I posted a while back how someone I knew had looked at stats, trends, etc., on CBO for me (mainly because it is meaningless jibber to me)
https://hoopercomicart.blogspot.co.uk/2018/03/get-out-your-atlass-not-comics.html
Anyway, the fella that looked at all of this was stumped. Why was no one commenting? Everything was working fine and that is why he asked me if I deleted comments. Obviously not because the easiest way to stop comments is to go to settings and Turn Off Comments.
So he checked the online store and pointed out the POD (Print On demand) company was using a very old system. Yeah, we all know that! So apart from the online store needing a views counter -I've said that for years and there is nothing I can do about it. I may raise this with them again.
He also checked and confirmed that I am the largest publisher of Independent comics in Europe. This got him even more confused by the lack of comments. So he turned his attention to the media I use to promote my books and posts -Google+ (Public/You Tube Comic Community). Pinterest. Twitter. Face Book the BTC page and general comics pages. My Yahoo groups (several). The Black Tower blog and CBO obviously. He knows I have two emails -one for professional use and one for general comics stuff.
Putting all of this together he asked a simple question: "How long does it take you to respond to your daily emails -one hour plus?" He never believed my answer so I showed him. Checking the emails, message services AND the online store to see if anything has sold overnight takes...just over one minute. Now, he knows how I feel. He asked how is it even possible with that many people viewing items that there are no comments, questions or even messages from people running other companies? I told him if he ever found out to let me know.
During the 1980s and up to 1995 before everyone decided the internet was "the only way to go" it was not unheard of me to get 6-10 letters a day. Some days far more and per week I think the record was 160. Yes, 160 people got a piece of paper and a pen -or typewriter- and wrote. They folded up that "letter" (look it up I am sure there is a Wikipedia entry that will describe what a letter is). Folded, that letter was then placed in an envelope (PLEASE do not get confused: an envelope it a fold sheet of paper you could put letters in -again try Wikipedia). They licked the envelope to seal it and...there are Millenials everywhere erupting in nose bleeds...okay, they put a stamp on the envelope. A stamp is a tiny piece of paper you purchased in a Post Office. This "Letter" was then put into a post box (you know, those read things with the wide mouths you occasionally see on the street. It gets complicated from there.
Would visuals help you Millenials?
(1) a sheet of BLANK paper (don't panic!)
(2) a biro pen....it has ink in it so your "writing" appears on the paper
(3) A type writer. Like your keyboard you press the letters you need to make words appear on the paper -there are corresponding teeny letter at the other end of each key. It is NOT magic. I used various type writers from 1974 up to 2005 and still have two nearby (but I would NEVER let one marry my sister!)
(4) DEEP breath. This is where it gets confusing. This is a letter envelope that you put the letter you wrote or typed into and then seal. You see that in the upper right hand corner -the little square with someones granny on it? That is a postage stamp. Once that is on your envelope....
Right, I could not find a photo of a postman (or woman -I did say they were rare) so I substituted a photo of British Wrestling legend Mick McManus. Look, it may be too much for Millenials so take a deeeep breath and stroke the beard Princess.
All that effort. Now you just need to click a button to Like ,"+" re-Tweet and so on and not even venture out to locate these mythic items of paper, pen and envelope. That easy. Apparently not.
"Please help us save the comics industry"........0 views
"New Threat to Vegan Soufflettes!" Yahoo news story....
Response: 798564874968758
Retweets ("sending Twitter into meltdown") 78906795674
Angry blog posts: 857759339300
Heated debates at the Cafe Puccini: 578559956
Instagram photos of beloved Vegan souflette: 59648737
Forum arguments regarding "Gender neutrality in Vegan souflette making": 456632060646575756657
People deeply and seriously affected by this issue and the socio-political-sexual ramifications of the crisis and who have eaten a vegan souflette: 1 (we think he was lying for attention).
Hipster beard stroking count: 4953286570523064
Anti-SJW blogs/videos: 7986060696868
Yahoo commentors blaming gipsies, foreigners, immigrants and Labour: 6896659055055046
Number of Vegan Soufflettes saved........WTF have vegan soufflettes got to do with this?
People who asked "What does Morrissey think?".....789564
And you wonder why creators of 30 + years give up? Why they burn all their books and some artwork?
Look at it this way: I get all those views on CBO and elsewhere. People who are allegedly comic fans from all over the world and do I get emails? Comments? Questions? Sales? No. Now I am old school and worked at a time when tomato ketchup in a cup of hot water with stale bread broken up in it was a meal (that is NOT a joke). I saw comic artists who hadn't eaten for days but they still had fans and people who wrote to them or spoke to them.
