Sales of Black Tower Books and Comics, which has the largest genre selection you could ask for, for the year 2015: seven (7).
There are people who think I am just "putting it on" but all the figures are checkable and I have always said that my business is open to a degree you will NOT find anywhere else.
The fact that a few million -still an incredible number- have seen the ads and features and posts not just on CBO but on so many other sites seems to prove a point. There is no support for independent comic companies. Image and "that" other company are not Independents. Unless it's in full colour and attached to one of the US "big four" it doesn't get the sales -95% of people out there are playing at being comic fans, though for many the hip/chic/trendy phase is gone.
Honestly, the last three years or so have been the worst I have seen, personally, since the early 1980s. I'm not going to get into the UK 'comic industry' so don't panic. But, you can not look at this in any cheery way: to have so many books and genres and to even slash prices to a point where many of them just about cover the printing cost and sell only seven is NOT a dead business. It's a business that died, got buried and is starting to smell and you begin to ask "maybe it should have been cremated?"
So, once I've sorted things out and get a straight answer to whether I need to close the online store I'll be moving on.
For the few who purchased a book -THANK YOU. For those of you who gave absolutely no support despite getting support from me for a decade or two and those who said they were going to buy but never did....have a good Christmas.
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