How You Can Be A Helpful Beta Reader

It is a Saturday, which means another blog post!

Today is a crazy busy Saturday for me, filled with coffee shops, relative's book signings, working, and new bookshelves. So an awesome day, but a busy day. xD What do you have planned for your Saturday?

Last year, I wrote a post on How Writers Can Help Their Beta Readers. So now I'm doing the same sort of thing, but from the other perspective.

Here's how to be the most fabulous beta reader ever.

The whole point of beta reading is to help make the book better. So when writer's give you their book, and you reply with, "AH THIS WAS SO AWESOME I CAN'T THINK OF ANYTHING TO SAY," is not helpful. One bit. Granted, it makes us feel nice, but saying, "Wow. This was really amazing because [reasons], but I think you can improve on these parts..." is a thousand times more helpful.

It's hard to be honest. When I beta read a book that needs work, it's hard to tell them the honest truth that the characters aren't personable. But when you tell them that -- in a nice way -- you are basically turning into superman and sharing your superpowers. Aw yas.

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Most writers I've beta read for have given me a deadline. If you don't receive a deadline, you should ask for one (or make one up), because otherwise it's way too easy to let that novel grow dust in your inbox. 

Honor the writer's request.

Plus, it's great practice for when you're a famous author someday and have to finish your novel in a certain amount of time and send it to your editor. Deadlines are evil, but necessary. 

Also, if you can't make it within the deadline, let the writer know. It's a polite thing to do.

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Let me make this clear: you don't have to make comments in the document, but it's really, really awesome when you do. 

Reader reactions are amazing. It helps the writer understand which scenes are the best, and which scenes don't gather as much excitement.

A couple of my beta readers made comments on basically everything -- good and bad. It was awesome. I had almost 2,000 comments between the readers. Which is a LOT, but the comments were ridiculously helpful. And fun to read when they started flailing over some of my favorite scenes.

So write all the comments. Spam the writer with all the messages. Make them feel awesome.

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More often than not, the writer will send a feedback form or list of questions for you to answer. If you're anything like me, it's easy to forget what you disliked about the book and instead think about the awesome flail-worthy parts. (my memory is the size of a shrew. I'm actually not sure how big a shrew is, but it sounds tiny. So let's go with that.)

Often I'll fill out the questions as I find things to comment on in the book, so there's very little for me to do after I finish the thing.

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Because writer's are fragile creatures, and too much criticism will send them into a dark hole of denial and sadness. So do please make sure to find several things you love -- several things that they can cling onto for hope. 

Hope is essential for writers, since crippling self-doubt is very common. Unfortunately.

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If you haven't beta read a book before, you should definitely do the thing. You get to read a book for free by one of your writing friends, help make it better, see it evolve, and when it becomes a best seller, you can take pride in that you beta read the book in its earlier drafts. 

Plus analyzing plots with a critical eye will help you edit your own book. So go beta read all the things. xD

// katie grace

Can you think of any other ways in which a beta reader can be helpful?

What about you? Have you ever beta read a book?