November book sales - LFCC, D2D, and a good month for Etsy

Here we see me, all set up for the London Film & Comic Con at Olympia in London, Nov 11 & 12. It's my third time at the event, and for some reason I thought my table would be enhanced by pinning a bit of Star Wars material to the front. How rubbish did that look? Not that it hurt sales, as this ended up being my biggest weekend of book sales all year.

The event didn't attract art buyers, so my Dr Strange, Star Trek, Beano and Red Dwarf pages went largely ignored (unlike NICE, The Lakes, and the last LFCC, where art sales amounted to the bulk of my takings). Here are my takings from book sales alone:

Saturday £178.80, Sunday £219.83

Richard The Third - 12

Findlay Macbeth - 9

Colouring books (various) - 8

Prince Of Denmark Street - 7

Scottish Falsetto Socks Superheroes - 5

Scottish Falsetto Socks Annual (new) - 4

All 3 books - 4

Midsummer Night's Dream Team - 3

Tales From The Bible - 2

A little earlier, on Nov 2nd, I'd done a class for Bridges Centre Monmouth, at Green Room in Chepstow, where I sold Richard The Thirds to parents afterwards, with the centre meeting half the costs, so the families got the books for £3 each. 23 books for a total of £153.77.

Live book sales Nov = £552.40

October £86.93, September £965.55, August £565.49, July £460, June £304.50

D2D Nov sales - $34.57 (26 books) *

Check out that graph (above). Richard The Third sold 57 copies in October, and another 23 this month (+ 2 Esthers and 1 Findlay Macbeth) meaning my sales on Amazon via D2D/Ingram finally signify in some small way.

Oct - $90.48, Sept - £0, August $4.23, July $7.39, June $6.03, May $1.86, April $1.52, March $2.46, Feb $0, Jan $4.10

Etsy Nov sales - £152.34 (17 orders) * Best month since April

Eurovision Vol 1 - 6

Punk - 3

Richard The Third - 2

1980s - 2

Doctors - 2

Eurovision Vol 2 - 2

1990s - 1

Socks Superheroes - 1

Socks t shirt - 1

MNDT - 1

PODS - 1

FM - 1

October - £51.92, Sept £0, August £13.98, July £48.93, June £55.92, May £58.05, Apr £171.05, Mar £80.86, Feb £44.50, Jan £82.86

* D2D, Lulu & Blurb show profit from sales, Etsy & Live events show turnover including any postage.

Lulu direct Nov sales - £70.51 * (direct sales through Lulu, mostly Scottish Falsetto Socks Annuals). 

Socks Annuals (GB) @ £5.20 = 10

Socks Annuals (DE) @ £6.51 = 2

Punk (IE) @ £5.49 = 1

Lulu/Amazon Nov sales (arrived Dec 11): £37.02

Doctors Col - 1 (Can) 9 (UK)

Shakespeare Omnibus - 5 (UK)  1 (DE)

Eurovision Best Of - 5 (UK)

Scottish Pop - 2 (US)

Tales From Bible - 1 (US) 1 (UK)

Findlay Macbeth - 1 (DE) 1 (UK)

60s Pop - 1 (US)

2020s Pop - 1 (US)

80s Pop - 1 (UK)

Euro Vol 2 - 1 (US)

Captain Clevedon  - 1 (UK)

80s Superstars - 1 (UK)

+ £1.52 - If I'm right that's 2 Prince Of Denmark Street ebooks (and I didn't know I could even sell ebooks through Lulu!) 

October - £14.23, September - £18.76, Aug £33.34, July £27.60, June £29.94, May £48.33, April £52.26, March £8.56, Feb £38.57, Jan £35.25, & Dec £26.84

Blurb Nov sales - 38c (1 sale)

October - 39p, Sept - £1.29, August £0, July £1.17, June £0, May 74p, Apr £9.12, Mar £3.13, Feb £3.21, Jan 12p

My Books and where to get them:

Richard The Third - Amazon - Etsy - Barnes & Noble - Waterstones

Findlay Macbeth - Amazon  - Etsy 
Prince Of Denmark Street - Amazon - Etsy - Kindle
Midsummer Nights Dream Team  - Amazon - Etsy 

Shakespeare Omnibus Collection (all 3 books) - Amazon

Tales From The Bible - Amazon -  Etsy - Webtoons

The Book Of Esther - Lulu  - Amazon - Webtoons

Captain Clevedon - Amazon

Tales Of Nambygate - Amazon  

Punk Colouring Book

Eurovision Colouring Book Vol 1

Eurovision Colouring Book Vol 2

Eurovision Best Of British & Irish

1960s Colouring Book

Scottish Pop Colouring Book

1980s Colouring Book

Bowie Colouring Book

Doctors Who Colouring Book

Point of sale and other November musings

 Nov 1: Guess who’s got a new point of sale display then?

