In part 1, I talked about finding beta readers. In this post, I want to focus on how to work with those beta readers. I don't think I need to say this, but just in case, remember that when someone agrees to beta read your book, you need to be grateful. In my case, I was probably overly grateful, but that's better than the opposite, I think. I suppose it could be easy for someone to forget that beta readers have lives and may not get to your book the moment you send it out. You want to argue with readers about what they say about the book, but don't. I know these are our babies! It took me four years to complete my first draft, so I'm pretty protective of my work. Still! When I asked people to read my book, I acknowledged the greatness of the task and groveled at their feet for anything they could give me. Signing up This leads me to the sign up form. When I started asking people to beta read (even close friends), I asked them to fill out a simple (online) form. All it asked for was their name and email address. I did this for a couple reasons.
Expectations: Providing resources I knew that for most of my beta readers (particularly those in my first hand-picked set), this would be their first experience in reading an unpublished work and giving feedback on it. Along with telling them that a beta reader was simply a test reader, I also provided some resources. The links to these resources were subtly mentioned (and given) in the form and then popped up again in the email with the downloading instructions. I never said they had to read the articles, but I said they may want to, especially if they were new to beta reading or were unfamiliar with my genre. Here are the resources I provided (and how I worded it in my email): Before getting started, you may want to...
More on Expectations: the Email So, after the sign up form and setting up my ebook draft (more on that in part 3!), I sent out an email. Maybe it's because I'm a teacher, but I wanted to make sure my readers knew what I expected of them and make sure they had what they needed in order to do what I was asking them. I shared the resources mentioned earlier, for example, as well as some other stuff... I definitely didn't want my beta readers looking for misplaced commas or grammar errors, so I told them to please not to do that. I also gave them a list of things I did need their help with. My list varied between the two beta reader sets, but I said I was looking for a better title, wanted them to note where the story seemed to slow down too much, or if there were any moments where they got confused about what was happening in the story, etc. Most importantly, in the email, I provided instructions for downloading the ebook and gave some flexible but hard-fast dates. I told them I wanted their feedback as soon as possible, but also gave them a month if they wanted me to incorporate their suggestions, but also told them that I would take feedback anytime. Lastly, I included a link to the quick-comments-form. Similar to the sign up form, I drafted some multiple choice and short answer questions. If you want to see what questions I asked, see my quick comments google form template. Evaluation of my process
As I mentioned, the signing up form turned out useful for not only confirming readers' email addresses, but also subtly made my readers commit to the beta reading experience. Providing resources turned out to be useful for those who were new to beta reading. It gave them the option to learn more if they wanted to but it wasn't required or pressured, so I didn't get any pushback from readers about having given them something "extra" to read. I recommend doing something like this because it for sure increased my chances of getting better feedback in the end! Drafting the email took a long time, but once I had it, I could use it for both sets, all I had to do was tweak what I wanted my beta readers to look for in the draft I was giving them. The hardest part was, actually, after sending the email, because I wanted to call up everybody and make sure they got it and that they were able to download the ebook draft. Instead, I made my husband check his email and download the book and assumed that it worked for everyone else. I put a note in the email that if they had any questions or problems to let me know, so I assumed that no news was good news, and it turned out to be true. The quick comments form was awesome because it put all of my feedback in one place. I still gave people the option to email me back, by the way. If that happened, I plugged in their answers into the form myself so everything stayed organized. Feeling anxious When the comments started rolling in, I got really nervous and a little overwhelmed. I reached out to more experienced writers and was told that what I was feeling was totally normal! One friend said to read the emails/feedback when I notice them because otherwise they will haunt me, but then set it to the side for a couple days and let them simmer. That proved to be good advice! Sometimes our reactions to criticism is to fight back or (for me) cry. It's best to read it, let it sit, and then come back to it in a couple days with a more level-head and make the tough decisions. More to come in Part 3!
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