"You can lead a horse to water but you cannot make it drink"

To date, no one who has had copies of Black Tower tiles has had anything negative to say.

My initial idea was to send copies of books to people in comics that I know and who really do not give two parrot-poops about criticising something.  My thought was that they would spot a problem and I could deal with that or withdraw a book until it was sorted.

All came back with very minor criticism but what I expected. There was more praise than I expected and I even double checked but as one put it: "If you'd sent me crap I'm have told you it was crap". 

Fair enough.

Then I got into a conversation with someone well known and "a name" in comics. During the exchange he asked about sales. I explained the situation.  He asked if I could send him copies and he'd go through them and offer advice.

Books sent.

There was the dreaded (in my mind) email. I took a deep breath and prepared myself for shredding.

"There is no way that you are not selling these titles. I wasnt (sic) expecting to get anything but titles that might show a lot of problems.  I couldn't believe what I was reading. This stuff should be selling"

He then asked if this "not selling" was a ploy to get people to buy?  Seriously, I have no idea how that would work! In fact he actually made it clear that he did not believe books were not selling in any numbers so I sent him the sales page -which is dated and I have no ability to alter in any way (the Print company controls that).

I waited.  Nothing.  Then another email. "This is ******* crap! You are all over the internet and you are not selling?  Jeezus the industry really is screwed"

So, I guess the comics industry really is screwed then!

What's the old saying -"You can lead a horse to water but you cannot make it drink"?