Get your signed copies of Richard The Third from me at kevfcomicartist.com or the weekend after next at #LFCC in London

Nov 2: Watched a few Tales from the Tardis intros and it is, as I suspected , a bit naff. My thought is that they’ve made these child-friendly intros and edited stories in order to put on CBBC and Disney Kids at Christmas, once a new generation have got hooked on the show.

And it might work. Having watched the intros to Earthshock and Time Meddler, we started watching Mind Robber and kept going. Hev, who’d never seen the episode, was finding it actually interesting and watchable, and it’s possible 6 year olds might too. (It’s an outstanding bit of fantasy telly for kids)

If you didn’t like the Sarah Jane Adventures, you won’t like these intros. But I think of it as getting some DVD extras without having to fork out for a box set.

Re: 2 part films

Good. Can’t think of a two part “to be continued” film that I like.

Remembering I’m the person who watched Infinity Wars, not knowing it was a Part One and was immensely frustrated by the ending.

I’ll let Back to the Future off cos that would work as a fun ending, even if they’d never made a sequel.

Nov 5: I’ll be in good company next weekend

Nov 6: Anonymous post in writers group just now:

“My question is how do I keep myself from being scammed? I paid a company called Explendid $499.. we were supposed to have our first zoom call meeting this morning but they have not called…”

Am struggling to know how to respond without sounding sarcastic. Can you hear the sound of a facepalm thru email?

Nov 10: Brand new on Amazon - The Killer Children!

Comic covers created with kids in my Comic Art Masterclasses this year. In one big full colour annual, the perfect Christmas gift!

Did you have my class? You're probably in the book.

Check it out here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Killer-Children-Comic-Masterclass-Annual/dp/B0CMKZ9J33

Nov 12: Re cover of Led Zep album

Lot Long. Remember that name when it comes up as a question, probably in the next series of Only Connect.

Nov 12: Shakespeare fans of the world, these are the last 10 copies of Findlay Macbeth (first edition) left in the world. After this you have to get it from Amazon print on demand or wait till I print a second edition

If I do

You’ve been warned. #YALC #LFCC

Nov 15: Blimey, my Doctor Who Colouring Book is apparently Number 25 in Childrens Books on TV & Radio on Amazon. It sold two copies last month.

Buy now, avoid disappointment.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ncuti-Gatwa.../dp/147094622X

Nov 16: While everyone's busy praising The Marvels (under, I think, the mistaken belief that it's the quality of the film that's led to the poor box office), can I take a moment to praise a film I watched, and loved, last week - The Flash.

I thought this was an excellent comedy that struck the right balance of action and humour, and didn't require any pre-knowledge to be able to enjoy it (though the fan service in-jokes worked better if you knew a bit). It had me laughing out loud (I was on a plane) and getting dewey-eyed at the perfectly resolved sad bit.

Like The Marvels, The Flash did poorly at the box office and, like The Marvels, the content of the film is not to blame. In my opinion it's a perfect storm of post-Covid theatre-going, the streaming explosion, and superhero saturation (and the chance that superheroes are seen as a pre-Covid fashion that's had its heyday) that has done for them. Guardians Of The Galaxy may be the post-Covid outlier, and all the other superhero films from WW84 & Shazam 2 thru Ant Man 2 and The Marvels are how these movies will fare in cinemas for the foreseeable future.

Nov 19: With all our talk of blockbuster movies and their relative lack of success this year, these were the stats I was looking for that made more sense of things.

Box office has recovered since the pandemic crash, but it's still only 75% of what it was in 2019. Couple that with the hubris of movies whose overblown budgets were set in the Before Times, and the ones that foolishly decided to be Part One of two or part of a series that kids have lost interest in, and the relative poor showing of things like MCU titles, Mission Impossible, and Indiana Jones are all explained.

