Books! Books! Books! Really -173 of them

  Someone had the cheek to ask me why I had not announced any new books recently. My reply was "Why -how many have you bought from me so far?" 

Now, I get no Patreon or any other kind of backing to keep CBO going or to carry on producing new books. I have given any number of businesses -in and outside of comics- the opportunity to advertise on CBO as well as inside Black Tower books or on the back covers. No takers.

It is, therefore, surprising that between finishing my own projects such as The Green Skies and Black Tower super Heroes as well as losing my laptop (it just died -NOT covid related) and having to constantly hack and fixed my old PC (no money for a new one) I have spent over one year solidly editing comics, comic albums and graphioc novels covering all genres.  there are now, at the online store, some 173 books covering 18 'pages'. 

Sadly, as previously noted (and I am still waiting to hear about restricting sa;les in the US) any sale in the United States I get hit with taxes on. So any profit has about 65% taken from it. Again I'll make it clear that there is NO OVERSEAS shipping fees -all books ordered are produced in the buyers region.

I have three (I think three) books lined up but I am currently taking a breather -I have soldiers to paint as well as wildlife work to carry out as well as a few other things. I set April 2nd as the date when I start the next season of publishing and over the summer I am updating The Red Paper which will see me go quiet again and pray that my PC can just keep going a little longer.

The best and easiest way for anyone to support continued publishing is. of course, to purchase a book. 

How About An A-Z of British Golden Age Characters?

 I think the person involved was being sincere though if he was I'd have to asky the interest in an A-Z if he's never purchased one of my books?

Someone asaked why I don't do an A-Z of British Golden Age characters since I know them and their hiostories better than most?

Firstly, there are so few copies left of, say, the Swan titles that you could not pinpoint which issue a character first appeared in.  This is confounded by the fact that due to war time ink and paper restrictions a character from Swan might appear in 3-4 titles. The best way to guess when a character first appeared in via the yearly albums which basically contained whole issues or the "best of" contents of the comic such a Funnies for that year.

Most strips were written and drawn by the artists but we have a problem in that IF someone else wrote short scripts we do not know who or for which issue and that still does not tell us who created the character. But we can, at least, state dates known or first albums (a common term for yearly collections back then and right into the 1970s so why certain morons keep stating -because they know nothing but are just copying and pasting obviously- "Swan decided to call them albums rather than annuals" to indicate something other than, I assume, making themselves look like asses?

So, yes, a collection of character illoes -maybe a hundred- along with text to set the record straight because most people not just filching off what I've posted get things totally wrong seems interesting.

But here is the reason why it will never happen: total apathy. Not on y part but on the part of alleged comic fans. In the United States magazines and even bookslookingat their Golden Age of comics sell. Not fortune building salesa but there is an interest. Look at Alter Ego magazine still going strong with comic fans interested.

When I first publishe the Black Tower Gold Collections I had response after response from members on my Golden Age comics groups and blogs. Damn, yeah, they were going to grab a copy when it appeared. There are six volumes and I can tell you that not a single copy has sold. The 400+pp Ultimate Golden Age Collection has sold 8 copies since first published in 2013? and I know who bought those. Brian "Bib" Edwards loved the collection and I am glad he enjoyed it.

So where were all of the ardent British Golden Age comics fans who were going to buy copies? Oh, they would take free strip scans as would those stealing from my blogs and claiming it was all their own work (including some well known British comickers).

Then I relaunched Comic Bits as the Journal of British Comic Book History looking at Penny Dreadfuls, Boys papers the Platinum and Golden ages -creators, characters and even comic strips reprinted for the first time in 70-80 years. Two copies sold -one to Canada if I remember correctly and one to the UK.

I closed the Face Book British comic histories page, the blogs and Yahoo obviously beart me to closing those groups. Issues 3-5 of Comic Bits are all ready to go into final editing but they will not appear.

I cannot afford months of my time working on books that no one -or one person- will purchase. I have the original books and know all I need to and don't get me wrong; I love to share these forgotten characters and creators with others who are interested but as a publisher I need to be practical and if out of the thousands who check out posts on these books there is no one interested in buying then I stop publishing new editiomns. That simple. There is no "legacy publishing" (where selling continues after someone dies) either because my family has no interest in this and I have made out the legal directive that when I go my online store goes -every book.  Apparently, my family intende cremating my rubbish comic collection anyway.

So, no, I am not planning on publishi8ng an A-Z of characters. 

Support publishers and creators while they are alive and not try to grab and exploit their books after they are dead.

New reviews start tomorrow with more from Hexagon Comics -some lovely titles, too!

https://www.lulu.com/spotlight/hoopercomicsuk

The Invasion Earth Trilogy & Future U.S. Sales

I had wondered this myself so when someone made a comment (not on CBO) about this I counted them.

Return of the Gods has 331 pp

Cross Earths Caper  107pp

Green Skies pt 1 203pp

Green Skies part 2 126pp

Green Skies part 3  124pp

Totalling....896 pages of super heroes, supernatural, science fiction and other genres intermixed.

I am told that with The Green Skies it is best not to try to read through in one go. The plot twists and turns and character stories can be overwhelming.  In fact, this is why Return and Green Skies I-III are broken up into chapters so that you can read one at a time  -I looked at them and if there were not chapters some comickers might get their minds blown. I try never to read my work once published but I did double check because this was a mammoth project begun decades ago and, yes, the chapter format works well.

Actually finishing the Invasion Earth anthology was a huge sigh of relief since my nearly croaking it a few years back would have meant it never being finished.

I have to point out to my readers in the United States that I am currently working with my print on demand company to make my books no longer available in the United States. Every sale I get results in my being hit with US taxes on -two books sold the other day and my profit from those is £00.00 and I cannot keep doing that as a business so drastic steps need to be taken. A book can take months going through various stages before it is finally edited and then published.

 The Invasion Earth Trilogy kicked off with Return of the Gods Twilight of the Super Heroes -the 6 parts from Black Tower Adventure (vol. 2) which was 196 pp and then I added what had been left out -totally re-lettering the whole thing. That took a good few weeks.  I price all my books to the absolute bare minimum to attract readers but ROTG is a £20.00 cover priced book and my cut from that is £1.96 (if not sold in the US).

I need to either push the prices up or go "Not for sale in the United States". There are not enough copies of any book selling that make this commercially viable and I need to eat and pay bills like everyone else.

 So, United States -Sorry.

The rest of the world...you're safe!