For those who do not know, beta readers are people you ask to read your manuscript in order to provide helpful feedback and constructive criticism on your stories before you submit them for publication. You can ask people you know to be beta readers, or you can hire beta readers online.
Having multiple beta readers per story is a benefit. It’s not necessary to have a bunch, but three or four different people can provide three to four different sets of eyes to catch mistakes, and three to four different perspectives to provide feedback.
When looking for beta readers, I (and many other writing resources) would recommend finding people who do a lot of reading themselves, people who read within the genre you write, and people who are going to be honest with you. Proud moms who are generally impressed by everything you do are probably not good choices for beta readers.
I have had up to five beta readers but two have read almost every story I’ve written, published or not, and a third has read a good few. All three of my regulars are fans of the horror genre. All three are readers. All three bring unique perspectives and insights to my work. And all three have improved my work!
My beta readers have done so much for my work including: find grammatical mistakes, identify inconsistencies and incoherencies, find continuity errors, suggest changes to characters, recommend changes to the climax of a story, and educate me on relevant topics! Ultimately, it is my choice whether I use their feedback and criticism, but I will honestly say that, of all the times I have enlisted their help, I have used approximately 95% of their suggestions/recommendations.
If you want to be published, I strongly recommend finding yourself some committed and honest beta readers, and I recommend you get used to hearing criticisms about your stories because they will happen! But all in the name of improvement.
Thanks for reading.
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