Yesterday, having been ill for a week, I looked at the stack of pages on the desk. One thing I hate about being ill -other than being ill- is that I have to be still and can't do any work.
So, at 1100 hrs I started scanning and editing and then publishing A Little Midnight Horror 3 then came the letting the world wide web know that the book was out there. So I was done by 2230 hrs.
Or so I thought. I had completed 23 pages of the new book yesterday while waiting for all the tech stuff with ALMH but realised that Black Tower Super Heroes No. 4 had been on the schedule to release next week.
What the hell -it's only an 80 pager. So all the editing followed by two pdf failures which was odd because on the thiord attempt it all worked. Then the Print On Demand company system decided that my covers were inadequate for some reason. Resize, etc....nope. Their system was being a pain (again) and probably due to their new idea of them resizing covers after uploaded for their new and nonsensical "ppi" on all covers (just do not ask).
Finally, at 0130 hrs (so I'm into Saturday here) it was all done. Some online promotion and at 0200 hrs I got to stop.
All this on top of other things.
In the UK the energy companies are reporting lower usage and that causes them 'problems' (yeah, like people realising they do not really have to use so much power and pay through the nose for it).
Perhaps so many people are not using the internet? When all of this lockdown started there were problems -a mad rush to hoard the internet next to the toilet rolls?
I did post back then that a lot of claims that this would all be good for us online sellers of comics. I also pointed out that whoever put that idea out there was not in Dimension Reality. Since then I have asked, checked and noticed something. Publishers both Indie and Small Press are NOT seeing the new "black and White Explosion" (as in the 1980s). I have had some sales but these are of the world mystery books not comics and my 'profit' from those sales as I've pointed out in the past are quite low so not business saving.
CBO has had a constant and steady audience but then that audience is world-wide. However, looking at social media things have certainly dropped off. My Twitter account was getting between 17-18,000 views over a 28 day period (regularly). It dropped to 15k then 10k and currently gets 5-6k per 28 day period so it is very noticable but stats have never worried me that much.
The Black Tower Comics and Books Face Book page seems to be maintaining its regular view figures.
However, no one is reporting an upsurge in sales. In many -say 90%- of cases this can be put down to those publishing not even bothering mentioning their books. If you belong to a Small Press Face Book group with 100 members -who mainly all see themselves as publishers so are not buyers- then all you are doing is letting people know you are still alive. There are a good few such groups on Face Book and mostly all self contained. If you want to attract buyers then you need to promote outside of these groups.
The first thing I did when it was announced that DC and Marvel were not printing comics and that Diamond were not distributing any was send a message to Small Press groups on Face Book. I pointed out that now was the time to get people to pay attention to their books. I further suggested that, on our blogs or private FB pages, we give links to one anothers sites and books. Basically, Iwas pointing out the obvious.
My messages got two "Likes". No one was interested.
On Wednesday, not my best day health-wise, I got a message from some online comic site. Apparently, during a round robin You Tube discussion three of the four taking part highlighted Black Tower as a "company to watch in 2020 going into 2021". These people were in the US and as I have not sold m,any books to the US I had to ask "Why?" All the usual bigging up followed and as my neck and head pounded even more I said that it was all very nice but until I saw sales flooding in I would not get excited.
I then deleted rather than saved the message exchange and do you think I can even remember the You Tube channel or names involved? First time since the internet came along that I never saved a conversation -this could be senility moving in!
The truth of the matter is that Black Tower has over 100 items in the onlione store and I don't see sales trickling in.
Day-time internet usage has, if you believe the telecom companies -and some have cast doubts- doubled since the lockdown but this is probably down to people working from home. Or, perhaps, even trying to buy food online.
There are two certainties from the current lockdown:
1) There will be a lot of divorces
2) There will be a steep rise in new births next year
Offering digital copies of books for free is NOT a good idea. A couple of publishers who have tried that found views sharply declined and that illegal downloads of the books on offer shot up. You see, you might offer the books with the best intentions but once put online....
All you can do is offer good books at low prices -mine are priced as low as they can go and everything is printed in the region where orders come from so it's local shipping (not international). It's basically your breakfast, dinner and supper laid out for you -you just need to choose.
If anyone has seen an upsurge in sales let me know (it's okay I write that knowing no one ever bothers :-) !) and if you know the name of that YT comic channel let me know.
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