I'm thinking out loud about stuff no-one else has been obsessed with, aren't I?

https://www.boxofficemojo.com/year/?area=XWW

Nov 20: This weekend’s excellent film: Renfield. A great premise - Dracula’s familiar is a sort of superhero - with a perfect blend of comedy and action writing and acting. Recommended.

Only one demerit: the voice over. I’m not a fan, and think it would have been better without it.

Nov 21: Would this be a scam? It takes me to a page off Facebook sad asks for email and phone number:

“ Important Notification:

Your Facebook page is scheduled for permanent deletion due to a post that has infringed upon our trademark rights. We have reached this decision after a thorough review and in accordance with our intellectual property protection policies.

If you believe this to be a misunderstanding, we kindly request you to file a complaint seeking the reinstatement of your page prior to its removal from Facebook.

Request for Review: https://linktr.ee/metahelpcenter23123

We understand that this situation may impact your ongoing business operations. However, please be informed that if we do not receive a complaint from you, our decision will be final.

Your cooperation and understanding are greatly appreciated. Should you have any inquiries or apprehensions, please feel free to reach out to us.

Sincerely,

Facebook Support Team

© Noreply Facebook. Meta Platforms, Inc., Attention: Community Support, 1 Facebook Way, Menlo Park, CA 94025”

Nov 21: Happiness is: finding your book's on sale through Waterstones

(Less happy is seeing it might take 5 weeks to arrive, so if you want it for Christmas, come straight to me!)

https://www.waterstones.com/.../kev-sutherland/9781838082444

Nov 26: Loved the new Doctor Who, but the title sequence is a dog’s breakfast.

Previous ones have flowed, drawn the viewer in with one smooth shot, and had something new about them (Jodie’s ‘blob’ had the best take on the music, and Capaldi’s ‘clockwork’ was novel if a bit literal). This is a mish mash of the worst of the Smith intro (clouds? Who flies through clouds?) with choppy edits that make it look like they changed their minds while making it.

Just me?

Nov 27: Who else Googled Doctor Who then ended up playing a game on their phone and being stuck on the second stage forever?

What an excellent (& longer than expected) well reasoned article about the relative success of big budget movies this year.

TLDR: Don’t let anyone use Marvels as an argument against female-led movies, and success at the cinema box office means different things to different companies.

My Books and where to get them:

Findlay Macbeth - Amazon  - Etsy 
Prince Of Denmark Street - Amazon - Etsy 
Midsummer Nights Dream Team  - Amazon - Etsy 

Shakespeare Omnibus Collection (all 3 books) - Amazon

Richard The Third - Amazon - Etsy - Barnes & Noble - Waterstones

Tales From The Bible - Amazon -  Etsy - Webtoons

The Book Of Esther - Lulu  - Amazon - Webtoons

Captain Clevedon - Amazon

Tales Of Nambygate - Amazon  

I've got an agent!

I didn't want to mention it until I'd signed contracts and it was up there on their website for real. But there, check it out, is my gorgeous fizzog slap bang in the middle of the page of the authors and artists represented by - fanfare - my agent.

I've only been and gone and got myself an agent, after years of occasional trying (see details here). I've been take on by Emily Talbot of United Agents, on the strength of Richard The Third which I sent her, as a PDF, back in September. She replied to me on October 10th, we had a really positive Zoom call on October 16th (after which I came down and said, confidently to Hev, "looks like I've got an agent"), and since then I've been waiting to exchange paperwork (it's done by DocuSign these days, kids) and for it to be confirmed.

Now, of course, this is just the start of the process that could, if we were lucky, end up in my books being published and reaching the public the way I'd like them too. There's plenty of people who can still say no to everything I do, and we could end up no further on. But it certainly is a major step.

The first hurdle we know we have to get over is that Richard The Third, the book that caught her eye (and which has proven my most popular in the past month) has already been self-published by me. And publishers are less likely to be attracted to something that's "second hand" like that. So I have set to work producing more work in that same vein, in order to have work to present in the new year. Hence Midsummer Night's Dream, which I started adapting in October (but couldn't explain why. Well now you know).

As I say, this could still lead to many more brick walls and ultimate frustration. But it does so from a position of more importance. Publishers talk to and listen to and have a working relationship with agents, which they very rarely have with authors coming in from the cold. Especially author-artists of graphic novels who have, until very recent years, been an unknown quantity in the world of traditional British publishing.

