"It's inevitable, isn't it?" I responded with a shrug of my weary shoulders: "One of us has the go!"

The rat turned slightly and I'm sure I saw the corners of its mouth crease slightly, as though trying not to smile: "Well, I'll be sorry to see you go" he said.

And with that the rat scuttled off into the overgrown brambles.

Just another Thursday morning for me.

As I pack everything up I did ask myself  "what happens now?" and I have been thinking about this.  The online store for Black Tower Books and Comics is like a eunuch in a harem of sex starved women. Impotent.  Closing it down takes too much effort and to be honest I have no idea how to close it, nor do I have the inclination to bother and find out.  It just stays there. All floppy.

As I don't sleep much, to try to dull my night-time thinking and make it "manageable" I thought about 2016.  The last of the "you never won a table -could you mention the event?" messages has come through.  Every single UK event will be attended by...the same creators and publishers as the ones in 2015, 2014 and so on back to...whenever.  So the response to the request to publicise the event was "in the last four years I have never 'won' a table at your event but the same people as every other year have so until you respect me and stop lying the response will always be: NO."

With the deaths and so on this year the idea of trying to get a table at European events  doesn't seem likely.

But that leaves me with not many options.  Honestly, translating books into German and selling them in Germany -apart from Subzero not a single person in Germany has ever expressed interest so I'm not going to knock myself out.

The idea of approaching European publishers and getting books published by them?  Well, the French publishers have been quite rude in some responses but I'm never sure whether that is just down to poor English?  Certainly, the French publish so much that they can pick and choose and dictate conditions so the idea is to look for a decent publisher.

I am looking at certain projects so have not given up -it's just the UK that is dead to me.

I was asked about the US?  Well, there are so many small publishers there you literally trip over them.  Also, 99.9% of them DO NOT pay.  I need to eat and pay bills.

So don't panic...you were not panicking, were you??

Either these comics go or I do.

Now, the rat is looking at me and has furniture to move in....and he looks annoyed.