A Long Journey May End Soon

 From the Black Tower Comics & Books blog

There is enough written about Black Tower Comics and Books history on its Face Book page and elsewhere -even been a long interview with me in 2010  (I very -very- rarely do interviews). You can read that here: 

https://blacktowerbooks.blogspot.com/2010/11/phil-latter-interviews-terry-hooper.html

Yeah, it took a lot of persuading to get me to do the QRD interview so its roughly 10 years between me boring you!

In 2009 I officially moved from the Small Press publishing (1984-2008) of Black Tower to Black Tower Comics & Books. The shift was to more professional printing and quality as well as filling the niche left behind when British comics died out. Gil Page, the former Managing Editor at Fleetway once told me that he wished he was allowed to publish new material and expand things -I also learnt that at one point he had suggested me as a new editor to push new titles but the board had told him it was "not affordable"!

The first new book to be put onto the online store was The Bat Triumphant and it concluded a story started in the Small Press version of Black Tower Adventure (vol. 1) in 1999. 

The second book published in 2010 featured another British Golden Age character -and without "rebooting" but sticking to the character established by William A. Ward- Krakos -Sands of Terror. The cover got a lot of attention and was put forward for an award, however, in one of its many screw-ups, the print on demand company I use removed the book from sale (they never explained why but I think they updated their system and a lot of things vanished); I could only get the award for an available book so there went the award. 

After the comics I published the first of the "World Mystery" books -Some Things Strange & Sinister- and then The Hooper Interviews which included interviews with Marv Wolfman, Michael Cho (now a popular comic artist), Franco Francavilla and many others.  You might think that comic fans might find that an interesting read -I even kept the initial price so low that I only made 20p/20c from any sale. The book has never sold a single copy. 

British comic forums, Yahoo Groups and other sites had plenty of people asking why no one ever publishes British Golden Age material -"I would buy that in a second!" So I published 5 volumes of rare and (if yo find them very expensive to buy) hard to find comics and strips and after that run was complete all the volumes (though still available singly) were put into The Ultimate British Golden Age Collection -the added benefit was that this volume would cost less than if you purchased volumes 1-5. Very poor sales though I am glad that the late Brian (Bib) Edwards -who was doing steampunk comics before anyone else- saw a copy before he passed. He was "over joyed" and said that it brought back so many happy memories.  

I have, since 2009, kept prices very low to attract sales and help fans save money. Never worked. I made other offers -signed copies, free A4 illoes and more but no takers. It's odd since there is no international shipping involved with an online world-wide store. You order in your own currency and the book is printed and posted in your region. Too easy?

I have seen one Independent after another vanish because people are more interested in marvel or DC -most buy those comics because they have never read a comic before or have seen the movies and TV series and so "its cool" (declaring yourself a "comic geek" is a sure sign that you are a trendy). "It's not in colour!" declares one shocked person looking at an Indie comic interior. These are people playing at being comic fans. Publishers have tried everything to make sales and stay in business but if you are dealing with people with no real love of the medium or only buy because they have been told their purchase will be worth "a few grand in a year or so" it's not good.

The idea of offering PDF comics is one that I will never consider. Along with artists David Gordon and Art Wetherell I wrote they drew two best selling "adult comics" for Fantagraphic Books (a contract we found meant nothing and we were all ripped off) and in total probably made £/$2000/3000 from massive sales. So, when someone who does internet searches and analytics told me (and showed me the data) that each book had been illegally uploaded and illegally downloaded from internet sites I told Fantagraphics and got the response "nothing we can do" (in fact they knew full well that as US publishers they could alert authorities to copyright theft).

The last check revealed that the ("if I like the downloaded comic I'll buy it") people on these sites had downloaded both books in such numbers that if each of the creators had only received £1/$1 for every download each would be worth over £/$3 million right now. That is why anyone tells me that "if I like the downloaded comic I'll buy it" lie I tell them outright that they are a criminal and have taken part in theft. "if I like the downloaded comic I'll buy it" is not a defence that would work in court.

Even a quarter of that amount would have secured a solid ground for publishing to continue but the truth is that no one really cares. 

Next year Black Tower will reach 40 years of age. It has at times been a struggle with trolling, lies and worse from "good guys" who used to work in British comics as well as on the production side where I have had to update every book online at least seven times since 2010 and in many cases had to re-upload and re-publish books due to "technical upgrades" to systems that screwed up a lot of people. That work alone took two weeks day after day to complete and then there are the sudden price hikes because "Our printers want more money and so do we".

I want to complete a few projects before or during 2024 because I doubt Black Tower will be surviving beyond that. Over 200 books -graphic novels, comics, comic albums and books covering all genres- and sales so low it means a sale and my cut of the "profit"  (especially after US Taxes -the print on demand company is in the US and though I am in the UK and books published all over the world I stil, have to pay US taxes) can total 75p/c to £/$7 if I am lucky.

I have a plan that will involved closing the online store because I do not want to spend more years sorting technical problems. I will make the store private and there will only be a limited number of books I will have in stock and these will only be orderable in the UK. I should point somethings out.

Firstly, since this blog was set up in 2011 it has, according to the home page counter, only had 70,000+ views. In fact, Blogger changes it server so often and suddenly stat counters show less views -after the last server change this blog lost 10,000 views. Comic Bits Online has a world wide audience and the stats on home page says just under 5 Million views. I keep an eye on the stats and the actual view total is 9 million. So looking at the views of Black Tower books from all of the blogs I can tell you that world wide views total 4 million. Again, a quarter of those people buying the cheapest book would make me happy.

Twitter before it screwed up saw 2000+ views of items posted per month and the old Google+ had total views of over 2 million. Look at Pinterest and other social media and I have had what two people have called "publishers can only dream of numbers". 

Social media will NOT sell your books.

When UK comic events charge between £/$150-300 for a 6ft table and usually tucked away from the "big sellers of toys etc" then no publisher can afford that. It is a scam price because it means you have to sell books to that value and many more to cover costs. You are quite literally bleeding out money and losing. Oh, and Small Press events do not look on me favourably as my books look "very professional and high quality" and those words are uttered with a look of disdain.  

Basically, I should be in Europe rather than the UK which does not treat well or consider its creators as anything worth bothering with.

So, new projects need to be put out and then in 2024 I can consider the actual options though those do not look good at the moment. Sales at the moment for 2023 stand at (my 'profit') £/$7.15.