It never ceases to amaze me (actually it doesn't so there is your #comicbooklies moment!) how many people view my stuff but that's where it stops.
Tuesday of this week (12th?) I had to reset the CBO stats figures. For some reason the stats counter at the top of the page will not go beyond 4 million. It simply cuts back to 3,800,000. At times I note that the CBO URL is followed by be, fr, de, tw, de and so on as, presumably, Blogger -owned by Google- shifts its servers around and why they do this I leave to your imaginations. Blogger does not have a user feedback or support -since 2011 I have contacted them 25 times over issues and never received a single response and many other Blogger users will tell you the same.
Here is what my actual control panel told me at 0300 UK time:
Which would look far better on the home page though almost 4 million is nothing to be sneezed at!
Now these people will all see my art and books for sale. Nothing. My online store gets a very large number of visits but no buyers.
I was checking something on my Art Wanted portfolio and took a double take when I caught sight of the stats there:
Now over 10,000 for 2019 is VERY respectable but despite the links given..no sales.
4,863 page views on my DeviantArt page this year. No sales.
Earlier in the year, on the Face Book Black Tower page, I looked at all the internet sites listing my books and that was world wide. Many millions. No sales though. The FB page itself gets between 104-144 views per day. No one asks questions or buys books.
...I WILL finish this no matter how many times the laptop shuts down!
Now this is all a good indicator as to the health of the industry. We know Marvel and DC, Image and Dark Horse are all seeing big drops in sales -though that may very well be down to how the companies are currently being run. In the future all of this Social Justice Warrior and WOKE crap will be seen as comics "Dark Ages" when the readers became less important (and the comics) compared to being "right on" and forcing 'diversity' on an industry that never needed it -if you think it did then you have no real idea about comics and their history.
For Independents that depend on every $, or in my case every £, it is bad. There seems to be a new clique of comic book 'fan' out there: the ones I mentioned elsewhere on CBO this week who shout support for Indie comics and tell everyone that they buy them ...but never do. It gives the false impression that there ARE fans out there regularly buying the comics.
I have been, and always will be, open about the publishing side. For many, many decades double and treble book keeping, lying and much more were the common norm in comics -in the UK as well as the USA. It is a pity that other small Independent publishers do not publish their true sales so that people can see how bad things are. Okay, in the UK a lot of small press publishers fib openly -some as I witnessed myself a few years back, panicking when they were told a member of HM Taxes and Revenue was in the building! Honestly, the number of people grabbing anyone to tell them "I'm selling nothing!" was amusing.
For my part I lowered the prices of books to the point that some (so long as not sold in the US which taxes me!) will only make me 50p to £1.00 to encourage sales. Not the slightest difference. In fact we have two choices for this new age of comics:
The Dark Ages
or
The Age of Indifference
If you can support Indie publishers do -but by buying not telling people you buy when you do not.
There goes the laptop. Stay safe!
Tuesday of this week (12th?) I had to reset the CBO stats figures. For some reason the stats counter at the top of the page will not go beyond 4 million. It simply cuts back to 3,800,000. At times I note that the CBO URL is followed by be, fr, de, tw, de and so on as, presumably, Blogger -owned by Google- shifts its servers around and why they do this I leave to your imaginations. Blogger does not have a user feedback or support -since 2011 I have contacted them 25 times over issues and never received a single response and many other Blogger users will tell you the same.
Here is what my actual control panel told me at 0300 UK time:
Page views today
|
109
|
Page views yesterday
|
285
|
Page views last month
|
11,114
|
Page views all time history
|
6,805,527
|
Followers
|
Which would look far better on the home page though almost 4 million is nothing to be sneezed at!
Now these people will all see my art and books for sale. Nothing. My online store gets a very large number of visits but no buyers.
I was checking something on my Art Wanted portfolio and took a double take when I caught sight of the stats there:
Now over 10,000 for 2019 is VERY respectable but despite the links given..no sales.
4,863 page views on my DeviantArt page this year. No sales.
Earlier in the year, on the Face Book Black Tower page, I looked at all the internet sites listing my books and that was world wide. Many millions. No sales though. The FB page itself gets between 104-144 views per day. No one asks questions or buys books.
...I WILL finish this no matter how many times the laptop shuts down!
Now this is all a good indicator as to the health of the industry. We know Marvel and DC, Image and Dark Horse are all seeing big drops in sales -though that may very well be down to how the companies are currently being run. In the future all of this Social Justice Warrior and WOKE crap will be seen as comics "Dark Ages" when the readers became less important (and the comics) compared to being "right on" and forcing 'diversity' on an industry that never needed it -if you think it did then you have no real idea about comics and their history.
For Independents that depend on every $, or in my case every £, it is bad. There seems to be a new clique of comic book 'fan' out there: the ones I mentioned elsewhere on CBO this week who shout support for Indie comics and tell everyone that they buy them ...but never do. It gives the false impression that there ARE fans out there regularly buying the comics.
I have been, and always will be, open about the publishing side. For many, many decades double and treble book keeping, lying and much more were the common norm in comics -in the UK as well as the USA. It is a pity that other small Independent publishers do not publish their true sales so that people can see how bad things are. Okay, in the UK a lot of small press publishers fib openly -some as I witnessed myself a few years back, panicking when they were told a member of HM Taxes and Revenue was in the building! Honestly, the number of people grabbing anyone to tell them "I'm selling nothing!" was amusing.
For my part I lowered the prices of books to the point that some (so long as not sold in the US which taxes me!) will only make me 50p to £1.00 to encourage sales. Not the slightest difference. In fact we have two choices for this new age of comics:
The Dark Ages
or
The Age of Indifference
If you can support Indie publishers do -but by buying not telling people you buy when you do not.
There goes the laptop. Stay safe!
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