If you’re entering the world of writing books, you’ve likely already heard about the idea of beta readers. The writing process itself is a lengthy one that requires drafts, revisions, and feedback before the final product is complete. Beta readers are one aspect of the revision process and can be a vital one to getting your manuscript to a better state. Today, I’ll be explaining what beta readers are, why you need beta readers, and where you can find beta readers of your own.
What Are Beta Readers?
Beta readers are people that get a chance to read a manuscript before it reaches the final stage of work. The purpose of a beta reader is to essentially just provide feedback to the author, which may seem like a small task but can easily be the difference between a well-written manuscript and a manuscript still stuck in the drafting stage.
These readers are usually selected from the target audience, as they are likely to provide the best type of feedback for the specific genre you’re writing in. Beta readers look out for things like the plot, the characters, the pacing, and the overall quality of the manuscript. They are not there for more fine-tuned edits like grammar and spelling–this is typically an editor’s job.
Why Should You Get Beta Readers for Your Story?
Beta Readers can play a significant role in the development of your manuscript. For one, they represent the common reaction and perspective of your target audience. If you target your beta readers correctly by finding ones from your own target audience, they will be able to let you know if your book actually works with that intended audience. Their feedback can help you identify places where your story may not be working for that particular group of people.
Identifying plot holes and inconsistencies in the story is also another important role that beta readers play. Even if you think you’ve covered your whole story and know all the ins and outs, reading it so many times is bound to make you overlook certain issues with your plot. This is what leads to plot holes and inconsistencies, which are things that beta readers–with fresh eyes on your work–can point out for you to realize.
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Character development is another thing that beta readers can take a look at and give feedback on. Since most stories are character-driven, having good characters is extremely important to the overall plot of your story. They can help you as a writer in seeing if your character is relatable, interesting, exciting, well-designed, and more.
Another important thing that beta readers can comment on is the pacing of your story and if it’s well-done or not. Oftentimes, your story may feel like it’s dragging or it’s too rushed through some important scenes, and in this case, having another set of eyes take a look can help you figure out the right balance for the pacing of your story.
Creating a community of fans before you’ve even finished your final draft is also something that beta readers can give you as a writer. Beta readers more often than not are the first to read your finished product and will be the first to give you heartfelt reviews because they’ve seen your work grow with you as you’ve written it.
Beyond that, beta readers are also great for detecting issues early so that you don’t get to the final draft and realize that you have so many issues and now you’ll have to change up so much of the plot you worked really hard on to edit and fix.
How to Choose Good Readers
You’re probably wondering how you can actually successfully choose beta readers after knowing about how much value they bring authors. Well, the first thing you want to do is search for people within your target audience. Readers who don’t enjoy romance are probably not the right group for your slow-burn romance. Readers who love sword and shield fantasy are probably the right pick though for your epic adult fantasy story!
The next thing to try and do is get a wide range of people from diverse backgrounds to give you feedback. The reason being is that people of different ages, genders, and ethnicities will all be able to bring you different perspectives on the same story and will be able to point out things that other readers may not notice. Having different people give me feedback on Soldat, Book 2 of my series, helped me come up with much better ideas than I initially had, which is super important!
You should also find beta readers who are willing and can give you constructive feedback and are committed to reading your story. You don’t want a beta reader who will never read and constantly delays feedback for you. This makes it harder for you to get your story finished.
How to Get the Best out of Your Readers
First, you’ll want to give your beta readers an idea of what your goals are in asking them to review your story. Maybe you have some specific areas where you want the most feedback in or you want the readers to keep an eye out for something–let the beta readers know before they actually get started reading your work. This way, you can maximize your benefit.
The next thing is to be open and accepting of criticism. This is probably the hardest part because we all want to think that our stories are the best possible story out there, but being open to critique may open doors that can take your story to the next level. Now, I will say, you’ll have to identify good criticism from just plain negative criticism for no reason. Criticism that provides ideas on improvement is better than someone just saying “your story sucks.” That’s not criticism, that’s probably someone looking to bring you down.
Take feedback into consideration and see if it fits into your story. Adjust as you need to and take ideas from different readers to improve your story. You don’t have to take their feedback into consideration, but you probably should. They gave you feedback on things that you’ll likely hear from readers once your book hits the shelves.
Where to Find Beta Readers
So, knowing all of this, where can you actually find beta readers? The first thing I will say is that you can certainly ask friends and family, but you may not get the best feedback. Firstly, your family may want to tell you it’s good because they don’t want to hurt your feelings. Friends may also be in the same boat.
The best thing to do for readers is go beyond your own circle and look online. Firstly, there’s a subreddit called r/BetaReaders where people look for beta readers for their story. You just post a small pitch and find people who are interested in your story, which is a great resource because people on that subreddit are actively looking to be beta readers.
The next thing you can do is try to check Facebook for groups that match writers with beta readers and join them. They may be a bit restrictive, but at least you’ll know that the people there are all like you or are interested in what you’ve got to write!
The next thing you can look at is Scribophile, which is a platform where you can find beta readers and get readers in general for your manuscript. It’s a good place to start if you don’t find any luck on Reddit or Facebook.
In general, you can probably find beta readers on any search engine. You need to really take a look at each website and find ones that are legit and not just scams to get you to pay up money. Check each website, read reviews and go to Reddit to see what people have to say about that particular page.
Beta readers are a very important thing to try and get for your story and while not required, it can definitely boost your manuscript to the next level. The writing industry is a very competitive one and there are people querying agents every single day. You want to query with full confidence and know that your product is great. Basically, do everything you can before you hit the send button to any agent.
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