Monica Jackson

Women of all races bring home less income and own fewer assets, on average, than men of the same race, but for single black women the disparities are so overwhelmingly great that even in their prime working years their median wealth amounts to only $5.

I check my bank account.  Yep, that’s about right.

“Even for those of us who have been looking at the wealth gap for a while, we were shocked and amazed at how little women of color have,” Ms. Lui said.

Amazed and shocked?  Oh really?  Send money, heifer.

Seriously, this is no newsflash to me.  I think our money issues are because of culture, partnership and heritage.

Partnership

Black women have a harder time finding partners.  This is fact.  Men of all races make more money than women doing comparable jobs.  So no man cuts the family income down to less than half.  Partnered women do far better financially than unpartnered ones.

There are all sorts of blame the victim excuses for black women not having partners, such as black women are fatter, uglier, lazier, and dumber than women of other races, but stats don’t hold this as true.  Fat, ugly, lazy, dumb women of other races have an easier time finding partners because they aren’t black.  In nursing, working with a lot of women, I saw it all the time.  It is the social stigma of black racial characteristics that kill our chances.  We are perceived as less valuable, and as a liability in many ways.  There are always exceptions, but upwardly mobile men, especially white men, usually will think twice before permanently partnering with a black woman.

So women of other races build their lives with partners, while often we go it alone, and with lower paying service jobs.  Black women work hard at harder, lower paying  jobs.  This has been the rule in America for decades.  You can go to any low paying, hellacious service job and see it in action.  I suggest you start with nurses aides in nursing homes and cleaning women and go from there.

If you honestly observe, it will soon put paid to the idea that black women are lazy.  Welfare has a five year lifetime limit, has had since 1996, and mandatory job hunt requirements, but many folks in America still subscribe to the idea of the lazy welfare queen that Reagan put forward to consolidate the considerable white racist vote (talking about welfare queens while they watch black women work their asses off taking care of their bad kids, washing their dirty drawers and cleaning their nasty houses).

Heritage & Culture

…black women are more likely to endure the work and responsibility of raising children on their own. They are more likely to be the backbone of their families and communities, with greater responsibilities to support struggling friends and families. In a 2008 study of black women and their money, the ING Foundation found that black women — who frequently manage the assets of their households — financially support friends, family and their houses of worship to a much greater degree than the general population.

We struggle to take care of the basics and to take care of our families and communities.   Black men are perceived as a threat by the majority, and I personally believe there is a decades long war against lower class black men as far as rendering them ineffective.   Women of other races get more help, hand ups and hand outs as a whole than black women.  They are simply given more because they are deemed of greater value and there is more to give to them.

This flies in the face of racist belief that blacks are inherently lazy and get lots of handouts.  But that’s not fact.  People such as George W Bush get more affirmative action (Yale for C students) and government benefits than the poor, especially the black poor concentrated in poor areas.  Competition for limited benefits are high.  Unemployment is skyrocketing and blacks always get hired last, after that lone minority slot is filled.

There’s simply more physical and cultural support and structure as far as wealth building for women of other races.  There are more examples of success, higher self-esteem, more pats on the back, and positive expectations, along with the grim reality of self-fulfilling prophecy.  Black immigrants have more wealth than native blacks.  There is a reason for this more than genes.  Other races and cultures do not have our substantial cultural baggage to deal with.

Among the most startling revelations in the wealth data is that while single white women in the prime of their working years (ages 36 to 49) have a median wealth of $42,600 (still only 61 percent of their single white male counterparts), the median wealth for single black women is only $5.

Yep, you read that $5 right. This is why black romance writers in general don’t flock to places such as Dream Forge Media or Access Romance to plop down mucho dollars for promo and fancy web sites in the same numbers nonblack romance writers do.  It’s why we don’t shell out bucks going to multiple conferences,etc.   There’s simply not the same sort of  money.   We have choices to make.  $49 a month will pay a bill.  Black women do like to read a great deal and will buy low priced books for entertainment.  But expensive services are a hard sell to this niche.

There are always exceptions to the rule. Black women married to men with stable, good-paying jobs do better. Not as good as whites, but better. The occasional white woman falls on hard times, experiences single motherhood and has financial struggles too.   Times are hard all over.

But it’s our challenge to spend that five bucks wisely.

LINK

Seth Godin’s (a marketing guru) post really bought this home for me.

