beta readers

Quick Link: 7 Ways to Find Beta Readers and Reviewers for Your book

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Quick links, bringing you great articles on writing from all over the web.

Beta readers are a great tool for success. They provide a fresh set of eyes to look over your manuscript and hopefully provide great feedback, so you can polish your story before putting it in front of agents or customers. But where to find them? The wonderful Shelly Hitz has got your back with a great post and podcast to tell you where to find these literary angels.

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7 Ways to Find Beta Readers and Reviewers for Your book

by Shelly Hitz

When you are publishing a new book, creating a Beta Group can be a great idea. But where do you find beta readers and reviewers for your book?

In today’s training, I’m going to share with you 7 ways to find beta readers and reviewers for your book.

Why We Need to Find Beta Readers and Reviewers?

Recently I was sharing how I’m using a beta group for this project, and it’s really been super helpful for me. You can find it here: 3 Ways to Use a Beta Group.

After I posted this on my YouTube channel I received a question.

“These are great tips and tricks, thank you so much for sharing, but I have a question. How do you find beta readers?”

My previous training was all about three ways beta readers can help you when you’re publishing your book, but it didn’t cover how to get the beta readers.

So, I thought in this training I would answer her question and share with you seven ways to find beta readers and reviewers for your book.

First I’m going to tell you what I did. I simply asked those that are already following me on Facebook if they wanted to be part of my beta group. I set a page where they could sign up to an email list.

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If you liked this article, please share. If you have suggestions for further articles, articles you would like to submit, or just general comments, please contact me at paula@publetariat.com or leave a message below.

How to Find and Work with Beta Readers to Improve Your Book

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Having a quality product is vitally important for successful indie authors. One way to improve the quality of your story is to get beta readers to read the manuscript and provide input.  Getting a fresh pair of eyes to view your work can’t hurt. Kristen Kieffer (@ShesNovel) guesting on janefriedman.com offers eight tips on how to find and work with beta readers. 

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How to Find and Work with Beta Readers to Improve Your Book

Note from Jane: Today’s guest post on beta readers from Kristen Kieffer (@ShesNovel) is an excerpt from her upcoming e-course on self-editing, Self-Editing Success.

Book and glassesNo creative act is a solo endeavor.

Editors, designers, marketers—it takes a team of professionals to help authors bring their novels to life. But lurking behind the contracts and cut checks is a valuable set of hands many authors fail to exploit: beta readers.

Just as film directors benefit from the insight of test audiences, authors can learn much about the state of their novel’s appeal by working with readers willing to critique their story before it hits the market. With these readers often offering their time and feedback free of charge, what’s not to love?

Working with beta readers can provide authors with invaluable insight, helping them see their work through that pesky objective lens. With the feedback digested, authors can use what they’ve learned to better tailor their novel for marketable appeal, increasing their chances of releasing a commercial and critical success.

But not all beta reader experiences are created equal. As with any interaction involving an honest critique, working with beta readers can quickly grow into a regrettable experience if it isn’t designed for the benefit of both parties.

Let’s avoid any mess the first time around. If you’re ready to screen your novel with a test audience for honest and invaluable insight, here are eight steps to follow for an ideal beta-reader experience.

1. Identify Your Ideal Reader

There’s no use in sending your manuscript to an uninterested reader. By taking time to discover your novel’s ideal reader before sending out beta copies, you’ll be able to cultivate a list of betas who most accurately represent your future readers, saving you—and those unenthusiastic partners—a wealth of time and trouble.

How can you identify your ideal reader?

Think about the type of person most interested in your novel, then create a quick profile. Here are a few questions you might answer in your sketch:

  • What is their age and gender?
  • Do they read to be entertained or emotionally engaged?
  • What are their favorite books, television shows, and movies?
  • What makes them happy, sad, or angry?
  • What do they fear or regret?
  • Why do they enjoy reading?

If you’re struggling to form a strong image of your novel’s ideal reader, run a Google search of books related to your own. Begin reading through the reviews for each listing to identify the type of person who most enjoyed the work. Use what you learn to strengthen your answers to the questions above.

2. Cultivate Relationships with Beta Readers

If you’re starting from scratch, you’ll need to identify a group of potential beta readers to whom you’d like to pitch your manuscript. Though the easy route would be to email the first interesting person you find on the internet, I highly encourage you to take a step back.

The work of beta readers should not be taken lightly. To read a novel may be a simple task, but to analyze each element with a critical eye in search of weak areas, errors, and inconsistencies is anything but.

