I have spent the last week deliberating about whether to write anything
here about the article in QL Today. In some ways I was very disinclined
to do it because I did not want it to turn in one of those acrimonious
arguments that run on these pages.
I would, however, like to run in a little background information.
QBranch was doing fine right up to the Q40 / Microfast 2000 period. In
retrospect both of these ventures were not the best conceived and I will
not go too deeply into them but suffice it to say they left QBranch
depleted and in debt. Quite apart from the various QL related problems I
made the foolish decision of tying the QBranch funds to those of
Microfast 2000. At the time I thought that would make the QL side
stronger so I could invest the shop profits into the QL business. As it
was the shop made a massive loss and was burdened with rent and rates
(when QBranch was run from home it had neither of these problems.)
Having closed the shop and taken on a job I had to set about rebuilding
things. There was a lot of debt to be dealt with and, as usual, I dealt
with the one who shouted loudest. Jochen, being a nice guy, was not
shouting. I dealt with two year's unpaid rates and a whole host of other
bills to do with closing the shop and tried to get QBranch back on an
even keel. Fast forward a couple of years and Jochen and I started to
try to get the debt to him dealt with. We started by paying off the
oldest invoices whole. After a while I realised I was falling into a
similar trap to the one I had built for myself in the shop and, because
the QL Today Subscriptions were all sitting in the QBranch bank, account
they got used for other stuff, so I then decided to open a separate
account which required notice if I was to draw money from it. All the QL
Today money would sit in there (and earn a bit of interest).
Jochen wanted me to make regular payments to him. The trouble with this
was that it was a bit of a struggle to do that. Young family, not a
brilliantly paid job, etc. I was paying using my credit cards but, in
the end just ran my credit cards up, added to my monthly payments, and
all the while QL revenues went down.
For the last five years QBranch has posted a loss. Last year it was
around £3500. This year I expect it to be more. Almost every invoice was
for QL Today (most of the rest were QPC2 and QPCPrint) and the profit
from doing that was minimal.
The most recent arrangement I made was that all QL Today payments were
prepaid and all new invoices were settled in 30 days. In addition I
would pay extra money to reduce the debt. There seemed to be a bit of
confusion a while back when I thought the money I had sent was for QL
Today and Jochen thought I had paid it off the debt and not paid for QL
Today. But I have tried to do it this way. The main problem was making a
regular debt repayment. It got worse 6 months ago when my car died, I
bought a new one which proved to have two expensive faults.
In spite of the continuing loss from QBranch I have paid off I have paid
off around 80% of the money I owed JMS and the rest will get settled
during this year. At any point in the above I could have closed QBranch
and walked away from the debt but I did not do that. Although I have now
closed QBranch. I have no intention of walking away from the remained of
the debt.
When I mentioned that 'I no longer thought about the QL' I meant it in
terms of the fact that I was no longer gathering items for the article.
Usually, a couple of weeks before the magazine was being prepared for
printing, I would get requests for the adverts and for the article. With
neither of those to worry about and a whole load of other stuff going on
in my life - I was not thinking about the QL. Hence I needed reminding
that I needed to sort this issue out and, since I had already spoken
with Bruce about his taking it on and I realised he needed to do
something about renewals so I contacted him.
With regard to the software side. Geoff and I had a very loose
arrangement about it. I made up the disks and he gave me labels and
manuals. The financial side was mostly me saying 'I have no more manuals
for x program' and asking how much money he needed from me. At no point
was I ever asked to provide a list of people who bought the program. It
would have been easy enough to do - in fact I still can do this
(although it would take a while) because every sale is recorded on a
database. I don't think there is a single customer out there who has
ever bought an item from me without getting an invoice and every invoice
was recorded on the main database. It got more complex with Just Words
when he started offering discounts for buying multiple programs but I
never owed him any money and returned a whole load of manuals when he
took it all back 'in house' asked me to do so. At the time I thought I
had settled everything with him and this was the first I heard of any
problem.
QDT was a different matter. We had high hopes of that being a good
seller but I sold only 28 copies in over 3 years (to 2008). Each one had
a unique licence number and I sent a spreadsheet with all the licence
numbers, names and emails addresses to Jim and he invoiced me for the
sales. I think I may owe him for 2 copies since his last invoice (in
2006) and, if he emails me privately I can give him those details and
sort out that payment.
Like most businesses QBranch worked on forward sales, you are,
essentially paying part of the previous bill from the current sales
because running expenses take their toll. When there are few sales for a
couple of years running expenses figure large in the equation. I should
have closed QBranch two or three years back but I enjoyed running it,
liked the shows and the people and kept thinking something would come up
to make it get better again. When QBranch did close it had over 200
copies of QL Today back issues which represents a sizeable amount of
money as well as a few unsold programs which had been invoiced and paid
for because I always felt I should have at least one of each item in
stock to avoid delay in shipping to the customer. I also still had a
swathe of QDT / Easyptr / QPCPrint CDs and manuals made up. Some of this
I have now disposed of, the rest I will donate to Bruce but I suspect he
will not be able to sell any.
Gradually, as my diving activities became more prominent and then my
rock band started to happen I got less and less time to devote to the QL
but then the QL scene devotes less and less time to itself. After 25
years it is in great need of new programs and a bit more drive from the
people who are still involved. It's future is in the hands of the users
now because there is but one trader and nothing new to sell. A parlous
state.
There we are. This has been a lot longer than I intended it to be at the
start and I hope you are all still awake. I have done this without
suggesting that I was misrepresented in the article and I hope without
raising anyone's hackles or creating a disturbance. I just wanted my
side out there.
I hope you were not too bored and that the above will not raise any
blazing rows. They don't do us any good at all.
--
Roy Wood
Q Branch. 20 Locks Hill, Portslade, Sussex.BN41 2LB
Tel/ Fax: +44 (0) 1273 430501 NOTE NEW PHONE NUMBER!
web : www.qbranch.demon.co.uk skype : royqbranch
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