Remember Word Perfect? I typed my first book on Word Perfect in the mid nineties. Now, Word Perfect is gone the way of all things obsolete. I simply switched to Word like everybody else and didn’t think about it much.

Wordperfect had a virtual monopoly on word processing in big firms that used DOS. Then Windows arrived and the folks at Wordperfect didn’t feel the need to hurry in porting themselves to the new platform. They had achieved lock-in after all, and why support Microsoft?

In less than a year, they were toast.

The platform is shifting in books. It finally took with the popularity of Kindle. And like Word, Amazon is not sitting on their new market and letting it simmer. They are turning up the heat on traditional publishers.

Books are never going to disappear like cassettes and the DOS platform, since books depend on old, old and basic technology. But I predict they will become much less pervasive.

If everybody has a e-book reader–eventually, I bet they will be small, but open up in some way, and act as a phone, digital and video cam and a mini-mobile computer too, stuffed full of apps, the iphone on steroids–people will get their reads in electronic fashion. Print books will be for keepsakes, heirlooms, and old fashioned expensive libraries. Leather bound books might come back into vogue, along with the obsolete art of book binding.

The publishers who didn’t change with the platform will go the way of Word Perfect. So will the authors.

Seth Godin offered an e-book of his in something called the Vook, for 99 cents. It can run on your iphone or ipad or you can look at it on your computer. It’s a book in multimedia. For 99 cents, I ordered it. This is a big deal, because I’m now as poor as hell, but even I can invest 99 cents in my curiosity. If it were 4.99, I wouldn’t have bought it. But Seth Godin is worth 99 cents.

I’ll invest my efforts in the regular electronic book platform, but the Vook or Vookish sort of e-book will have a niche in people who aren’t into reading, who consume television and movies.

The video annoyed me, but I had the option to change to the read only view. The Vook gives people who get annoyed by reading (and they do exist) the opportunity to watch that best selling novel or or skim it while they watch it and hear the good parts being read. It’s a cool idea, but maybe a few more years hence. Hopefully, a lot more hence. I still like my reading in words.

The Vook isn’t going to work only as an iphone or ipad app because the ATT and Apple monopoly limits the market.  I know people with money all have iphone and will run out and buy ipads, but the market is driven by a cross section of people–and we don’t all have money.  ATT is expensive as hell.  They slap a $30 monthly surcharge on smartphones and other shenigans to better their bottom lines.  Also, I want to be able to read any e-book on my Kindle.  Amazon was smart to put in pdf capacity, because now I pretty much can–I can change the format in my e-book (free) Caliber software with a button click or two.

I want a new cell, but I save money with my other carrier.  If I went with ATT and the iphone, I’d double my monthly unlimited data, family plan bill.  So screw ATT and Apple.  I’ll get an Android phone in April instead of an iphone.  Unless they limit their greed, I see ATT and Apple limiting their market too.

LINK

That’s how much his blog article turned me on.

I did find a pic or few of him, and immediately ceased my pin up poster search.  Oh well.  For a smart woman, a man’s mind is a bigger turn on than the bod.  At least, so we claim.  As long as he doesn’t have skinny fingers.

But this has nothing to do with his article.  The man is paying his frickin’ bills selling Kindle books!  Why isn’t every writer out there blogging on this?

And I got this link from Lee Goldberg, a dude who used to be as down on self pubs as anybody.  And now he’s self-pubbing e-books too?  I get out of the loop for a year or so, and the sky falls!  (Pause to see if he has any underwear pics online.  Nope).

My point is these are smart guys into making some money.  It behooves us to watch what they’re doing and learn.  Here’s Joe’s advice as far as the e-book self-pub path to bucks.

If you really want my ebook sales, here’s the only path I know to duplicate them.

1. Write 9 unpublished novels and get over 500 rejections.

2. Sign a six figure print deal.

3. Mail out 7000 letters to libraries, visit 1200 bookstores, and travel to 39 states speaking at writing conferences, conventions, and book fairs.

4. Write a blog that gets half a million hits per year.

5. Sign six more book deals.

6. Get one of your big print publishers to release an ebook for free.

7. Study the market so hard your spouse thinks you’re crazy, then take your early rejected books, make sure they’re perfect, and upload them to Kindle along with several short story collections and collaborations.

