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Terry Hooper-Scharf

Wednesday, 5 December 2018

Meh

I know that no one either cares or can be bothered  and I really do not give a rat's ass -MY blog.

Google+ made it impossible to track views when it decided messing up stats was a good way to 'improve' their system.  From 3 million it went back to 0 but each month over 1000 people click on the links to read CBO posts.

CBO was getting between 3-5000 hits per day until early January when Blogger (part of Google) decided that it would no longer include views from systems it did not own or control or even from countries it did not like such as China: which completely vanished from stats.  So 20,000 views last month does not give an accurate picture but what it does do is put people off of blogging. Still get the same high daily views but it takes me 2 hours to look them up and then get an idea of total stats.

For over 20 years I have run the CBO blog on one site or another and I have:

Promoted the UK Small Press and creators Small Press events-from the "UK Invasion" in the United States to local, regional and national -not to mention international. What did I get from all of this?  I lost money and valuable time as one runt after another stabbed me in the back, used my reviews and quotes and that was it.  Small Press events I could not even get half a table at.  Not free but paying.  Oh no, all tables were gone the moment I publicised the events -even though days later I read how someone had just got a table.  When I have gotten a table (at a Bristol event) to say that I was treated rudely is an understatement.

When no one was interested in supporting Small Pressers or events I was there.

Promoted new UK comics and comic events -year in and year out these events got their publicity and promotion.  In all those years how many times was I able to book a table from these lovable, dedicated people?  Never. Same thing: I announce and promote an event and ask to book one and "Oh all gone!" yet people are booking tables for the next week.

I have helped to promote peoples comic blogs and videos.  I think it safe to write that "Thank you" was a rare phrase to hear.

I have promoted and pushed books for big publishers including Titan Books (reviews of their books are still in the top twenty posts of all time) and Cinebook the 9th Art -never out of the top ten posts. I ask Titan about books to promote and so on and "nothing.  Or the familiar "nothing at the moment but we'll be in touch".

I have been ripped off by UK and US comic companies and seen millions of illegal downloads of my books -they are still out there. I have helped more people get into comics than I care to remember and only Jon Haward was ever publicly grateful about that.

CBO has taken a lot of work to bring up-to-date news and even a few exclusives. There have been mega posts with hundreds of images and thousands of words and in all of the years these have solicited zero responses or comments (I exclude those by friends) and you people could not even Google+ or share the posts. It is like posting to myself.

I suggested that Patreon and other ways might be used to fund CBO and keep it going so that there could be more posts and videos.  I tried that several times and the response was...well, there was NO response.  It seems that I have to be female and show my tits or "NSFW" photos to qualify for any kind of reader support.  That or mindlessly and negatively attack other bloggers or comics.  That seems what you want. I even tried offering advertising to publishers who do well -THEY know that because they have reported increased sales after CBO reviews- out of CBO. A stone wall.

I have seen one small comic publisher after another go because alleged comic 'fans' are just trendy folk who only say "I read comics" because they think that makes them cool. I have seen You Tube comic vloggers go from 40 quality channels to...well, they are gone.  Comic bloggers -gone.

This is all something that I predicted over ten years ago -if you can be bothered you'll find the posts. I wish I had been wrong.  The so called 'nice guys' in British comics with their back-stabbing, lying and cheating have got what their pals who sneaked into editorial jobs were obviously keen on: they have killed UK comics.

With all the social media outlets I used you might think that I would fair better than smaller publishers. I have not. For the first time in almost 40 years I am looking at zero sales. In fact, this has been almost constant but 2017 -zero sales of comic albums or graphic novels and yet there are many books and genres on the online store.  And it is not because the books are in black and white -I know publishers who lost money by going to colour production and, despite what they were publishing being top quality, they still sold no books.  It was pure comic 'fan' bull shit because they were never going to buy in B&W or colour.

Today, I was told that I "qualify for going to a food bank"

Almost 40 years of publishing and that is what it comes down to.

So I would like to say to all of you who have taken advantage over the years or who read the blog and just do not give a shit, a very warm "fuck you".

Hey, someone wants to come in and financially support or advertise CBO I'm here but I'm still looking up at the sky for those flying pigs

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