When author Victoria Christopher Murray received her first NAACP Image Award nomination for Outstanding Literary Work, Fiction, in 2001, she was beyond surprised. The nod was for her debut novel Temptation, and she was up against stiff competition in the likes of bestseller list mainstays Terry McMillan and Eric Jerome Dickey.

“It was huge,” Murray said. “I was literally standing at the door shaking, waiting on my husband to come home so I could tell him.”

She didn’t take home the prize that year, but following an official announcement by the NAACP on December 11, Murray now has a second nomination for her book Destiny’s Divas – albeit in a literary landscape that hardly resembles the one she first encountered 11 years ago. The presentation of the NAACP Image Awards will air on NBC on Friday, February 1 at 8pm, the first day of Black History Month.

The bankruptcy and subsequent closing of Borders bookstores, plus the growing popularity of e-books, and the ease with which self-published authors can take to the web and sell their writing to the masses (often for as little as $.99) has had a tsunami-like impact on the industry. Reports lamenting the death of traditional book publishing are likely false – or severely premature, at least – but make no mistake: the game ain’t the same.

Murray has certainly noticed the strain on her books’ sales, but regardless, she has exhibited a level of sustainability that is rare in any corner of the entertainment world. She’s been continuously signed to a major publishing house since Temptation, with a total of 16 novels under her belt – even as many of her contemporaries have failed to receive new contracts.

“I believe I was put on this earth to do this,” said Murray of her writing career. “It gets very hard, but I know that God has it all under control.”

She may be confident and secure in her career choice now, but Murray’s road to literary success was a long and winding one. She worked in financial services for ten years before deciding to focus on her writing full-time in 1997, a luxury she was afforded through a sizeable bank account. Together, she and her husband invested $50,000 of their own cash to publish Temptation, a contemporary tale of love and friendship, complete with sex, scandal and, notably, Jesus.

By Andrea Williams

Everybody you know has a blog: your girlfriend who styles your hair every Thursday, your niece who’s only in the tenth grade and even her third period math teacher. But back in 2006, when Patrice Yursik first took to the web with her online journal of sorts, blogging wasn’t exactly tres chic.

The former journalist was encouraged by an internet-savvy friend to share her opinions with the world, and he prodded her to come up with an under-the-radar topic that would attract eager readers. Her short list? Natural hair tips and trends, makeup for black women and plus-sized beauty. She purchased her domain name on August 13; two days later she published her first post.

Now Yursik is more commonly known as Afrobella – the super fly chick with the super fly natural and one of the web’s top beauty blogs, black or otherwise. She flits about the country on one exciting assignment after another – interviewing celebs on the Academy Awards red carpet, working with chemists to perfect her very own MAC Lipglass shade – all the while keeping her 32,000-plus Twitter followers abreast of the latest and greatest in natural beauty and fashion.

Yursik has come a long way from her days as the calendar editor of a Miami newspaper, but she credits that real-life journalistic experience as the training ground for her blog.

“The challenge was that it was a weekly newspaper, and you just had to write as much as you can, and edit as much as you can and turn in perfect copy every week,” she says. “So it was a good preparation for building my own blog. It showed me that I can write a variety of different topics and interview anybody.”

Unfortunately, while the position helped her develop the chops she would need to consistently churn out creative, reader-friendly content for Afrobella.com, it also proved to be the catalyst that forced her to commit to her budding brand full-time.

While she was working, Yursik was able to juggle her online duties with her daily 9-5 responsibilities, jetting off to record segments for NPR’s News and Notes Blogger’s Roundtable on her lunch break and posting to her site in the evenings. Everything was smooth sailing until she was offered the opportunity of a lifetime to attend an event in D.C. held in honor of Barak Obama’s Presidential Inauguration.

Source: Sweet Lyrics

From listening to Musiq Soulchild’s songs, this man knows a little somethin’ about love. Having won over women’s hearts with his smooth lyrics, Musiq’s decided to take his writing ability longhand with a book on love and relationships.

In a recent interview, he told Billboard his book is “in its early, embryonic development stage,” but he plans to have it ready for a Summer or Fall release. He also opened up about the topic.

“It’s going to be about love and relationships, and love and music. Basically it’s just a man with an opinion ranting about love and relationships and how my music is affected by them and how my music impacts other people’s relationships,” he said.

“I know my core audience and people who are interested in my music will be interested in it, and hopefully people who never even heard of me and wouldn’t even be interested in the music I make will at least be interested in my thoughts and opinions on how we as people relate to each other in terms of romantic love and relationships. I just really hope people will enjoy it.”

Musiq isn’t giving up singing for writing but he did say he wants to “take a step back a little bit as an artist,” which means doing more writing and producing. He mentioned that he’d liked to see another single released from last year’s “MusiqInTheMagiq” album but his label hasn’t approached him about it just yet. He also says once he gets the green light for another album,  he’ll  “jump on it,” but for now, he’s just focusing on being creative, rather than commercial.

“I don’t mind trending, but I want it to be for authentic purposes and not because a whole bunch of people said it was hot.”

Of the long line of men writing books on love and relationships, I might actually consider giving Musiq’s a read. What about you?

Brande Victorian is a blogger and culture writer in New York City. Follower her on Twitter at @be_vic.

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