) and Lulu
and my latest is Psychology from all Angles.
What is Psychology from all Angles about?

I use a lot of communication and psychological theories to explain why humans
behave as they do when I lecture. To keep it interesting I use a lot of entertaining
and humorous real world examples to keep the attention of my students. I decided
to use this approach when putting this book together.

In it I discuss how we often overestimate what we have to do to succeed instead of
trying to find out the specific tasks we need to achieve the outcomes we desire. I
also cover obscure academic theories as well as a lot of media theories that affect
how we process information and in turn influences the decisions we make.

Do you have any other interests besides writing?

Besides spending time with my family, I am very involved in Brazilian Jiu-jitsu (since
2004), which is a form of wrestling with submissions. I also have a Judo background.

Do you compete?

No I just love the sporting aspect of it. I have played a lot of sports in my life and I
believe it’s one of the highest ways one can express intelligence through one’s body.
That’s why I train in it.

Any last words?

I would like to thank Barbara for providing me the opportunity to introduce myself
and my new book to her readers.

And we thank you, Bakari.

Psychology From All Angles

Psychology Today Blog

Bakari's Blog