things to know before sending your novel to beta readers

This past April, I did a very scary thing. A scary thing that proceeded to make me shake and cringe whenever the topic came up. It involved my writing. It involved other people. Put those two together, and it involved other people reading my writing. Beta readers.

UM. OKAY. NO BIG DEAL. *heart attack*

I am not a big fan of people reading my writing. It sounds silly -- I know. Because don't writers write stories for people to read?

Yes. But. Still. That's scary. :P

I have learned things through this beta process. And since many of you might go through the beta process eventually (it's something you really, really should do), here are some things to know before handing your baby off.

betas are nice. 

Even though I was scared to death of sending my manuscript to betas, after the first few comments came back, I started to relax. (A little bit.) No one was sending my angry emails of how awful it was. They handled critique kindly. They flailed. They told me how they couldn't wait to read the sequel. From every comment I walked away feeling encouraged and ready to make my book better. That's more than I could've asked for.

give your betas more time to read than you'd think.

Most of my betas said that they would be able to give me feedback within a month, and only half actually fulfilled that. (this isn't to make anyone feel bad -- just passing on information that can help others in the future :)

Life happens. Most of my betas had their own books to write and edits. I completely understand! (Gosh, I'm just happy that people signed up and are excited.) But for you writers who want to have feedback returned by a certain date... make sure you allow time for betas to fall behind and take longer than expected.

Even if you don't need feedback by a certain time, deadlines are good. Then betas won't get into the thinking mentality of "I can always do this later -- there's no time I need to get my critiques sent in by."

say YES to all the betas.

Originally -- as in a couple months ago -- I expected to have around 7-10 betas. It's a good, average amount of betas, but I had to factor in several things:

// some of my betas might become busy and won't be able to finish it in time.

// some betas may never even start my book.

// not all of my betas will stick around or be able to read the sequel. 

So, since I had almost 40 people sign up, I said yes to all of them. Only half of them returned feedback (20), and I'm guessing only 15 of those will end up reading the sequel. So while 40 originally sounds like a lot, it was actually nowhere close to that.

betas will catch even the smallest of mistakes. 

I assumed that betas would catch mistakes in my book. I mean, that's what they're for, right? But I didn't know that they were so good at catching mistakes. 

My fantastic betas realized that I skipped from chapter 25 to chapter 27. They found character inconsistencies and places where I'm missing a word. They caught everything. Though it's overwhelming to have all that feedback thrown at you, I couldn't be happier. Because ultimately my book will get better because of this. *confetti*

questions are a very good thing.

Instead of leaving it up to your betas to send in feedback, have a list of questions for them. This was extremely helpful, and betas went into tons of detail. (I practically received a whole novel of feedback through the forms. Like, almost 15k words. o.O)

I asked seven questions and had a space where they could leave general thoughts. Be sure to ask about characters, plot, and confusing parts. That's where I got the majority of my critiques.

I used a google form which worked nicely for having everything in one place, but you could always attached a word document of questions or even paste some into an email. Do whatever works best for you.

have something you can work on while you wait for feedback.

THIS IS A THOUSAND TIMES IMPORTANT. In a matter of moments after I sent off my book to beta readers, I started brainstorming my Camp NaNoWriMo novel. A day later I started my Camp NaNoWriMo novel. So it worked out where I was I doing something while people attacked my novel. 

I could've gone crazy without keeping myself busy. I would've turned into an obsessively checking email monster. And instead I turned into an obsessively insane zombie writer. Not the greatest alternative, but I'm a writer, so what else do you expect?

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// katie grace

Have you given your novel to beta readers? What did you learn?

Or are you planning to give your novel to betas eventually?