"That cover has an image of a woman with big breasts!" Covered up breasts mind you. A woman has breasts, you know. Anyone checked out Marvel or DC or other companies comic covers some of which have nude women on the covers? Basically, strokie-beard is using political correctness because they just don't want to sell books. They will sell comics promoting cannabis or drugs because they are hip and cool.
See this "Teddy Boy" ?
He's 31 years old now and used to be hip and cool (no disrespect to Teds -love 'em!). Does he look like he'll have a complete Social Media meltdown because his quiche was a bit "off"? Like feck -he'd razor it right up. Not go stroke his beard in a corner.
Look: if people creating for over 30 years try everything they can, promote like crazy and wear themselves down but sell nothing and only get negativity then it is because it makes no logical sense to them -nor to me- that you use the "mighty internet" to promote and ...."in your 556 word promo I don't know if you noticed but you forgot a full-stop at the end of line 5!"
Do not even think I am joking about that.
The only logical conclusion is that comics has quite literally died. There are no real fans buying anything new. The internet as a tool is a joke. The only ones making money from it are the people who promote its use, design websites and 'advise' on how to use it to 'grow' your business (you grow things in manure you know....uh...another confuser for millenials....dung.
There. Dung. What's dung? sigh. It is a huge pile of
oh please -Wikipedia or Google it.
Anyway, these proponents of the internet take the money and when people tell them: "We don't seem to be getting any sales -in fact sales have dropped since we went fully online!" the response is: "Well, it has to be your product. Not my fault".....it's almost like an internet dating scam -get money then run!
Creators get about as much feed-back as a rat floating in a sewer somewhere after eating a gone off vegan soufflette. That and no sales. They begin to question everything they are doing even if they are doing everything right. They point out that they are producing quality work but no one wants it these days and...out come the snide little vermin and pals and launch attacks on their, uh, troubled 'friend'. It goes on day-in and day-out.
I'm too old to quit. I have everything a publisher is supposed to need and do everything a publisher is expected to do -results: nothing. So imagine the creator with brain overloading questioning everything and trying to make sense.
The world is a place where a retired Count Jim Moriarty takes on work as a Post Office letter box makes more sense.
https://hoopercomicart.blogspot.co.uk/2018/03/get-out-your-atlass-not-comics.html
Anyway, the fella that looked at all of this was stumped. Why was no one commenting? Everything was working fine and that is why he asked me if I deleted comments. Obviously not because the easiest way to stop comments is to go to settings and Turn Off Comments.
So he checked the online store and pointed out the POD (Print On demand) company was using a very old system. Yeah, we all know that! So apart from the online store needing a views counter -I've said that for years and there is nothing I can do about it. I may raise this with them again.
He also checked and confirmed that I am the largest publisher of Independent comics in Europe. This got him even more confused by the lack of comments. So he turned his attention to the media I use to promote my books and posts -Google+ (Public/You Tube Comic Community). Pinterest. Twitter. Face Book the BTC page and general comics pages. My Yahoo groups (several). The Black Tower blog and CBO obviously. He knows I have two emails -one for professional use and one for general comics stuff.
Putting all of this together he asked a simple question: "How long does it take you to respond to your daily emails -one hour plus?" He never believed my answer so I showed him. Checking the emails, message services AND the online store to see if anything has sold overnight takes...just over one minute. Now, he knows how I feel. He asked how is it even possible with that many people viewing items that there are no comments, questions or even messages from people running other companies? I told him if he ever found out to let me know.
During the 1980s and up to 1995 before everyone decided the internet was "the only way to go" it was not unheard of me to get 6-10 letters a day. Some days far more and per week I think the record was 160. Yes, 160 people got a piece of paper and a pen -or typewriter- and wrote. They folded up that "letter" (look it up I am sure there is a Wikipedia entry that will describe what a letter is). Folded, that letter was then placed in an envelope (PLEASE do not get confused: an envelope it a fold sheet of paper you could put letters in -again try Wikipedia). They licked the envelope to seal it and...there are Millenials everywhere erupting in nose bleeds...okay, they put a stamp on the envelope. A stamp is a tiny piece of paper you purchased in a Post Office. This "Letter" was then put into a post box (you know, those read things with the wide mouths you occasionally see on the street. It gets complicated from there.
Would visuals help you Millenials?
(1) a sheet of BLANK paper (don't panic!)
