How I Wrote My Debut Novel: Part Eight – How to Choose Beta Readers

Your writing will eventually reach the point of being ready for and benefiting from its first readers. These are called beta readers.* These are the readers who will first interact with and provide feedback on your fiction. You should take care in selecting these readers. Select not more than five to seven people who fall into the category of either reader or reading writer.

A beta reader must be someone who is an avid reader of published writing in your genre. You’ll be asking them for feedback and that feedback needs to be based on reader experience and expertise. It will be tempting to ask supportive friends and relatives to be beta readers, but if they aren’t already readers they can offer this process little to no value. (If you want to give them an advance copy of the manuscript, feel free to do that later.)

Some of your readers might also be writers. The assumption is that these individuals are already readers, but make sure this is the case. If they are readers and writers of your genre, great, but those who don’t work and read in your genre can also bring great value. These reading writers bring the added value of also being able to provide feedback from a writer’s perspective, which will add to the collaboration.

Give your readers the manuscript in their chosen media (hardcopy or softcopy). Ask them to:

1. mark up the manuscript, noting where they experienced emotion or had questions, 
2. write a short summary of their reading experience with any recommendations, 
3. and return both of these to you. 

Finally, be sure to thank them. A small gift card tucked in a thank you note is my chosen way of showing gratitude. I also list these individuals on the acknowledgments page of my novels.

You may choose to do a couple rounds of beta readers, further developing the manuscript between rounds. But don’t stay in this stage too long before you move toward publication. Let this test market do its work and move on.

So it is with this we come to the end of this eight part series on how I wrote my debut novel. Your task is to invent your writing process—perhaps using some of what I’ve offered—and write your debut novel.

*If these are your beta readers, you might ask who is my alpha reader? The answer is you. We, as writers, are our own first readers.