Let us see how I progress. In the meantime, suffice it to say I am delighted with the current state of affairs, and enjoying the incentive to produce some great new work in the hope it will eventually reach its audience.

 

My Books and where to get them:

Richard The Third - Amazon - Etsy - Barnes & Noble - Waterstones

Findlay Macbeth - Amazon  - Etsy 
Prince Of Denmark Street - Amazon - Etsy - Kindle
Midsummer Nights Dream Team  - Amazon - Etsy 

Shakespeare Omnibus Collection (all 3 books) - Amazon

Tales From The Bible - Amazon -  Etsy - Webtoons

The Book Of Esther - Lulu  - Amazon - Webtoons

Captain Clevedon - Amazon

Tales Of Nambygate - Amazon  

Punk Colouring Book

Eurovision Colouring Book Vol 1

Eurovision Colouring Book Vol 2

Eurovision Best Of British & Irish

1960s Colouring Book

Scottish Pop Colouring Book

1980s Colouring Book

Bowie Colouring Book

Doctors Who Colouring Book

Facebook ad for Richard The Third

Some people boast of great success with their Facebook ads, and I am so lackadaisical that I have no idea how well mine have done, if indeed they've ever achieved anything. Let's see how well this latest one does. Set at £2 a day for 7 days, I shall keep an eye on it and see if it turns into sales. The ad links to my website which has, at the top of the page, the links to buy the books. We shall see what that does. State of play on first morning looks like this:

I've reached 850 people and had one Link Click so far, which has cost me 82p. Coincidentally I've sold one copy of the book today (D2D gives me up to the minute updates, I've sold 22 copies so far this month).

My previous ad, as you can see, managed 4957 reach, and 124 clicks. Coincidentally Midsummer Nights Dream Team (for that is the advert's subject) has sold 14 books, which is more than the unadvertised others (FM 9, PODS 7, Tales from The Bible 3). Let's keep monitoring this correlation (or indeed coincidence). Remember, Richard sold 21 copies in 3 weeks without an advert.

By the end of its week long run, the ad has reached 5740 people, got 38 clicks, cost me £13.92. And I've sold an additional... 5 books. Yes 21 books sold in November pre-advert, and 5 sold post-advert. Suggesting the ad did nothing. Profit from 5 books is about £6, so Return On Investment is minus £7.

My Books and where to get them:

Findlay Macbeth - Amazon  - Etsy 
Prince Of Denmark Street - Amazon - Etsy 
Midsummer Nights Dream Team  - Amazon - Etsy 

Shakespeare Omnibus Collection (all 3 books) - Amazon

Richard The Third - Amazon - Etsy - Barnes & Noble - Waterstones

Tales From The Bible - Amazon -  Etsy - Webtoons

The Book Of Esther - Lulu  - Amazon - Webtoons

Captain Clevedon - Amazon

Tales Of Nambygate - Amazon  

My first Webtoon & other distractions

At last I had what looked like a week at my desk rolled out in front of me, when I could finally get some proper work done on the new Midsummer Nights Dream and other creative projects, after weeks of schools and other travel (which meant I've not put pencil to paper since October 30th. That's three whole weeks! See worksheet here.) 

So what did I do? I did what I always do, I got distracted. This time I got distracted by a suggestion someone had made at LFCC two weekends ago - why not do a Webtoon? I have no idea how one monetises a webtoon, maybe someone can clue me in on that. But because it was suggested by someone who's a very successful self-publisher (though not, it must be said, of webtoons) I gave it a go. It won't take long, I thought, to convert and upload The Book Of Esther. It took all day.

But it's up there now, should you choose to read it. Here is my Comic Tales From The Bible page on Webtoons, please enjoy, like and share. 

Getting distracted by other people's suggestions is something I'm rather prone to at this time of year. You'll recall two years ago I was so inspired by Tony Lee's "they don't have to be well written" speech that I had my first unsuccessful stabs at writing a crime novel (still not got the buggers out there) then got sidetracked into making colouring books. And where did that get me? Well, as this blog post records, by October 2022 I was selling a rather promising 65 books a month and had just sold 11 books in one day. Then in November 2022, as this post records, I had my Amazon KDP account closed, never to be reopened.

Though I've got most of the books back out there, via Lulu (for the colouring books) and D2D (for the graphic novels), they sell a fraction of what they were doing direct through Amazon. But that ship has sailed. And, on a more positive note, Richard The Third (published through D2D) has already sold 75 copies in a month and a half, which is more than any of my previous graphic novels sold online through any route. Also I spotted this today...

