Yeah, 99.99% of those who visit CBO never leave a comment so maybe our creative team needs to re-think that one!
Also, as I did say I would give regular-ish up-dates: no. No one is buying books from the online store even with the huge price cuts. Come October those prices shoot back up again. If a month of very low prices (for the third time) isn't getting sales then they never will.
Personally, I have lost faith completely. Unless it's someones pal publishing a zine no one wants to do the outrageous and buy another person's book. And this all re-inforces what I have written all along: the comic geek chicsters are just that: in it while it seems hot, hip and trendy -rather like the hipsters with their beards and I notice a lot fewer recently.
To me, if you cannot, with all the publicity CBO, Twitter, Google+ and umpteen Feeds of CBO postings gives, get any sales then your business is dead. This means no new books -the online store is crammed with them so doing a week or so of work to produce a new one is like walking into the sea and tasting the water and saying "Maybe a tad more salt?"
Well, it stays there until December 31st and then adieu. Too much hard work and wasted time and believe me I never thought I would ever write or say that but....meh.
Yes, CBO will go as well. There are 5 (?) main people who leave comments and I appreciate that but out of a couple thousand a day that is a very poor result. No time wasted writing for CBO or producing comics means I will finally have free time. I guess it will be back to the mystery hunting!
I would say on re your comment on the lack of comments on your blog that whilst I can appreciate that must be disheartening (given the obvious passion and work you put into it) the fact you get so many hits on your site (over 2million) means people enjoy reading it. I think most sites don’t have a lot of people commenting unless it’s all about current MARVEL / DC or specialist areas of the genre. I only found your site a few months ago and I enjoy it, I don’t understand the foreign language items you post now and then but loved the item (a while ago) on old fanzines etc. But with 2000 visits a day you just need to get an "angle" on how to turn that into sales (probably stating the bl**dy obvious there) to me thats a great starting point - have you considered doing a survey askin gvisitors what they are looking for etc? Dare I say produce a commercial book on Marvel etc?
ReplyDeleteAs to your books I had a look and couldn’t understand if they were comics or text – of course I didn’t noticed you had a “preview” option (duh!!!) but maybe others hadn’t either (maybe make it bigger?) but I’ll have a wee look at your books later now.
Hi, Paul. Well, I've posted preview pages and on the store, as on CBO and elsewhere the text books are identified as such. If you click a book the page you go to has this to the right of all of the comic based ones:Keywords
ReplyDeleteBritish Gold Collection
Listed In
Comics & Graphic Novels
And the previews option lets you look at some interior pages.
I've tried most angles with CBO in 14...no, over 15 years now. After 40+ years in comics I learnt a lot of tricks and tried most but.....I'm getting too old to keep faffing about.
You produce a commercial book on Marvel -really? What's it called?
Comics ennui sets in as you get older. I remember when the Huik had THREE toes!
;-)
Hi Sorry no I meant why don't you under your imprint produce a more commercial book on say Marvel or DC to get folk interested in your other books say looking at the darker side of the companies etc (looking at how they treat gender, race, sex etc) I used to work in advertising I can't help the daft ideas , sorry.
ReplyDeleteHi, Paul. Sorry. Misunderstood. To be honest almost every aspect of Marvel comics has been covered in one way or another. Also, you would need to use a good few images and Disney stamp down on that like an elephant -unless you pay a rather highest fee. DC are very similar -with them it began in the 1980s when Mark Farmer(?) had to stop Eat The Magic Batzine, a Batman fan zine because DC threatened legal action. Up to that point a fanzine was a fanzine and companies encouraged them because it was FREE publicity. About two years ago a man called Ted Ryler was producing a fanzine dedicated to DC and one day got a call from DCs solicitors. He went to all the local shops that had the zine and took them back and all the copies for mailing out he burnt and refunded everyone. You start doing that to your fans then you are dead. And honestly, I don't need more hassle!
ReplyDeleteWow!!! things certainly have changed a lot since the early days of fandom that is beyond pedantic of DC etc the money grabbing tyrants , no wonder there output is so awful now if thats the way the look at their business.
ReplyDeleteOh yeah EVERY cent is counted and wanted. It's why most merchandise has old 1980s or before art -as a few artists from back then point out, they get NOTHING because the law in the US was different and it was work for hire.
ReplyDelete