(2) a biro pen....it has ink in it so your "writing" appears on the paper
(4) DEEP breath. This is where it gets confusing. This is a letter envelope that you put the letter you wrote or typed into and then seal. You see that in the upper right hand corner -the little square with someones granny on it? That is a postage stamp. Once that is on your envelope....
...you put it into one of these. It is used by Olden Day folk in modern times. This particular one is unscrupulous member of the French aristocracy, Count Jim Moriarty who turned to crime to support his lifestyle and upon retiring and receiving the DSO, MBE and SW Gas became a professional Post Office letter box in Northampton on the British Sub-Riviera.
Your letter is then collected by a post office employee and put through its system until delivered to your address by a Postman.
Postmen are very rare (it is even claimed that some women deliver mail these days -Mail refers to letters not the gender) so here is a photo of one:
All that effort. Now you just need to click a button to Like ,"+" re-Tweet and so on and not even venture out to locate these mythic items of paper, pen and envelope. That easy. Apparently not.
"Please help us save the comics industry"........0 views
"New Threat to Vegan Soufflettes!" Yahoo news story....
Response: 798564874968758
Retweets ("sending Twitter into meltdown") 78906795674
Angry blog posts: 857759339300
Heated debates at the Cafe Puccini: 578559956
Instagram photos of beloved Vegan souflette: 59648737
Forum arguments regarding "Gender neutrality in Vegan souflette making": 456632060646575756657
People deeply and seriously affected by this issue and the socio-political-sexual ramifications of the crisis and who have eaten a vegan souflette: 1 (we think he was lying for attention).
Hipster beard stroking count: 4953286570523064
Anti-SJW blogs/videos: 7986060696868
Yahoo commentors blaming gipsies, foreigners, immigrants and Labour: 6896659055055046
Number of Vegan Soufflettes saved........WTF have vegan soufflettes got to do with this?
People who asked "What does Morrissey think?".....789564
And you wonder why creators of 30 + years give up? Why they burn all their books and some artwork?
Look at it this way: I get all those views on CBO and elsewhere. People who are allegedly comic fans from all over the world and do I get emails? Comments? Questions? Sales? No. Now I am old school and worked at a time when tomato ketchup in a cup of hot water with stale bread broken up in it was a meal (that is NOT a joke). I saw comic artists who hadn't eaten for days but they still had fans and people who wrote to them or spoke to them.
"That cover has an image of a woman with big breasts!" Covered up breasts mind you. A woman has breasts, you know. Anyone checked out Marvel or DC or other companies comic covers some of which have nude women on the covers? Basically, strokie-beard is using political correctness because they just don't want to sell books. They will sell comics promoting cannabis or drugs because they are hip and cool.
See this "Teddy Boy" ?
He's 31 years old now and used to be hip and cool (no disrespect to Teds -love 'em!). Does he look like he'll have a complete Social Media meltdown because his quiche was a bit "off"? Like feck -he'd razor it right up. Not go stroke his beard in a corner.
Look: if people creating for over 30 years try everything they can, promote like crazy and wear themselves down but sell nothing and only get negativity then it is because it makes no logical sense to them -nor to me- that you use the "mighty internet" to promote and ...."in your 556 word promo I don't know if you noticed but you forgot a full-stop at the end of line 5!"
Do not even think I am joking about that.
The only logical conclusion is that comics has quite literally died. There are no real fans buying anything new. The internet as a tool is a joke. The only ones making money from it are the people who promote its use, design websites and 'advise' on how to use it to 'grow' your business (you grow things in manure you know....uh...another confuser for millenials....dung.
There. Dung. What's dung? sigh. It is a huge pile of
oh please -Wikipedia or Google it.
Anyway, these proponents of the internet take the money and when people tell them: "We don't seem to be getting any sales -in fact sales have dropped since we went fully online!" the response is: "Well, it has to be your product. Not my fault".....it's almost like an internet dating scam -get money then run!
Creators get about as much feed-back as a rat floating in a sewer somewhere after eating a gone off vegan soufflette. That and no sales. They begin to question everything they are doing even if they are doing everything right. They point out that they are producing quality work but no one wants it these days and...out come the snide little vermin and pals and launch attacks on their, uh, troubled 'friend'. It goes on day-in and day-out.
I'm too old to quit. I have everything a publisher is supposed to need and do everything a publisher is expected to do -results: nothing. So imagine the creator with brain overloading questioning everything and trying to make sense.
The world is a place where a retired Count Jim Moriarty takes on work as a Post Office letter box makes more sense.
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