The funny thing about reading reviews of your own book is that you realise how completely subjective the reading experience truly is. As you see people reviewing and critiquing your work it’s natural to jump on Scrivener (or whatever you write in!) and start furiously editing. But should reviews influence how we write? Or do we risk ruining the very thing (some!) readers LOVE about our books by trying to ‘fix’ the stuff others didn’t enjoy?

Before I continue, can I just preface with a HUGE thank you to everyone who takes the time to read my books, let alone the additional time to review them. Whatever your experience, positive or negative, feedback is always welcome and useful. I’m very much of the opinion there’s no such thing as a ‘bad’ review. Even one and two star reviews demonstrate that real people are really reading your book.

And that’s fucking spectacular!

If you’re not in the publishing space you won’t know this, or may still massively underestimate it, but reviews are gold for authors. 

Seriously.

Good or bad, the fact people have taken the time to read and review your book builds your credibility. If you’re an Indie Author like me, it makes it possible to advance to further stages of your marketing – for example, I’m currently, desperately, endlessly trying to get Bane picked up by BookBub for a promotion. This would be a game changer and explode the book’s visibility. But it has to already have a certain level of visibility and social proof for BookBub to see it as a good novel to include in their promotions. This makes perfect sense; their readers expect a certain quality. If they start pushing crap they ruin their business model. But damn is it a frustrating process.

So, yes, I’m aware of how many reviews and ratings my book has; I have to be. It’s one of, if not the, most important metrics of how I’m doing with this whole novel writing lark. 

And I’m eternally grateful to all who have reviewed or shall review in future. 

This isn’t a post about whether people like my books or not (though I’m very grateful to see so many of you like them so much!).

No. This is a post about the epiphany I have had while reading through some of these reviews. Two things in particular stood out to me, and they’re both about the spicy content.

One Girl’s Hot Is Another Girl’s Nasty

Minor spoiler warning for the start of Bane, if you’ve not read it yet and don’t want the spoiler, skip down to the end of this section.

You good?

Excellent.

So chapter one opens with Amelia running through the park on the same route she takes daily. She’s been doing this route a couple of months, every morning, at pretty much the same time. And every day she runs (pun intended) into Michael Bane, the lad she had an embarrassingly large crush on all through high school. On this particular morning a rain storm hits, they shelter together in a duck blind, and because Michael has finally realised Aimee’s actually a much faster runner than he is, he’s super turned on and they wind up having a spicy encounter against the wall of the hut.

Yep. Bam. Right in the first chapter.

Now, you think this is going one way. But it actually swerves into a very unconventional enemies to lovers arc. Shortly after this encounter (and a day or two of Aimee thinking he’s now super into her, and she’s finally going to get her guy) it turns out that, actually, he didn’t recognise her at all. 

She thought they were finally getting together after knowing each other for years and having this intense attraction once they reconnected.

He, on the other hand, thought he was having a quick F with a girl he’d never even spoken to before.

Bit of a difference.

I loved playing around with the expected sequence of events on this one. Having this initial happy bubble of them being together before it’s abruptly wrecked. The rest of the novel follows them as they’re forced into a fake dating scenario after Michael is accused of murder, and Aimee (in her infinite wisdom) decides to give him an alibi. 

But I knew going in this was a potentially problematic setup, and some people just wouldn’t like it. For some it would be an abrupt start when they didn’t know the characters. For others (and perhaps everyone) it would be a slow start with the meaty part of the plot taking a few chapters to get going.

That opening chapter is quite out of left field. 

Was it going to put people off? 

Or would they love it? 

Well, for the most part people have loved it! I’ve had a ton of feedback on how great the unusual enemies to lovers dynamic is in the book. 

But the thing is, it’s become a bit of a marmite point.

Readers either seem to love it or hate it. I completely understand that, and if you hated it, I totally get why. Genuinely – I knew that was going to be the case right from the start. But this who marmite deal really struck me on reading two new reviews in a row: one raving about how epic the push/pull dynamic between Aimee and Michael is through the book, and how hawt that first chapter is; one saying they hated the fact there’s nasty sex twenty pages in. 

Completely opposite experiences of exactly the same opening. Neither right or wrong, simply a matter of preference. But should reviews influence the way we write? And if so, how the hell do we even do that when people seem to want completely opposite things?

One Girl’s Spice Is Another Girl’s Vanilla

Which brings me to another thought: how people perceive spice levels in romance novels. 

Some reviewers love Bane, saying it’s great spice and super hawt.

Others have described it as mild spice, and one even said there was no spice in it whatsoever. Nothing graphic described Honestly at that point I wondered if they’re read the wrong book, because I clearly remember writing specifics. 

So is it hot sex or nasty? Spicy or tame? 

Bafflingly, I’m forced to conclude it’s all of these things because everyone reading it will have a different experience of it. Will view it differently.

And that’s precisely why authors should never reply to reviews. Even good reviews. Because how a reader perceives their work is deeply personal to that reader. And, as an author, I have no right to tell them they’re wrong, or misunderstood my intent, or took something the wrong way. Readers don’t want authors to explain to them that they missed the point, or they got it wrong, or that whatever they didn’t like about the book is justifiable because of x, y z. 

Some books just aren’t my cup of tea, and my books won’t be everyone’s cup of tea.

And that’s fine. It’s good, even. If it wasn’t the case all books would be exactly the same and we’d all be bored to tears.

