A lot of my author friends have had challenges with beta readers or the beta reading experience. It left them frustrated and disappointed.. That was not my experience. Not only was it encouraging in terms of a universal positive response that my novel, FALSE TRUST, is a great and engaging read, but also the quantity and quality of constructive criticism provided. Without doubt, my beta readers have contributed majorly to improving the final manuscript. And I am thankful for that!
So why was I able to have such a positive experience with beta reading feedback when many others did not?
My Beta Reading Results
My understanding is that only 25% – 50% of beta readers provide any feedback at all. And it is often at different levels and the quality of feedback varies. As much as we want to offer to be beta readers (yes, I have also been a beta reader), life can get in the way! Most beta readers have full-time jobs and families to look after. And beta reading requires more effort than reading a book for pleasure.
And unless you have some previous experience with beta reading, the beta reader may not know how to or be afraid of providing feedback, especially if they did not like the book or are just uncomfortable providing negative feedback.
I originally wanted feedback from three or four different perspectives, so using the beta reading response rate of 25% – 50% mentioned above, I asked for and then selected a group of six readers. Then some further volunteers who I thought would do a good job requested to also beta read the manuscript. Therefore, I ended up with nine beta readers, figuring the more the merrier! And I received substantial feedback from seven of them, which was a pleasant surprise. One went ghost on me and another had serious ‘life getting in the way’ issues’, which required their full-time focus. But it blew me away me to have received great feedback from so many!
Here are the results I experienced with beta reading for my debut novel, FALSE TRUST:
- A high response rate of 7 out of 9
- Approximately 75 pages of high-quality feedback regarding plot, characters, and most everything else
- Correcting over 500 various typos and grammar mistakes
Beta Reading Lessons Learned
I found that by selecting the right group and providing a suitable set of instructions, that I could receive great results from the process. The lessons I learned are as listed:
- Make sure beta readers are enthusiastic about helping and feel some responsibility that, once committed, they will follow through/
- Make sure they are familiar with the genre/
- Selecting the right set of beta readers can significantly improve your response rate/
- People are anxious that providing constructive criticism will not be received well. I had to encourage people to be honest and hit hard – that I could ‘take it’ and wanted to know where problems existed!
- Recognize and be outwardly thankful to beta readers as they have made an enormous commitment of time and effort to help the author. I constantly reached out and thanked beta readers for the efforts and contribution which in turn kept them engaged and willing to continue/
- Beta readers each have their own set of reading / editing skills and unique ability to help improve things. I was often amazed how one beta reader found things that no one else had.
- Some beta readers also had expertise in terms of content and a surprising by-product of their beta reading was identifying and improving my knowledge of weapons, aircraft, historical accuracies and in other areas where my research had fell short or was not yet completed..
Here is a short video I made with my beta readers encouraging feedback. Just click on the video below to play it.
How is that for great feedback? I was so excited, knowing how critical my beta readers can be!
What I Could Have Done Better
One thing I should have done better was to have an initial set of feedback earlier. This step is often referred to as alpha reading. I will have two or three people alpha read my next novel, They must be the right type of person who can accept the state the manuscript is in, see past it, and still provide useful feedback on story, plot development, characters’ believability, likability, and more. Had I been less fearful to bring my manuscript from private to public earlier, it would have saved me a large amount of rewriting that I am now going through. It would have also reduced the amount of redundant feedback I got from multiple beta readers.
The second thing I could have done better was processing the sheer amount of feedback more efficiently. I wanted to provide a choice of formats so readers could read the manuscript using the format most suitable and natural for them. I gave them the option of a 6 x 9-inch formatted Word file (similar to the final formatting of the paperback version), or ePub or Mobi to read electronically. Based on the eReader they used and how they tracked feedback, it proved somewhat more difficult to understand the location of their comments. One reviewer highlighted text which was easy to identify location, but in some cases I did not understand what the person was pointing out.
In the case of those who provided feedback within the Word document, it was much easier for me to review the feedback, as I could see exactly where the feedback occurred and their thought via the comments they added or the track changes they made. The next time I conduct a beta reading, I will work more closely with each reader in terms of up-front instructions and the process they will use to read and document their feedback. This would have saved me some time, while not requiring any overhead on their part.
I also tried to process all seven responses at one time, chapter-by-chapter, but that method did not work. It was brutally slow, with so many open windows on my computer and trying to keep everything together, so I changed the process after one chapter and then processed in its entirety, one beta readers feedback, then followed by another. This process was more efficient and gained in efficiency as I went through all of them.
Summary
I learned and benefitted a great deal from my experience with my beta reading team. It was:
- Highly encouraging and motivating for me to get positive feedback on the story quality, the book’s readability and the plausibility of story and characters.
- Provided many, many improvements to the book, eliminated a number of inaccuracies and inconsistencies – many which most readers would not have noticed, but the type of ‘mistakes’ that some readers use to crucify the author for not having done their research!
- Taught me a lot about the process and how to improve it the next time.
Overall, my experience with beta readers was exceptional! I am so thankful to them for their constructive criticism and positive contribution to making FALSE TRUST a better manuscript. THANK YOU beta reading team!
If you liked this post, then check out my other posts on my author journey and my book reviews for highly recommended reads on my Blog.
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