Zondra Hughes has written a book on Ebony magazine - Living the Ebony Life: E-Mails from the Plantation.
Is it fiction or is it real? Does it matter? The subjects of the book are very real and have vowed to attend the upcoming book signing, dressed in red. Clearly, TMZ citizen reporters will have plenty of footage afterwards.
In Ebony Life, Zondra details a first-hand account of her experience as a writer who was hired as an Ebony magazine Associate Editor...and forced to stay there for seven years. She tells the story, providing her perspective on how a budding career went wrong, as she didn't adhere to the corporate rules on what she called 'the plantation.'
She reveals company rights and wrongs; the company's and hers.
It is a book for people on the move to read, as it gives the do's and don'ts and states how the unspoken rules can hurt a career. She speaks about conformity and what it was really like for an outsider to work in a family-owned business.
She tells how important it is to be in the clique at work, and what it means if you step outside of it.
Zondra's book describes what went wrong after the founder, John H. Johnson, died, and how poor managerial decisions toppled the business.
She talks about the public image and the private reality, the pretense and the intense of life at the magazine that, she writes, wouldn't allow the agents of change to change.
This is a problem a lot of businesses today have, keeping up with industry trends - staying ahead or getting left behind.
This insider's view is controversial and is a daring tell-all and look within the walls of a giant media company with fresh eyes.
Living the Ebony Life is a quick, low-down and easy-to-read book.
It reads like a novel and is a timely tell-all for those who wish to go behind the scenes at Ebony magazine...especially now.
Zondra is hosting one and only book signing in Chicago at Azizi Books in Lincoln Mall, Matteson, IL., probably because the subjects of the book will be in attendance...dressed in red.
Hmmm. Perhaps this town is too small for tell-alls?