Congratulations! Your manuscript is ready to send to beta readers! This means you’ve done at least one round of edits on your own and, while you know there might still be problems with it, you have identified and improved everything you can identify and prove on your own You’re ready for a fresh set of eyes, and you’ve rounded up anywhere from 5-11 readers who (more or less) fit the mold of your ideal reader and who (definitely) will give you constructive, honest feedback on your work.
Hold on a second. What even are beta readers?
Ok, now that we’re on the same page about what beta readers are and why they’re important, the question is, how can you be sure you get the kind of feedback you need from them to pinpoint remaining opportunities for development and start figuring out how to fix them?
Unfortunately, “Just give me your thoughts — I’m open to any and all feedback!” is not the right directive to give your readers. Rather, you want to guide the direction of their feedback through targeted questions that will get them thinking about the impact various craft elements had on them, as readers, where the story succeeded, and where it fell short.
That’s where my newest resource, 10+ Questions to Ask Your Beta Readers, comes in. This free PDF download includes two questionnaires—one for fiction and one for nonfiction—to get you started. You’ll have to adjust them as necessary, of course, for your own book and your own needs, but they’ll get you on the right track to thoughtful feedback on what’s working, what’s not, and how to approach your revisions.
Once you’ve gathered your beta reader feedback, this blog post will help you figure out how to handle it — and I’m always happy to help, too. Contact me to learn how I can help authors sift through feedback, identify what to implement and what to toss, and make a game plan for revisions.