I was laughing with my wife about the single star review one of my books received on Smashwords. I also got a two star review from someone on Amazon. I’m disappointed with the poor reviews, but I’m not entirely surprised.  In most stories a sexual opportunist appears and takes advantage of someone. The tone is often dark and brooding. My stories (hopefully) turn you on, but they don’t make you feel good.

As I mentioned to my wife, even I feel a little dirty after I’m done reading.

She laughed.

But it’s a “sexy-dirty,” I said.

She shook her head, I grinned.

I don’t care. My feeling is you pay your .99 cents (or whatever), and you can say whatever you like. I got one absolutely glowing review on Smashwords, but unfortunately I had to pull the book (Summer Shorts 2) when I enrolled it in Amazon’s KDP select program, so the review is no longer public.

I still like the idea for the Carnal series and plan to continue work on it. I have some ideas for how to make some of the characters more likeable, but also retain the dark tone, and the brooding, desperate mood, which I quite like. One of the things I abhor in erotica is the attempt to write about something intrinsically dark, like, say, a rape fantasy, but then the rapist turns out to be the female protagonist’s husband acting out a fantasy for his wife. Oh, how noble. To me, that’s just a cheap trick.  It’s sad.

Now, don’t get me wrong: I’m not interested in writing the literary equivalent of a snuff film, but we should be able to dig a little deeper into the material we’re working with. I may never uncover a truth about the human spirit in my erotica, but I hope never to stoop to simple tricks just to get the story published. Why bother? It’s just lazy lazy story telling. It’s sad.