Getting Beta Readers

[Brainsnaffler]

Hi everyone,

I understand that the beta reading process can be extremely useful to helping you on the path to a good quality publication. Problem is, not many of my friends are interested in my career choice enough for them to sit down and give me feedback on a full novel.

On my latest work, I have managed to get a couple of people to read and comment on it, and I have used the workshop here before, but ideally I would have thought that it's best to have like half a dozen readers to give you a good scope on feedback.

What I'm getting at is that I was just curious to know if any of you guys and gals have a substantial bullpen of beta readers and how you managed to secure the ones you do have.

 

[RedMage]

What I'm getting at is that I was just curious to know if any of you guys and gals have a substantial bullpen of beta readers and how you managed to secure the ones you do have.

Hi Brainsnaffler. I have mostly used this forum and the Workshop here. However, I do have a few people who live near me, offline, whom I can turn to for a beta read. One of these is a cousin who is also a Fantasy writer as I am and who was an English teacher for about 10 years, and two others are good friends with a good command of written language---which is something I often need help with. My cousin and I exchanged our manuscripts at the same time and we often talk about them when we get together for holidays and birthday parties and such. The two friends are not really into Fantasy as much, but they both talked to me about it enough that I finally asked them to read it. Otherwise, I haven't had much luck offline, even though I've tried some writers groups.

There are other online critique groups. One friend here, @A. Lynn, keeps telling me about Scribophile lately. It seems to be working for her, but I'll let her tell you about it. But I hear what you're saying in that you wanted a small group, though not too small, of beta readers whom you can trust and actually know them as people and not just names, and whom you can submit multiple stories to over time. It takes time to find that and it's hard. For me, that group is here, but I know they and myself don't mesh with everyone.

 

[N. E. White]

If you want volume, try Critters.org. You have to critique a lot though.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

I'm very active on another sff forum and have been since I started writing, and that's where most of my beta readers - I have quite a lot, for various projects - came from. The sites I've tried (other than here) which do substantive beta reading are critters.org and critique circle. Of the two, I'd rate critique circle slightly higher as they tend to have more experienced critters and it's easier to tell which is which (inexperienced beta readers can cause more chaos than they solve).

For me, now, though, the bulk of my early reading is done through a writing group, all of whom came from online forum contact.

 

[kmtolan]

Most of my readers are also writers and alumni of the heady days of IPublish - an ill fated Time Warner foray into e-books back before they became mainstream. So, most of us ended up line editing each other's work in a Yahoo group and so it remains to this day with a few stalwart members. So, for me, it's been a matter of online networking.

 

[Brainsnaffler]

Interesting. So, I see that perhaps the best way forward to grow a volume of beta readers is to cultivate those relationships in online critiquing forums. Sounds like a good idea, but i'm curious...

Did anyone here ever go down this route and find that some of the critiques you receivied were not done in a particularly helpful way or did they go the n'th level of scrutiny about your writing style? I ask this because I've seen well known authors advise that beta readers should steer clear from being prescriptive in their critique (e.g. you should have a space station blow up here, and you should have the dragon burn the town etc.) Those authors advise sticking to giving an overview just like you'd react to a movie .e.g what you liked about it, what you didn't like about it.

 

[Victor Espinosa]

Did anyone here ever go down this route and find that some of the critiques you receivied were not done in a particularly helpful way or did they go the n'th level of scrutiny about your writing style?

Not every critique or piece of advice will be very helpful to you, and some people may take their role in reviewing your manuscript a little too seriously and end up turning over a heavily marked up copy. But I feel like the point is to take the best advice of each beta reader; the one that takes things a little too seriously, the one who likes things spelled out more, the one who enjoys more dialogue, etc, and find the perfect balance from each.
But definitely work on being personal and actually knowing your beta readers first. Having random people that you've recently met online critique your work can deliver mixed results. Other authors, readers, or close friends and family are the way to go. It takes some time, but their words are much more valuable and credible.

 

[kmtolan]

To further build on Victor's good advice, what you're interested in is patterns where more than one reader stumbles across the same spot. This can quickly weed out a lot of the background noise.

 

[Window Bar]

I'm not trying to be a wise-guy, nor am I playing down the value of other folks' input, but one of my best beta readers can be myself. Making my own opinions objective, however, requires building some real distance between myself and my work -- meaning six months or more.

Of course, for those who are working under a deadline, such luxurious stretches of time are every bit as fictional as their creations. Best of luck.

 

[Victor Espinosa]

I'm not trying to be a wise-guy, nor am I playing down the value of other folks' input, but one of my best beta readers can be myself. Making my own opinions objective, however, requires building some real distance between myself and my work -- meaning six months or more..

Absolutely true. Many authors recommend to step away from your writing for a while, I believe Stephen King says a minimum of 6 weeks, and focus on other things. That way when you come back to it later, you have a fresh set of eyes and a different mind set, and can notice things you didn't earlier.

 

[Riley Cooper]

@Window Bar, I'm in the same boat. Looking for readers that can bring more to the table than, "It was good," or "there were too many vampires." (My sister, who has read my work and really strives to help me, doesn't particularly like my genre.)
I'd like to thank everyone for their help, answering this question and with this entire forum. I've learned a lot just by reading the few stories I've been able to read and the critiques that come with them.

 

[A. Lynn]

@Riley Cooper, I hear you. I favor Cyberpunk, a genre that seems niche and not to have a lot of admirers. It's hard to to get good feedback when people are already feeling offput by "cyberspace thingamawatchits" It was an early sense of angst for me while writing to the lone audience of my mother, who is damn near anti-scifi.

I myself try to do in-line critiques, but mostly when I find a piece of prose too purple or too fragmented. If you're splitting my attention with too much detail, then I'm not going to be in to it. On the other hand, I've been knee-deep in some stories on Scribophile where I forgot there was an in-line critique feature because the story was that good and it was just quite some time before an error or poor choice of words broke me from the plot.