Anonymous asked:

Do editors and writers follow what people are saying online about their books? I thought people in the "biz" took the view that if you believe the good reviews you have to believe the bad ones too? Is that more of a writer thing less of an editor thing? I am hoping we get an explanation about Death of X too. I think as a send off to Scott considering I hate the Inhumans storyline I thought it was actually a good story for him and Emma. It just made everything leading up to it make no sense.

I am glad you…like it? Can’t quite tell if you liked it. Hope so!

Anyway, different people do or don’t follow what is being said according to their preferences. Some people absolutely never read reviews, others do.

But (and I’ve discussed this before) reviews, good or bad, don’t hold that much sway for us. Good reviews can make us feel nice because it means at least for those people, we hit the target we were aiming for, the work hit the sweet spot. But we certainly don’t write to the reviews. Because reviews don’t always correspond with sales, and sales are the real barometer both of us making a successful comic being able to continue to do so, and of whether people want the books we’re putting out.

And that works both ways, I should mention. It’s definitely true that there are books that sell huge numbers that people are constantly knocking on the internet…but either they are buying it to hate on it or there is a larger mass of people enjoying it who don’t feel the need to discuss it.

But likewise, sometimes you work on a book that gets really good reviews…and no one buys them.  

People say to vote with your dollars…and yeah, please do. Buy comics you like and we will try to make more of them.