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Your novel is finished. You’ve gone through it with a fine-tooth comb and done your own revisions and edits at both story and sentence level. What’s next on your journey to getting your book ready for publishing?
Before you get ready to send your book baby off for professional editing, there is one last thing to do: get some different eyes on it in the form of beta readers. You may have read about beta readers online, or maybe fellow authors have suggested getting beta readers to look at your novel. But what is beta reading? Do you really need to have beta readers? And where on earth do you find them?
Beta reading is the practice of sending an early copy of your book to experienced readers of your genre for in-depth feedback. Beta readers are often thought of as early reviewers, and they can provide valuable insights and opinions, as well as an idea of how your book will be received when it’s published.
Beta reading is an important part of the process of revising your book, so send it to beta readers before it goes for professional editing. You might find that several of your beta readers come back to you with comments and suggestions that mean you need to reorganise, rewrite, add, or delete sections. Do your own revisions and edits before you send your book to beta readers though; you need them to be able to read your story without being distracted by glaring errors.
You may have come across authors that don’t use beta readers, and even authors with beta reader horror stories. There are, of course, pros and cons of using beta readers, and ultimately it’s up to you to weigh up the positives and negatives to decide if beta readers will work for you and your book. However, the key to a positive beta reader experience is to find good beta readers, not just any beta readers.
There are a few essential characteristics you want in your beta readers.
This is probably the most important characteristic, seeing as getting feedback is the whole point of using beta readers. Find beta readers who go into detail with their feedback; for example, readers who will tell you why they liked or disliked something, who will offer alternative suggestions for bits they didn’t think worked quite right, and who will look at the big picture things such as plot and character arcs as well as scene-level details such inauthentic dialogue and character behaviour. Beta readers’ insights should represent the opinions and thoughts of the eventual readers of your book. They might be friends, family members, or fellow writers, but whoever they are, they need to be willing to provide you with constructive comments, not just tell you that everything is wonderful.
It is important that your beta readers are reliable; you need to know they will get back to you with their feedback when they said they would and not be late or completely ghost you.
To get truly useful feedback, you need beta readers who are likely to read your book even if you hadn’t asked them to. They need to be enthusiastic readers of your genre, because those are the types of readers you will be selling your book to. For example, there is no point asking someone to read your romance novel if they don’t like reading romance; you’ll probably get negative feedback because they didn’t enjoy it or found it a chore to read, and they won’t know enough about romance to know if your future readers will enjoy the way you’ve handled the requisite genre tropes and story beats.
You want beta readers who will provide you with detailed feedback, and some of this feedback will be about things they didn’t like. They might suggest things they would like to see instead, and hopefully they will explain why they didn’t like something. However, you need your beta readers to be objective enough to give you feedback about how you can improve your novel, not beta readers who just want to rewrite your story in a way that they prefer.
As an author, there are things you can do to make sure your beta reading experience is a positive one. If you help and support your beta readers, they will be more willing to help you out again in the future, especially if they’re beta reading for you for free.
There is no magic number of beta readers but I generally suggest between three and six to give you a range of feedback without having so much it’s overwhelming. Different readers will pick up on different things; you might find some will notice the big picture issues in your story arc, while others are all about the little plot details like the name of a bar changing from one scene to the next, while others might suggest changes to improve your writing or pick up on sensitivity issues. It will also make it more obvious if something is a serious problem if several of your beta readers comment negatively on the same thing.
When you first make contact with potential beta readers, make sure you give them accurate details about the book you need them to read. Let them know how long it is, what it’s about, and advise them of any content or trigger warnings. Let them read the blurb, or give them an idea of the tropes that are included. Avoid giving your beta readers any nasty surprises when it comes to the content of your book; you want them to enjoy the experience of reading it.
You can’t complain about your beta readers’ feedback not being to your liking if you didn’t tell them what you wanted. Be explicit about what you want and don’t want from them, and encourage constructive criticism so you get detailed feedback. Ask them to let you know which were their favourite bits and why they liked them, and which bits they didn’t like and why. Consider including a questionnaire and ask specific questions if there are specific things you want feedback on; for example, a particular plot point or character behaviour.
It takes time to carefully read a full-length book, make notes and then turn those notes into useful, constructive feedback. Your beta readers will have other things going on in their lives too, so bear in mind they might not be able to start reading your book the day you send it to them. I suggest giving beta readers between ten and fourteen days at least to read your novel and send their feedback.