8. Cross your fingers.

My ideas are a bit different.  I think you need to write books people want to read.  This is far harder than it sounds. Write books that your niche market wants to read, and put them out for low cost.  Red Rose has a point with their business model, but leaning hard on quantity might be a mistake.  There are way too many books-that-suck out there.  Quality is key.  I’m not meaning NYT, PW or reviewer pleasing quality necessarily, but consistently pleasing your particular readers.  If you can guarantee a book that isn’t boring, that will take the reader along for the ride for your niche market, and offer enough of them at low cost…maybe there is actual money to be made?

‘Cause face it, New York ain’t giving authors crap, but those select few, and they are very few.  E-book pubs do take care of the cover and formatting and maybe that might be worth using some of them. Bottom line, I’m about money. Look at the cut the pub is taking and MOST important, how long they keep the rights to your work.

I believe e-books and self-pubbing are the future.  The market will weed out the crabgrass. Don’t fool yourself that the market isn’t one tough mutha.

I’m charmed by Michael Jordan’s Twitter account.

I sometimes wonder what’s going on in Australia. Or, maybe Japan. Life must be a lot different over there.

I don’t think I need to try any new fruit.  I’ve had enough different kinds for now.

A cactus is kind of a shitty houseplant.

But that’s not why I’d do him.  It’s because ever since his underwear commercial, I always imagine Michael Jordan in underwear.   It’s always a nice thought.

David Beckham’s personality doesn’t charm me at all, seems as if all he twits about is football (or soccer, if you prefer to refer to it as that) but his photo charms the knickers off me.

There’s a great deal for you at the end of this page!

But first, LaConnie asked me this question:

You have just met a man and your relationship with him is like . . . nothing you have experienced before! Without a doubt, you know this man is your soul mate, yet not long into the relationship he learns he has a life-threatening illness. He shares his news with you and even wants to break off the relationship because he may, or may not, survive. What do you do? Do you stay, or do you walk away?

If I Were Your Woman, I . . .

…would first freak out.  Then I’d be I would be racked with pain for my man and what he’s enduring and worse, going to have to endure.

I’m an RN.  I worked a short time in oncology.  I’m happy there are blessed caregivers whose calling is to help and assist people in their final transition, but at the time it wasn’t me.  I did fine while I was there as far as caring for others, but I was ground down past the bone, down to my soul.  I eventually transferred to another service.

The pain, both psychic and physical was horrible, crushing.  So much was terribly unfair.  A young man dying, his pain barely controlled so he could hold on to lucidity his last days of life, his dreams unfulfilled.  A mother leaving her children too soon, agonizing over their futures.  A father leaving his family behind, knowing there’s no insurance, huge medical bills–and no longer any bread winner.  A lively  79 year old woman with cancer metastasized through her gut, her feeding tube pulled, with maybe a week or so to live, a month on the outside.  ”Monica, I had a good life, and a long one.  But, inside my head, I’m still a young woman.  I’m not ready to leave this world.  I want to live.”  I’d go into the bathroom stall and cry through my break.

So first, there would be grief.

Then I’d think, “Talk about Monica Jackson luck!  I meet my soul mate Mr. Wonderful and learn off the bat that he’s soon to be Mr. Dead and Wonderful.  I’d be a tad pissed at the universe.  Anger would follow.

But no, I wouldn’t walk away or allow him to do so.   Some things simply have to be the way they have to be.  And that would be me being strong and blessed enough to help him in the best way I know how, through his transition.  It’s a transition we will all have to eventually make, and one we hopefully won’t have to make alone.

Now the goodies!  A special gift from LaConnie…Do you want a FREE copy of CHARM ME, BABY?

If you enjoy contemporary romances that – make you laugh out loud, tackle sensitive life issues with compassion and grace, and introduce you to passionate couples who make you feel . . . love really does conquer all — then join me in the celebration of LaConnie Taylor-Jones’ new release, IF I WERE YOUR WOMAN!

For a limited time today –8 AM to 12 NOON EST– visit LaConnie Taylor-Jones’ website to purchase a copy of IF I WERE YOUR WOMAN and use my promotional code name (MONICA) to receive a download of my latest ebook, CHARM ME, BABY, absolutely FREE!

In addition to receiving a FREE download of my book, CHARM ME, BABY, your purchase enters you in a drawing for a FREE Amazon Kindle to be given away on Saturday, March 13, 2010 @ 12 NOON PST/2 PM CST/ 3 PM EST via LaConnie’s official blog website at http://www.laconnietaylorjones.com/blog/