Before contacting strangers to ask for their help, take time to cultivate strong relationships. You can do this by first identifying the group of prospective beta readers you’d like to work with.

If you haven’t yet made any connections, begin by creating an account on the social media site where your ideal readers hang out. Young and new adult crowds are often found on Twitter or Instagram, while more mature readers usually congregate on Facebook.

Once you’ve chosen a platform, it’s time to establish your presence. Begin by adding a headshot for your profile picture and a succinct profile bio. Then, like or follow the feeds of other authors and notable creative figures. This will help potential beta readers gain a quick understanding of you and your interests as you begin to interact.

Speaking of interacting, your next step is to find and follow potential beta readers. Not everyone you eventually contact will accept your proposal, so I suggest following at least thirty potential betas. If you reach out to all and only a quarter accept, you’ll still have a fantastic group of beta readers to critique your novel.

To find potential beta readers, follow popular writing tags like #amwriting and #writercommunity. Make sure to use these tags when you publish your own posts. You can also find prospective betas in online writing groups, such as Writers Helping Writers or Fiction Writers.

Once you’ve found a few potential beta readers, begin interacting with them by liking and commenting on their posts and statuses. Offer friendly conversation, sharing in their daily joys and challenges. After a few weeks of genuine interaction, it’s time to move on to step three.

Read the full post on janefriedman.com

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If you liked this article, please share. If you have suggestions for further articles, articles you would like to submit, or just general comments, please contact me at paula@publetariat.com or leave a message below

How to Find an Editor as a Self-Published Author

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This post originally appeared on Jane Friedman’s site on 8/18/15.

In today’s guest post, indie author Teymour Shahabi explains how to find an editor for the draft of your self-published book and what to look for in an editing relationship.

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In traditional publishing, submitting your draft to an editor is an inevitable step on the road to bookstore shelves. But how much editing is required for self-publishing? Does a self-published author need to find an editor? And if yes, when and where, and how?

First things first:

Do you need an editor?

The answer is yes.

The greatest benefit of an editor is that he or she is not the author. An editor is someone else. Some editors are professional writers, but every single one of them is a professional reader. As a writer, you’re probably a voracious reader, but you can never be a true reader for your book. By bringing forth a book into the world, you’re asking other people to read something you’ve never read. If you sincerely want the book to be the very best that it can be, then you must ask someone else to read it first. You owe it to your book, to yourself, and to your readers.

What an editor does is discover your characters, your situations, and your images without seeing any of the creative process that brought them to life. Where you might see all the crossings-out and labors, all the accidents and decisions, the editor sees only a page. This is the clarity you need, and you can never achieve it for your own writing, simply because you envisioned it first. The editor will tell you what an attentive, an educated, and, most importantly, a new reader will experience while reading your book.

When should you hand your manuscript over?

 

Read the full post on Jane Friedman’s site.

 

5 Ways to Get Early Feedback on Your Book Idea or Manuscript

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This post by Nina Amir originally appeared on The Book Designer on 5/27/15.

Gathering reader feedback on your manuscript before you to print might be the most valuable step you can take toward producing a successful book. You can obtain this information in a variety of ways depending upon how you choose to write your manuscript.

In fact, you can even get early feedback before you write your book. This type of test marketing can save you a lot of time and energy spent producing a manuscript that might never sell.

The goal of getting early reader feedback on your book idea or manuscript is simple: Incorporate the valid suggestions you receive to help you craft the best possible book.

The following five strategies provide you with the means to get beta readers or reviewers for your ideas and your work. Each has a different set of benefits, and each is useful at a different stage. Choose one that suits your style, your point in the book-production process and the work at hand.

 

1. Blog Your Book

The main benefit of blogging a book, purposefully writing your book post by post on your site, comes from the author platform you build by doing so. As you produce the first draft of your book on the Internet, you gain loyal blog readers and subscribers. They are your potential book readers or buyers even though they have already “bought into” reading the first draft of your book—your blogged book.

 

Read the full post on The Book Designer.

 

Cara Lopez Lee’s Thoughtful Rules for Compassionate Critiques

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This post by Cara Lopez Lee originally appeared as a guest post on Rebecca Lacko’s The Written Word site.

