Thoughts: On Reviewing

I've been reading a lot of erotica lately. Lucky me! Some of it I review on here. Some of it I don't. I thought I should explain why.

I feel that it's important to have an idea of what's going on in the erotica genre so I know where my own work fits in. What I know for certain is that I'm never going to write the kind of material that becomes a phenomenon. You know the sort - like *that book* and its sequels which was such big news last year and will be again when it gets made into a film. There are others like it, all alpha males, billionaires, high society, slick city living and big business. I can't write that stuff and I don't want to. It's just not me. I prefer flawed people, slightly farcical situations, unexpected power relations, make-do-and-mend mentality, simple living and the great outdoors. 

I don't review books that I can't be mostly positive about. I will give my opinion of the odd shortcoming in a story I've enjoyed, but I'm not going to write a review slating someone's work just because it's not to my taste or is full of unfortunate errors. I may be a journalist in my other life, but here I'm blogging as a fiction author and I don't see the need to unnecessarily piss anyone in the industry off. And I don't think readers of my blog want that kind of thing either. So my reviews are really personal recommendations. I add edited versions to Amazon because I think it's important to support fellow authors, although I would never accept payment in return for a positive review.

I read the other stuff because I think it's important to be aware of it. And I may be muttering to myself about what a load of twaddle it is and rolling my eyes in exasperation at the cliches and stereotypes but I'm not going to share my scathing remarks, much as I'm tempted to bitch, on occasion.

On the subject of unfortunate errors, I'll be launching my own proofreading and editing business in earnest soon, having tinkered about with it for a while. That's why there's a new link on the menu up there, but the website still needs a tweak and a polish that is proving to be infuriatingly exasperating to a non-techie.

Of course, when I'm reading I always look like the woman pictured in the painting above by Howard Chandler Christy as long as you swap real paper and ink for an ereader.