I know what everyone is probably thinking. Everyone is in lockdown and looking for things to do and comics to read (Especially after Marvel and DC stopped publishing) so I must be selling a lot of books.
Right?
No.
I did warn a lot of Indie publisahers at the start of all of this to promote and let people know you are out there and what books you have. This, along with other problems, is why I decided to set up the Black Tower Comic Shop News blog.
That and all the tweets and other social media stuff SHOULD have resulted in some interest over the last 5 months at least. Nope.
The thing is that, usually, someone reads a tweet or sees a blog post and passes it along to someone they know who then passes the link on. Everything snowballs from there. But people do not think like that anymore.
If I asked the 200+ people who visit this [page daily if they pass a link along or share with another group I'd say 100% (as if 100% EVER responded!!) would say "Nah".
The thing that I have never understood is that thousands (2-3K some days) visit here and CBO as well as Twitter and Pinterest and many save "favourite" posts...WHY? They are not buying so why repeatedly check out Black Tower posts and even save some if there is no interest?
In the past I thought I was doing something wrong. I lowered cover prices to the point that any sale would only get me 2-5p (2-5 cents). Nothing. No sales. Covers? I changed a lot of those -no sales.
At a couple of local events I had my books plus old small press zines. The small press stuff sold but my new books did not.And here is where I raged (inwardly of course since a chap should not stand naked in a street screaming at the top of his voice until the police arrive and taser him...more than once): I heard several times that my books looked very professional, not amateur and had a quality one would expect from a professional company. No quibbles about pricing just "too professional".
One thing I have always insisted on BECAUSE I have bought and collected comics all my life (from age of 7 anyway) so I know that frame of mind, is that if someone buys one of my books and that means parting with their money; they should get the best quality printing and the most durable quality I can give them. They may hate the contents but they cannot argue about quality of product! :-) :-)
That, apparently, is wrong.
People do not comment. They do not share links with others. They do not buy books.
In the 1980s/1990s I used to get a lot of sales because people who bought zines told others, they reviewed the zines and we met up and chatted at marts and other events. Okay, yes, I come from a time when people could write letters, talk to one another and get together at events and because everyone knew each other no one was worried about back-stabbing little Midlanders.
Often others sold my zines. I certainly sold their via the Zine Zone Mail Order Service -I still have a couple of the old catalogues to prove it.
I wrote about UK zines and comics for US comic mags as well as some in Europe. I promoted comics /zines from other countries and from UK publishers to overseas comickers. Heck (that is not the great comic artist by the way) even India, Hong Kong and Singapore were hearing about the UK comics and zines. I'll not leave out New Zealand and Australia in the name checks but then I have to include the old East Germany (rebooted into the Unified Germany) and Soviet Union, too!
This was all done in the day before the internet using letters and exchange packages and, of course, publications such as Zine Zone International and Comic Bits as well as The World's Comics (2 issues).
Today you can copy and past and simply type "Seen this?"and post around. So simple and right now when everyone is looking for ways to break the monotony you might think comickers (that is comic lovers/fans) would be doing that but no.
Over 121 books on the online store (I will not include the boxes (seriously boxes) of photocopied comics and zines that will probably form part of my funeral pyre (along with my collection of 1900s-1990s comic collection). The boxed stuff is annoying as I could sell that but two bus trips to the nearest post office and me onb the current "High Risk" list means that ain't gonna happen.
I've sort of resigned myself to people not buying books but I'll keep publishing until I croak at which point the whole store gets deleted.
I have tried to get other Indie publishers to join in with a united push of each others books but, apparently, that might involve actually doing something. So I will keep on pushing my books until CBO closes and beyond that on the Black Tower blog.
You could all make such a difference, my luvvies.