I have a small, trusted circle of critique partners. I know I’m lucky, they’re hard to come by. I met two at Writers’ Studio at UCLA, a couple of years ago, and I count them dear friends. Two others, I met when I began volunteering for Field’s End, a non-profit literary event group. In all cases, I found my partners by magic, or universal synchronicity, or dumb luck–I really don’t what alchemy transforms strangers to trusted allies. All I can I say is it is extremely difficult to both find and BE a good critique partner. That’s why I’m sharing ideas from author and HGTV-writer Cara Lopez Lee’s excellent post, Feedback with Compassionate Detachment.

Here are excerpts:

I’ve discovered that providing feedback with the goal of serving both writer and story can be fast and easy, if you know how…

Creative writing is always deeply personal, fiction or non, and I’ve learned that’s why it’s important for feedback to be both compassionate and detached. I’ve since developed a reputation among coaching clients, writing colleagues, and students for giving feedback that encourages and motivates. Here are a few tips that have helped me:

1. Take responsibility for your opinion by emphasizing “I” statements over “you” statements.
This helps writers take feedback as opinion, rather than personal blame or praise, encouraging them to decide whether their writing needs to change or just needs another audience. For example:

  • I’d like to know more about this character’s relationship with his father.
  • I’m confused here. Is it possible to clarify?
  • I find myself wondering how this character felt when she saw the body
    (Note: If you only adopt one technique, let this be it. You will win friends and influence writers! -RL)

 

Read the full post, which includes six additional specific critique tips, on The Written Word.

 

Navigating the Forest of Feedback: 8 Ways to Recognize Helpful Criticism (and How to Ignore the Rest)

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This post by Elizabeth Law originally appeared on her Elizabeth Law Reads site on 3/5/15.

Recently, on a flight home from vacation, I met author Randi Hutter Epstein and we we were talking about her work. She said “After about three days of writing, I don’t know if what I have is good, or crap. I’ll ask anyone their opinion!”

Exactly.

If you’re a writer you need feedback, whether you’re a novice or an author with 30 books under your belt. And there are a lot of people out there who are only too happy to give it to you. But how do you know what comments are useful, anyway? What should you take, and what should you toss? Here are some good things to consider when asking for, or getting, feedback:

#1) What are my manuscript reviewer’s credentials and experience?
Has he published books for the same age category as I’m writing for? Or is she perhaps less far along in the process, but still experienced in reading and listening to manuscripts, and in giving thoughtful feedback? Maybe he is at the same place as I am and we can learn together?

Because you don’t need to hire an experienced editor to get good feedback.  For example, critique groups probably help their members more with their works in progress than any other class, editor or method out there.  But do keep in mind who is telling you things.  If they are fellow writers, do you admire or like their work? Do they share your ability to learn and grow?   Or are they one of those types who seem to have all the answers, until you find out they’ve never actually published anything?

 

Read the full post on Elizabeth Law Reads.

 

Corrections Are Good: How to Take Critique Like a Dancer

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This post by Kim Bullock (link goes to a site for Carl Ahrens, a major character in her current novel) originally appeared on Writer Unboxed on 1/30/15.

My daughter, who had not known a plié from a tendu until age nine, was understandably terrified when she entered her first class at one of Dallas’ most prestigious classical ballet schools.

She had been the prima dancer during her one year at a beginner studio, performing front and center in the recital. “Work hard and you can go anywhere you want in the dance world,” her teacher had told her privately after ballet lesson number three. I was in the room at the time, and I watched that spark of a dream ignite in her eyes.

I feared her passion for dance might be snuffed out by trying to compete in a room full of girls who had been on tiptoe since toddlerhood, but my sensitive perfectionist emerged from class dry-eyed and grinning. She did chinés turns all the way back to the car, narrowly avoiding trash cans and hedges.

As she twirled, she rattled off an extensive list of things she had done wrong in class that day: everything from her hyper-extended elbows to her weak turnout and lazy fifth position. Her old teacher had apparently failed to correct her bad habits, so she would need to relearn everything

Though she did not seem upset in the least, I had to ask. “Did you receive any roses with all those thorns?”

“She didn’t name my butt. If it sticks out when you plié, she’ll give it an old man name,” my daughter explained. “The girl next to me was told to ‘put Fred away’ three times.”

 

Read the full post on Writer Unboxed.

 

Using Critical Reviews as Resources

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This post by Elizabeth Spann Craig originally appeared on her site on 10/24/14.

Wired’s founding executive editor Kevin Kelly stated that if writers and other artists have “one thousand true fans” then they’re able to sustain a living from their art.