There are many different ways of sending your book to beta readers; for example, you can send a .mobi file direct to kindle or via email, you could use a service like bookfunnel who will send out secure copies, you can send a word document, or share a google docs file. Consider the type of feedback you want when you decide how to send your book to your beta readers. For example, if you want your beta readers to make comments at sentence level, it will be easier and quicker for them to leave comments directly on a Google docs or word document than make notes on a Kindle and then copy them into an email. You might also have to provide instructions to your beta readers on how to use the suggestions feature in Google Docs or Track Changes in Word.
Finally, remember to reply to their feedback email to say thank you and make sure they know they’re appreciated.
Now you know what you're looking for in a beta reader, it's time to go out and find some. Here are some suggestions on where to start your search.
Other writers are normally a very good option as beta readers, especially if you can find more experienced authors that write in your genre. They know what readers like, understand what makes feedback useful, and can give you feedback from the perspective of an author, providing you with solutions for solving problems instead of simply saying what they don't like and leaving you to work out how to make it better. Ask authors you know personally or those in writing groups you're a member of, including online ones such as Facebook groups. Be prepared to beta read for other writers in exchange for them beta reading for you.
As with most things, personal recommendations are a good place to start when looking for beta readers. Even if your fellow authors aren't able to help you by beta reading for you, ask them if they can put you in touch with any good beta readers or point you in the direction of the best places to find them.
If you already have an audience, ask them if they'd like to beta read for you. If you're a published author already, this could be your newsletter subscribers or members of your author Facebook group. Even if this is your first book, if you have social media accounts or a blog that are related to the subject or genre of your book, you already have an audience that might be interested in giving you feedback on your new endeavour. Make a social media post or send an email explaining what you're looking for, and ask people to fill out a simple form or send you a message telling you why they would make good beta readers so you can choose those that suit you best.
Enthusiastic readers of your genre can make excellent beta readers. They are often prolific readers, and have a lot of knowledge when it comes to popular tropes and common opinions among readers in the community. There are many Facebook groups for fans of particular genres, and some allow authors to post to ask for beta readers. You will also find groups on both Facebook and Goodreads specifically set up to match beta readers with authors. Remember though that anyone can join these communities, and it’s up to you to vet those who reply to your posts asking for help to make sure you’ll work well together.
If you're struggling to find good beta readers, you might want to consider hiring a professional. There are dedicated beta reading service providers, and some editors also offer beta reading services. The advantage of using a professional is you are paying them to do a job for you, which should guarantee you detailed feedback delivered on time. When hiring a beta reader, make sure they have experience with your genre or subject and make sure you're clear about what's included in their beta reads. For example, some might provide manuscript comments plus a report as part of their beta reading services, while others might only write a report.
Finally, when building your beta reader team, I suggest aiming for a mix of both readers and fellow authors, and to initially 'recruit' more people than you actually need. You'll inevitably have some who never get back to you or, despite your guidelines, don't provide you with feedback that is helpful. As time goes on, beta readers will come and go until you eventually have a small team you can rely on to consistently provide you with detailed, constructive feedback.
Gathering a team of beta readers may seem like hard work initially but, long term, their feedback will prove invaluable, improving both your writing and your book sales.
The most important things to remember when finding and working with these members of your self-publishing team are:
Focus on finding good beta readers that are knowledgeable, are respectful of your voice, and will give you detailed, in-depth feedback, on time.
Build a small team of between three and six beta readers, consisting of both enthusiastic readers and fellow authors.
Make sure your beta readers are a good fit by being transparent about the details of the book you want them to read and giving explicit guidelines on the type of feedback you want, including specific questions if you want specific things addressed.
Respect your beta readers time. Give them plenty of time to read your book and compile their feedback, make it as easy as possible for them to provide their feedback, and don’t forget to thank them when they’re done.
Look for beta readers in a variety of places such as among your fellow authors, from your existing audience, in reader groups on platforms such as Facebook and Goodreads, or consider hiring a professional.
Story Evaluation: Get a detailed review of your story and an in-depth, author-friendly report and action plan that dives deep into what works and what could be improved in your manuscript. This is for you if you want help figuring out where and how you can improve things like your plot and character development or big-picture readability issues like POV and show, don't tell. Find out more about story evaluations here.
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