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Terry Hooper-Scharf

Tuesday 30 October 2012

Comics: On The Rudeness of Being Polite And Offering Advice



I was going to write something else but got distracted.  The distraction? Well, I offered someone advice and got a reply that I was being rude.  I will not mention the man’s name nor that of his company –never heard of them before and I doubt I will again but if I name him (can’t remember the company name) it would be rude.

I think the more time I spend in comics the more I start thinking there are too many dim people in the business.  Today I got an email from a newish American comic company who wrote:

“We are contacting you because we follow your site or magazine or have heard that you are extremely reputable people with great sites and fan bases. It is people like you that we want reviewing our titles and posting up our trailers and new feed about our work. Our books cover a vast array genres including horror, science fiction, mystery, noir, western, zombie and many more.”

Now, there is a BIG mistake. You CHECK who you are sending a Press Release to -a quick check or google and they would have come up with Comic Bits Online or Black Tower Comics. Change the email to “your site/blog”.  Let me explain. If you want someone to get interested in your product and say that you “regularly follow” their blog, magazine or have heard about them it does a few things:

Firstly, it makes it clear its a mass send out and they have never heard of you before.

Secondly, comics journalists can be tetchy and bitchy. They really can take great exception and I know three people who set up companies and made this mistake -they suffered for it.  And, yes, I met the journalists who gave them bad write-ups and who told me: “Hey –they couldn’t be bothered checking out who I was so who cares?”

So, I wrote back:

“Hi.
Can I offer you some advice after 35 years in comics?  CHECK OUT who you are sending these emails to!
You write you are emailing: “because we follow your site or magazine or have heard that you are.. blah blah”  Well, IF you were a regular follower you would KNOW that I have run Comic Bits Online for 12 years with a daily hit rate of 20-30,000.  A lot of people working in comics news get tetchy about these things. It reads like you do not know or care and just thought “ah, send it to that one as well”!
It’s a little thing but I can tell you from experience that it can get you negative feed-back. You might think it a minor PR blunder but you have to remember a lot of comic ‘journalists’ have big egoes and get bitchy.
Okay, I’ll attach a link so that you can read the Reviews Policy –appearances at upcoming events or a new book about to appear just send a word doc PR and 2-3 jpeg images -oh, and a cover image.  CBO DOES NOT review pdfs -all explained below!
http://www.comicbitsonline.com/2009/01/05/reviews-policy-reminder/
Take Care and keep publishing!
Terry”

Anyway, within a few minutes I got:

“I thank you for your reply; one thing I’ve learned in my decade in the business is that the rudest replies always try to make it seem like they’re not.

I apologize for the email; I will remove your name from our mailing list. Thank you and good luck with all your future work.
Sent from my iPhone”

I did write back :


“Hi.
“Rudest”? You clearly do not know a thing about me. I have spent many years in comics helping people establish themselves as companies or creators.  I know THREE people who set up companies and made the same error and all three suffered because of it and as I talk and meet with a lot of comic journalists I know how they work-which is why I offered the advice.
I do not know you or your company so I’ve no idea WHY you think I’m being rude??  Being rude is quite pointless but if you want to take me off your list, okay.  I’m not sure how that would affect me,though.
Seriously, I was being polite and helpful.
Terry”

I’m not on their “list”…well, I never knew I was on it to start with and as I am in no way connected with the company I’ve nothing to lose.  I like the added “Thank you and good luck with all your future work” –the way comic companies kiss-off creators they do not want!

Seriously, offer advice and…well, you get a rude reply. I may just have “spam filtered” the emails.

If I offer advice –which I will not be doing anymore— it is based on experience. It is not being rude.

You want to get on in comics then learn the hard way because I’m not helping anyone out again.

2 comments:

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  2. I know how you feel. A while back, someone posted 24 of the 28 pages of the first issue of The Beano on their blog. I politely pointed out that he was four pages short and offered to send him scans of the missing pages. I also politely pointed out that his scans of The Dandy first issue were not from the 'D.C. Thomson Firsts' book as he claimed. He asserted that 'experts' endorsed his claims and that I was wrong, then banned me from his site. Since then, he pops up on my blog from time to time, leaving abusive comments. He labours under the delusion that he's anonymous, but when I respond that I know who he is, he pops up under his own name to deny the fact. As he leaves his 'anonymous' offensive remarks on months-old posts, it's a wonder he knows exactly where to come to in order to deny his culpability, eh?

    The comics biz has its fair share of losers, that's for sure.

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