I don’t honestly know how many true fans I have (and I prefer calling them readers instead of fans) but I know I get nearly-daily emails from readers.

And I do know one true ‘fan’.  She is, actually, my number one fan (no Stephen King reference intended).  She is also my number one critic.  Since she doesn’t have a public presence, I won’t call her out by giving her name online.

She started emailing me over a year ago, giving me feedback on various books in various series. She has mentioned reading each of my books numerous times.

I’m almost positive that she knows my characters better than I do.

 

Read the full post on Elizabeth Spann Craig’s site.

 

The Book That Wasn’t: 5 Fiction Writers Talk About their Novels in Drawers

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This post by Chloe Benjamin originally appeared on The Millions on 7/28/14.

“For every book I publish,” a writing teacher once told me, “there’s one book I don’t.” At the age of eighteen, armed with a truly bad novel and a rather absurd sense of optimism, this line did not exactly resonate. But as I amassed rejection slips of every size—and once my first novel was rejected by a pantheon of New York publishers—I realized that nearly every writer has a novel in a drawer: a manuscript that, due to any number of reasons (rejection, timing, chance, diversion) never quite becomes a fully-formed book.

By the time an author’s debut hits bookstores, it’s very likely been preceded by a string of books that weren’t: doomed half-novels; slivers of inspiration that curled up and went to sleep; baggy short stories that grew into novellas, then stubbornly refused to grow any more. Some become first drafts, but never find the right agent; others find an agent, but not a publisher. In general, Novels in Drawers are an unruly breed, prone to shape-shifting and border-crossing. Some NIDs lie prone for years before being resurrected and, miraculously, finished; others have their characters or ideas recruited to breathe new life into a different manuscript.

What are we to do to with our books that weren’t? How can we learn from them, and when should we let them go? Below, five fiction writers on the story they still haven’t been able to tell.

 

Click here to read the full post on The Millions.

 

David Farland’s Kick in the Pants—The High Cost of an Honest Critique

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This post by Kami M. McArthur originally appeared on David Farland’s site on 6/2/14.

Before you send out a manuscript for any kind of an edit, you need to consider whether you are willing to pay the true costs of an edit.

In the past few weeks, I’ve been asked to edit several novels. For those of you who don’t know, I sometimes will edit novels for others (for a price) and try to help authors prepare them before querying agents or making a wide release.

My goal of course is to help the author become a bestseller and perhaps win awards. This means that I have to study the novel and maybe try to figure out how to broaden the audience, ramp up the tension or wonder, tweak characters, boost plot lines, make protagonists more likeable, and so on. It also requires me to give advice on how to bolster weak prose, tighten pacing, and do a host of other things.

I always approach this with a bit of trepidation. When you take on an editing job, you never quite know what you’re getting yourself into. You may have a novel that sounds great when it is summarized, but has major weaknesses.

Problems can be fixed, of course, but authors sometimes can’t be. Occasionally the author is dead-set on doing something wrong, or is hoping only for praise, not for real constructive criticism.

 

Click here to read the full post on David Farland’s site.

 

The Case Against Beta Readers

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This post originally appeared on Popular Soda on 6/3/14.

Beta readers are treated like a necessary step in the self-publishing process. But are they worth it? Essentially, you’re turning over the development of your story to a total stranger. That is, if you can even find a beta reader who actually finishes your work and provides useful feedback.

Here are some of the most common problems with using beta readers:

 

You don’t know who they are

Anyone can claim to be an experienced editor offering beta reading for free. They’re not all lying, but they’re not all telling the truth, either. Personally, I’ve encountered several people who claimed to be professional editors in one thread, then admitted their lack of experience in another. Don’t count on the qualifications of someone hiding behind a screenname.

 

They don’t know what you’re capable of

Beta readers can’t push you to be your best, because they don’t know what your best looks like. I have a small group of close writer-friends who serve as my beta readers. If they find something they don’t like, they just write “Really?” and I go back and rework it. You simply can’t have that level of familiarity and understanding with someone who’s never read your work, barely knows your name, doesn’t understand your style, and has no idea of your goals.

 

Click here to read the full post on Popular Soda.

 

Marketing Lessons from Mad Men

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This post by James Scott Bell originally appeared on The Kill Zone blog on 6/1/14.

On a recent episode of Mad Men, “The Monolith,” a huge IBM computer is being installed in the offices of Sterling Cooper & Partners. Don Draper, reduced to hack work as some sort of vindictive punishment, watches from his office.