Yes, Richard The Third is available through Waterstones. Though it might take 5 weeks to arrive, so if you want it for Christmas, get it from me!

Updates that should put further nails in the coffin of the colouring books are that I appealed to Amazon KDP again this week, after a year, and was told "Our Amazon Content Review Team has re-reviewed this matter and they are upholding the decision to terminate your KDP account. On 11/08/2022 and 11/11/2022, we explained the reason for terminating your KDP account. We will not discuss this matter any further or provide additional insight." 

Also my Punk & New Wave Colouring Book stopped being available on Amazon via Lulu. I was told, by Lulu "We were notified by our distribution partner that your title was rejected for being a low content book. Amazon does not allow these books to be sold on their site any longer, but you can still sell through our bookstore"

So, colouring books were a distraction that was fruitful for a year, then a curse. Webtoons is a distraction that wasted a day, but you never know might reach someone I'd never reached before. Richard The Third remains the most popular thing I've done yet. And those crime novels are waiting to get finished and get out there.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I must resume work on Midsummer Night's Dream. Check the worksheet to see if I end up doing anything. (Reader, I ended up drawing 5 pages)

My Books and where to get them:

Findlay Macbeth - Amazon  - Etsy 
Prince Of Denmark Street - Amazon - Etsy 
Midsummer Nights Dream Team  - Amazon - Etsy 

Shakespeare Omnibus Collection (all 3 books) - Amazon

Richard The Third - Amazon - Etsy - Barnes & Noble - Waterstones

Tales From The Bible - Amazon -  Etsy - Webtoons

The Book Of Esther - Lulu  - Amazon - Webtoons

Captain Clevedon - Amazon

Tales Of Nambygate - Amazon  

Who Licked My Toes? - comics by kids

This week's Comic Art Masterclasses included the first classes I've done in Chepstow, which is nice, and some zig zagging between Dorset and Buckinghamshire (which, bizarrely, despite being three hours apart in bad traffic, are both in the same zone for BBC Breakfast local news. Not interesting, but true.)

Bridges Centre in Monmouth works with kids with kids who are out of school for various reasons, and the class was supposed to take place at Drybridge House (where our Monmouth Society of Authors meetings take place). It was moved to the Green Room in Chepstow, making it one of the easiest classes to get to. In contrast, the very next day I flew off to Bahrain, to work in Saudi Arabia, which is a subect for another blog.

The Swanage School in Dorset has the definite article in its name which, since I've missed it out of their comics, I ought to mention now. They were kind enough to take me for two days. But, thanks to a scheduling inevitability, the two days couldn't be consecutive and saw me travelling to Buckinghamshire inbetween days. 

Furze Down in Buckingham was a return visit for me. But somehow, in the intervening years, I'd forgotten that it was a special needs school. Had I remembered, I would have suggested I didn't work with full sized groups of 30 pupils, some of whom had quite a few educational challenges. But, what do you know, I got away with it. Two perfect classes and two grand comics.

Back to Swanage for a second day, and another splendid pair of classes. Though I must confess there were some jitters about the afternoon's comic title (...Crystal Meth) which I thought I'd managed to give an educational twist to. We're braced for the complaints.

The celebrities these eight groups chose to star in my demonstration strip were Dwayne The Rock Johnson (three times), David Tennant, Tom Holland, Abraham Lincoln, Ashley Banjo, and James Charles.

My Books and where to get them:

Richard The Third - Amazon - Etsy - Barnes & Noble - Waterstones

Findlay Macbeth - Amazon  - Etsy 
Prince Of Denmark Street - Amazon - Etsy - Kindle
Midsummer Nights Dream Team  - Amazon - Etsy 

Shakespeare Omnibus Collection (all 3 books) - Amazon

Tales From The Bible - Amazon -  Etsy - Webtoons

The Book Of Esther - Lulu  - Amazon - Webtoons

Captain Clevedon - Amazon

Tales Of Nambygate - Amazon  

Punk Colouring Book

Eurovision Colouring Book Vol 1

Eurovision Colouring Book Vol 2

Eurovision Best Of British & Irish

1960s Colouring Book

Scottish Pop Colouring Book

1980s Colouring Book

Bowie Colouring Book

Doctors Who Colouring Book