Having just finished reading the Cat and Mouse Duology, I can see how readers used to that level of spice would come to a book like mine and be like, “Damn, where’s the sex?” 

After Haunting Adeline I’m honestly wondering that myself!

Flipside, I see how readers who are used to slowburn romance with little to no sex would get to that scene in the first chapter and be like, “Damn! That’s way too much!”

Completely opposite extremes, both totally understandable perspectives. 

Should Reader Reviews Influence How Writers Write?

The obvious question then for me, as a writer, is how much do I let reader reviews influence my writing in future novels? Should reviews influence how we write at all? I think a lot of authors, particularly Indie Authors, have an impulse to fix the flaws reviewers find in their work while writing future novels. And I get it. I’m currently finalising Nightshade and I keep second guessing certain elements. Because in my head, there’s a comment from a reviewer making me think, ‘Wait, is this too spicy? Should I tone it down?’ Or, conversely, ‘There’s not been a single sex scene yet, do I need to spice things up?’

Some readers love my characters’ witty banter. Others complained Bane is too dialogue heavy. 

Some love the fact Aimee is a kickass boss lady who runs her own business and can have intelligent conversations about her work. Others were bored by the irrelevant details.

Nightshade revolves around Suzie, a minor character in Eve Was Framed (which, btw, you can read for free!) and Bane. She’s Aimee’s best friend, and in this novel, Suzie takes centre stage while Aimee steps into the background to become the best friend side kick. We’re picking up Suzie’s story just as she’s finished retraining in ecology, conversation, and beekeeping. The romantic suspense element of Nightshade revolves around the potential collapse of a bee colony on a local country estate on the outskirts of Ashfordby (the fictional small town Bane was set in). 

So Suzie talks about bees. And nature. And conservation.

And I’m writing some of these scenes, or editing them, and wondering “God, is this boring? Is this too technical? Is this irrelevant? Should I just forget about all this investigative crap and have them fuck already?”

It’s a strange experience, and a very different experience, to be writing Nightshade after Bane has been released. 

To have had reviews for Eve and Bane coming in the whole time I’ve been working on Nightshade. 

Because when I wrote Bane, I just wrote it. Exactly as I wanted it. Exactly as I’d want to read it.

They say you should write the book you want to read. Well, I did. I loved the 20 pages in, slightly nasty sex. I loved the fact they had this brief moment of thinking they were falling in love. And I loved the fact that it was turned on its head and you spend the rest of the novel watching this delicious will they/wont they unfold. 

Writing Nightshade I’ve had to do battle with a lot of mindset issues that have come up as a result of reader reviews. Not because that feedback is negative, but because it’s really tough to know what people think of your work and set those opinions and perceptions aside. To ignore all that noise so you can still write the story you want, and tell it as you want to tell it.

I don’t actually view ‘negative’ reviews as negative feedback. It’s just feedback. Example, a few readers have commented on chapter length. I’ve not taken the fact they found the chapters too long as a ‘negative’ thing to point out (despite the fact I suspect it’s the only thing that resulted in four stars rather than five in some cases!).  That’s useful info that can help me as I continue writing novels. And it’s a thing I never would have thought of otherwise. In my head, a chapter is a contained bit, there are certain points, beats, emotions I want to hit within that bit. And I write until all those things are there.

And yeah, thinking about it, that’s resulted in some long arse chapters! I’ve been more mindful of that with Nightshade, and do believe that’s made the book more readable. So no, ‘negative’ comments from reviewed do not equal negative feedback. It’s just an account of someone’s experience of your story. And the fact they took the time to experience it is phenomenal. You can’t view it as negative, even if they didn’t find the story enjoyable.

They still read it. Or started to read it.

That’s astonishing. 

Feedback and critiques are incredibly useful. They’re how you improve and grow.

But it’s tough to take on board enough feedback from readers that you can continue to improve your craft, without spiralling down a rabbit hole and losing your voice entirely.

Should Reviews Influence How We Write?

Ultimately, I am writing these novels because I love to write. Writing is my day job but that’s copywriting, it’s a whole other thing. I do that professionally, for work, to earn a living. These stories are something else. They’re just inside me, screaming to come out. And I LOVE the process of telling them. If I filter them through the lens of other people’s perceptions too much the end result will not be my story. 

It will be me telling a story I think other people want to hear.

And if I’d done that with Bane, that story would never have been written. Because I knew going in the first chapter wasn’t going to be for everyone.

And so many people love it already, love that opening chapter, wouldn’t it be a crying shame if I’d never written it?

My conclusion, then, is that the reason the book resonated with so many people, the reason so many love it, is precisely because I wrote it however I damn well pleased. And there are certainly elements I want to improve going forward, and I’m incredibly grateful to have so much feedback to help me do that. But if I start trying to please everyone in my writing, I will ruin the very thing that makes some people love it.

The best books are marmite. 

Personally, I loved Haunting Adeline and Hunting Adeline. But I can fully see why these books would send some people screaming for the hills. Personally, I couldn’t stand Twilight and think it’s one of the worst books I’ve ever read. But I can also see how so many people adore it and made it their Roman Empire. 

The best books are marmite.

So, if you’re reading mine, please, love them or hate them. Either way I am grateful you took the time. Thank you so much for reading. Obviously, I hope you loved them. But if you didn’t, I still love you for reading (even if you DNF!).

And I’ll just keep writing.