I'm doing my usual thing on Twitter if you tweet me I do my best to tweet you back. Honestly sometimes I look at the tweet but not usually, just checking to make sure it isn't crazy dirty otherwise I hit retweet and move onto the next. The person catches on if she retweets me I'll retweet her so the next day I retweet again and this time I read it and out of curiosity click on the link, a professional beta reader hmm. As I've whined I'm having problems with my latest story. While I have now finished, again, and am now really happy it reminded me that I don't have any beta readers, haven't for the last few books. While I miss them the whole process of finding and getting honest good feedback from a beta reader is fucking exhausting.
I checked out the website or whatever and holy shit she nailed it dead on. You send out the email and you get a great response of people who want to read then nothing then a few weeks on you prod people and less than half respond to you. Then you get emails of it was good but nothing on how to make it better. I realized it pretty much didn't work having people I knew read because even though I practically begged them only one person ever told me one thing out of seven books that I could change and I did it and I think it made the story stronger but one person, seven books one fucking thing? Don't even get me started on the emails that I got after I published the freaking book that trailed in of it was good. My editor was kind enough to make a note on one of my last books that I think was a huge catch and slightly embarrassing BUT I shouldn't have depended on her for that and I can't in the future.
At first I kind of got annoyed at once again paying for an aspect of publishing. So many readers out there wouldn't charge me then I thought about it. Do I want the best for my story and frankly my nerves? How fair is it exactly for me to ask someone to take time out of their life to read my book and get back to me with a thorough list of what isn't working and how to make it better? If someone who already likes your writing is reading they probably are worried about ticking you off or insulting you by telling you a scene didn't work or they didn't feel a connection with a character or the fatal but all important, the characters lacked depth. All fixes that can be done but not if you don't know about them until you hit publish and you get that feedback in the form of two or three stars.
If you have good beta readers let them know how much you appreciate them and if you don't then maybe a professional beta reader is the best way to go.
