The What and Why of Beta Reading
On October 2, 2020, I kicked off my first ever session of Beta Reading by sending Fae off to 11 amazing Beta Readers.
October of 2019, I had no idea what Beta Reading even was. I had just started to play around with the idea of self-publishing my book, and I was working with my friend Alyssa to understand what that process would look like and all of its parts. I was still trying to wrap my head around the different types of editing, and why it took years, not months, to publish a professional quality book.
There are a lot of articles out there that try to explain Beta Reading, so by no means is this going to be the most comprehensive, or probably even most unique overview. But I know that I had a lot of questions before I decided that I would do a Beta Reading session, and so here’s my attempt to pay-it-forward by breaking it down in my own unique way.
What is Beta Reading?
Beta Reader has a lot of varied definitions within the writing world, in part due to fanfiction, and in part due to the fact that none of these terms are necessarily official or regulated. Some people will use Beta Reader interchangeably to mean a single critique partner, or even a hired (read: paid) editor. In fanfiction, a Beta Reader is a proofreader who reads your work and checks grammar/syntax before you share it, and a few authors - especially those who self-publish serial work or on very regular schedules, use this term in this way as well.
However, the commonly accepted definition of Beta Reading is a process in which you allow laymen (i.e. non-professional) readers who regularly read the genre that your book falls into, to read your novel for free, in exchange for detailed feedback. Basically, you’re getting your book in the hands of the people you think would be likely to purchase your book, to get their feedback and see how your story is being received.
And when I say detailed feedback, I mean DETAILED. This isn’t you sending over the book and getting a couple of paragraphs back. You’re dividing your work into sections, and getting feedback section-by-section over the course of several weeks. The feedback you have at the end should reveal your story’s strengths - useful for talking about and marketing your book to other readers - as well as its weaknesses - the areas of the book you may want to revisit to strengthen, remove, expand on, or even completely rewrite before publication.
Why Should I Do It? Is it for Me?
I strongly recommend Beta Reading to anyone who is trying to self-publish their novel. However, I do know that it is not for everyone. So I’ve broken down the benefits, as well as things I think any author should strongly consider when determining if this process is for them.
The Benefits:
Here are some of the benefits, as I see them:
First the obvious, it’s a trial run for your book but with the chance to still make changes. You can see how readers in your genre are responding to your novel. Is it interesting, or predictable? Is it enthralling, or confusing? Are your characters engaging, or flat? You have the chance to ask these questions and get honest feedback while you are still writing and able to edit everything. This is powerful feedback, that could potentially shift the direction you take both your book and its marketing.
It forces you to think deeply about your story structure. As you break your novel into sections for your reader, it will force you to view your story from an entirely different lens. Thinking about the different turning points and moments in your story is a good opportunity to spot gaps in your storytelling, or see which beats in your story might be too long or too short.
It’s like pre-advertising for your book. The process of finding Beta Readers will require you to speak concisely but engagingly about your novel, in order to get people who want to go through the process of giving you weekly feedback for free. Not only will you be speaking about your novel to tons of potential readers, getting them interested in the story even if they don’t end up reading for you, but you’ll be pushed to start thinking about how to market your story.
Is it for Me?
In my opinion, if you are considering Beta Reading there are several steps that I think should come first. To be honest, I don’t think you should be looking to start this process or seek out beta readers if you haven’t done the following:
Finished your 1st Draft. This might sound like common sense, but especially in the fanfic world people might be used to sending chapters as they write them. I don’t recommend that for a process like this, because I think you lose out on the 2nd benefit I mentioned above, and it can lead to an unpleasant experience for your readers.
Sent your book to a professional editor - ideally a developmental editor. A Developmental editor essentially helps bring your book from being a long story, to a cohesive, pleasant-to-read book. But any editor - even if they’re just helping you identify grammar or punctuation mistakes, spelling errors, etc. - will help make your book a better read. You want to have this done before you send it to readers to make their reading experience as pleasant as possible, but also as close to your final published version as possible.
Finished your 2nd Draft. Coming right off the last one, once you get that editor feedback, make sure to incorporate it before sending anything to your Beta Readers. If you’d like to do these 2 things in conjunction - i.e. edit a section and then send it off - I think that’s fine, but you put unnecessary added time pressure on your editing that way. To me, it’s easier to wait until you’re completely edited to start sending anything out. And if you went through the trouble of hiring an editor, it’s a waste if you don’t incorporate that feedback before sending content to your Beta Readers. The more “final” of a version that you send your Beta Readers, the more useful their feedback will be for you.
I also want to acknowledge that conducting this whole Beta Reading thing is a lot of work. Like more work than I expected, and I had a detailed front row seat to seeing someone else conduct a Beta Reading process. I definitely plan to do another post next month with some of my tips and tricks for Beta Reading, once I am finished. But even with those tips understand that this is a big commitment.
You’re going to be chopping your story into sections, and putting each section into a shareable format. You’re going to be seeking out qualified Beta readers, which also involves weeding people out, and possibly tons of people looking to charge you money. You’re going to be laying the groundwork of advertising by figuring out how to describe your book. You’re going to be creating the methodology for your Beta Readers to give you detailed feedback on each section. You’re going to be writing and sending out weekly emails to your Beta readers for weeks.
That’s not for everybody. It can be overwhelming, and if that overwhelm is going to be a barrier to someone focusing on editing and polishing their book for publication, I would 100% say skip this step. The most important thing is editing your book. If you can work with professional editors you trust, their feedback should be valuable in guiding you in shaping your book. As an alternative, maybe consider hiring multiple developmental editors and going through 2 or 3 rounds of dev. editing instead to get multiple perspectives.
However, even despite the work I would personally still 100% recommend Beta Reading to anyone who is publishing a book - fiction or non-fiction - and wants to make it as professional and excellent as possible. In marketing, there is nothing like a qualified focus group, and companies will pay thousands of dollars for focus group testing. Well, in a way your book is a product, and your Beta Readers are a qualified focus group you don’t even have to pay for! This process presents an incredible opportunity for any book, and for that reason I think it’s something most authors should absolutely include in their publication process.
Those are my thoughts! If you’re an author who has something to add - either for or against Beta Reading - please drop a note in my comments and let’s get a dialogue going!