A character named Lloyd is overseeing the installation. Taking a smoke break, Lloyd asks Don if advertising really works.

Don says, “It helps if you have a good product.”

Boom. All advertising wisdom and marketing strategy must ultimately be filtered through this one non-negotiable. You’ve gotta have a good product, a quality thing to sell.

This is as true for books as it is for Brylcreem. You can pour all the time and money you want into getting the word out, but that only gets you an introduction. To succeed people have to like your product enough to become a repeat customer.

So how do you know when you have a quality book? Here’s one way:

 

Click here to read the full post on The Kill Zone blog.

 

Series Readers—What They Really Want To See In Our Books

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This post by Elizabeth Spann Craig originally appeared on her blog on 5/21/14.

I’ve just finished the latest Southern quilting mystery—book five in that series, due to release in late 2015.  So that means, right now, I’m no longer under a contract until Penguin decides if they’d like to acquire more books for the series (likely something they would determine after seeing sales figures for book four, coming out in August).

For the first time…ever, really…the only project I have to work on is my self-published Myrtle Clover series. I started book seven at my usual full throttle, and then slowed my writing pace down a bit and decided to take a more thoughtful approach.

I have a completed outline for the book.  The mystery looks pretty sound. Readers told me they especially wanted more humor and the book’s outline has plenty included.

But then I remembered some of the other emails I’ve gotten.  Readers have been writing me and mentioning things they’d like to see in my Myrtle stories. Others wrote that they were “so glad to hear more about____”. I remember reading these emails and being baffled because the elements the readers liked and wanted to hear more about seemed very incidental to the story.

But I know by now that anything readers like, even if it seems incidental to me, is simply a sign that I’m not getting it.

 

Click here to read the full post on Elizabeth Spann Craig’s blog.

 

Don't Give Readers a Reason to Reject Your Novel

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This post by Jodie Renner originally appeared on her Resources For Writers blog on 3/8/14.

Have your trusted friends or beta readers told you your WIP (work in progress) novel is too long, confusing, or just doesn’t grab them? Here are some typical “big-picture” weaknesses to watch out for in your fiction and correct before publishing it or pitching it to an agent. These types of glaring gaffes in writing, pacing, plot, or structure will bog down your story and invite bad reviews, which could sink your reputation as a novelist. Fortunately, they can all be remedied at the revision and self-editing stages.

~ Overwriting. Not enough self-editing.
Today’s bestselling novels are mostly between 70,000 and 90,000 words long. Unless you’re an absolutely brilliant writer, and experts in the business have told you so, if your manuscript is over 95,000 words long, it definitely needs tightening up. Cut way back on explanations and descriptions, and trim down long, convoluted sentences to their essence. Make every word count.

~ Meandering writing – the main story question / problem is fuzzy or buried.
What’s the protagonist’s main goal and fear, and his main problem? This should be obvious early on and be the overriding driving force behind your whole story. Don’t let it get lost in meandering writing, too much backstory, frequent info dumps, too many characters, too many subplots, and unrelated plot details.

~ One unrelated thing after another happens.

 

Click here to read the full post on Resources For Writers.

 

The Writer As Editor

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This post by Karen Ball originally appeared on the Steve Laube Agency blog on 1/30/13.

As we saw in my post last week, there are any number of ways a manuscript can go wrong. Hard enough to write a novel, but then to have to dig in and edit it yourself? That’s especially tough. So here are some tips to help you be the best editor you can be.

Don’t let the editor out to play too soon

Writing and editing are very different functions for the brain. Writing is a creative process; editing, logical and detail-oriented. When writing, we need to let ourselves forget the rules and coax the story to life. When editing, we must embrace the rules as a solid foundation to help us strengthen what’s landed on the page. I’ve seen so many writers almost drive themselves crazy by trying to edit as they write, which ends up making them second-guess everything. And freezes the story in its tracks.

Puts me in mind of one of my favorite pens (pictured below). It’s a two-tip pen—black ink at one end, red at the other. The body of the pen is made of two colors of wood, one with black tones, one with red. One end for writing, the other for editing. The pen works great—so long as I only use one end at a time! Trying to edit and write at the same time would be like grabbing the pen at both ends: totally ineffectual.

If you’re the kind of writer who can edit as you write, kudos. But for the rest of us, let’s give ourselves a break. Don’t do that. Rather, just WRITE. Keep the editor safely closed away until the writing is done.

 

Click here to read the full post on the Steve Laube Agency blog.