WHY It Makes Sense To Promote Your Books And "Stuff" Via CBO!

Just checking the Top 10 CBO posting for today up to 15:20 hrs, BST. And it looks like this:

1.   您好！

5 Mar 2014

2. 我会推荐什么漫画书？(looking at Silver Age The Avengers comic)

13 Apr 2014

3. As More Boots Go In...

1 Sep 2014, 4 comments

4. Cinebook The 9th Art: Alone 2 - The Master of Knives

8 Aug 2014

5. I KNOW You Are Out There.....

1 Sep 2014, 5 comments

6. Cinebook The 9th Art: The Scorpion 8 - In the Name Of The Father

8 Aug 2014

7. Dr Strange....UK Counterparts in Comics?

31 Aug 2014, 2 comments

8. I Have A "Few" Comics

2 Sep 2014

9. A Line Drawn.....

31 May 2014

10. Green Skies

12 Dec 2013

It seems that people visiting CBO, the majority from China but also from many other parts of the world…hmm, let’s see the countries in order for today –most hits first:

China

United States

Bulgaria

United Kingdom

France

Germany

Ukraine

Belgium

Spain

Russia

The UK, my home country, is always fourth or fifth in the list though the number of hits is still very high.  China –BLESS YOU!- sustain CBO.  The United States is always in second place –come on, USA: push those hits!  France, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands (nowhere to be seen today!) are also usually in the top ten –ditto Russia and Ukraine.

Now, looking at the countries in order for this month:

China

United States

United Kingdom

France

Bulgaria

Germany

Ukraine

Russia

Turkey

South Korea

I enjoy this sort of breakdown work occasionally. Just like the old days.

But you may ask why, with 1,583,458 visits in total in total to CBO and well over 709,000 views on Google+ (I suspect the folk there do not want to travel off site and so read all the CBO goodies from there) there is an absolute drought of advertising requests?  Not the dubious “We want to put links in line with your site on the site” (but NEVER any details of what or how much) and certainly not what I have to call the absolute con of “Payment for each click of an ad”.

Let me explain, firstly you have absolutely NO SAY in what the ads are –if you try to check them out you lose any money for “breaching the rules” –seriously. No. When I saw how many clicks ads placed on CBO had gotten I thought “Whoopee!”  No, again. I ‘earned’ 0.7 cents. That’s, what, 2p in the UK.  Also, Project Wonderful. Advertisers getting LOTS of hits via CBO ads but not willing to pay more than 1 cent (US) per day.  After three months I had ‘earned’ 0.10 pence (3c US).

It is a major con used to convince bloggers they can earn money.  Madebymarket.com deals with this issue:

“On average anywhere from 1-10% of your visitors might click on an ad, so just to be safe assume some low number like 1%. To calculate how much your ads are worth, you can take the cost per click and multiply it by the number of clicks you can expect to get based on your traffic. So, if you have 100 page views and a click through rate of 1%, you will get 1 click on average. If your CPC (cost per click) is $1, then you might make $1 per 100 page views. The same formula is used to determine CPM, which is the cost per 1,000 ad views. In the case of the above estimate, you are looking at a CPM of $10.


Now, given an average CPM, it becomes pretty obvious how traffic impacts how much money you can make with Google AdSense. At $10 CPM, you need 10,000 pageviews to make $100. Next time you see a picture of someone holding up an AdSense check, think about how much traffic they needed to make that money. For many people, it is not possible to get that much traffic.”


And that is the point.  Who, coming to CBO sees an ad and thinks “Wow! A new line in lingerie!”  Or “Wow, really? I needn’t suffer baldness or loss of hair?”  Ads are, supposedly, tailored to your site.  I even made sure that I defined the ads I wanted on my site based on the audience: comics, graphics novels, animation, movie and so on. Yeah, they weren’t having that. And, since I am against gambling….well.
So, I never bother trying to make money from the existing Adsense or Project Wonderful.  It’s a waste of space –except for the companies involved.


Also, I’ve stopped trying to fathom out WHY so many people visit CBO.  The stats seem to suggest a lot look at posts a year or more old as well as the new postings.  It is a big site so not unusual.  But it means CBO postings (including Google+) have hit around 2 million.  Last month alone CBO views totalled almost 58,000.


I do accept bribes for good reviews, t-shirts (large please), DVDs to review, comic related toys and other merchandise.  In fact, since I’ve never been offered a bribe I think we can scratch that one.


So, it pays –publicity wise- to send review books and other stuff to CBO!  Whether Small or Independent press or bigger companies whatever arrives is 100% guaranteed to be reviewed because I do not just select what I want to review!
Stay tuned.