Story Magic

73 - Beta reading

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Today, Emily & Rachel talk about beta reading!

What you’ll learn from this episode:

  • What is beta reading? 
  • When is the right time to search for beta reading? 
  • What kind of questions to ask
  • What to do once you get feedback returned

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Emily:

Hey, writers. Welcome back to Story Magic, the podcast that will help you write a book you're **** proud of.

Rachel:

I'm Rachel.

Emily:

And I'm Emily.

Rachel:

And today we are talking about beta reading.

Emily:

Woo hoo. Betas are the best.

Rachel:

Beta. Beta reading is fun. The reason I wanted to talk about this is a couple reasons. One, I just finished getting beta reading done on my draft of my sequel, my second book, so it's relevant to, like, my time right now. But also I think there's a lot of confusion amongst the writing community and also the reading community of, like, what is. What is beta reading? When do you do it? I know some of my beta readers were like, had one, never done it, so they didn't know what to expect. And two, had some incorrect assumptions about what beta reading is. So I thought it would be fun just to talk about it and to share our experiences on how it worked for us when we chose to do it at what certain times. Because I know from when you sent beta readers of behind the Crimson curtain was kind of at a different phase than when I sent of blood in the water and now only fools Russian. And I just think it's. I think overall, the time that you do it is similar in the process, but I do feel like each writer has a different comfortability of when they're ready. Does that make sense?

Emily:

Yeah, no, that totally makes sense. I also think, like, the publishing process plays a role in it. Like, how you use them at various stages. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think maybe a good place to start would be defining kind of what. There's, like, there's alpha reading, there's critique partners, there's beta reading, and then there's arc reading.

Rachel:

Yeah.

Emily:

And those are all very, very different things. And so maybe it would help to kind of just like, loosely define all of them and then we can kind of hyper focus on beta reading. Yes. So this is funny. Cause I'm like, maybe we have like, slightly different definitions.

Rachel:

We might.

Emily:

Cause I do think, and I just want to, like, open that up to listeners. Like, this is not like any kind of rules. Like, there's no hard rules, but that's important to know because when you're asking someone to read your work, you need to be very clear about what you want from them. Cause they might have a different understanding of what, you know, you're asking from them as an alpha reader or a beta reader or whatever than you're expecting. So, like, you have to be very clear no matter what, like what you're asking for. So maybe I'll give my definitions and then you tell me if you have any slight, anything you'd add or change or caveat. So my understanding is critique partners are someone that you are in a regular relationship with and you're sharing feedback back and forth. So I'm sharing, I might share my first three chapters with you, and then you share your first three chapters with me, and I'm giving you feedback based on what you've asked for to give you some critique kind of as you're writing. I feel like alpha reading, in my understanding, is similar to that. But an alpha reader in my brain is someone who's like, like knows you, like, someone that you're like, that you're deeply involved in sharing your work with. And it doesn't necessarily have to be a two way street. I feel like critique partners are generally a two way street, but an alpha reader could be like, I think Stephen King's alpha reader is his wife. She's not a writer, I don't think, but she reads everything as he writes. It gives him the support and stuff that he needs. So, like, my alpha reader, Jess, she reads basically everything that I write. I give it to her as I write it, and I'm very specific about what I want from her, but it's just this, like someone to go along the process with you and then, so, like, an alpha reader, I would say, is a critique partner, but just in a different kind of relationship. Then beta reading is once you have the full manuscript or a big chunk of the manuscript, and you want overall feedback from readers, and so you send that out and those can be writers or not writers, from my understanding. And so that's further along in the process. And then an arc reader is someone who reads your almost final version of your book specifically for a review, not for feedback. And so I wanted to bring that in because I know I've had authors who've sent their books for out for arc reads and have gotten feedback.

Rachel:

Yes.

Emily:

And I was like, no, that's not what so any. Is that how you would define them? Anything change?

Rachel:

Pretty close. I think there's a lot of overlap between alpha reading and critique partnering. And I think it just comes down to, like, what are your expectations for this relationship, whether it's reciprocal or not, or who it is that you're the, like, letting read your pages, whether they are a writer or they're not. But yeah, alpha reading is like the earliest phase of, I'm going to share my pages, please read them. And the type of feedback that you would get in return for me, the most helpful feedback at that stage is like hype feedback, like positive feedback. I want encouragement. I'm sharing you these pages as an alpha reader, not for. For you to tear it apart. I'm at a phase where I just need to keep going. So please help me do that. Yes. And so when I approach an alpha reading relationship or a critique partner relationship, because I feel like there's, it's a Venn diagram and they are very close to overlapping. Like, that's why I am doing that and I'm ready for that at that phase. But when I'm looking for more feedback of how can I improve this story, then I transition into beta reading. Now, that's not to say that like, my alpha readers or my critique partners don't give me critical feedback or constructive feedback, just as a little more lighthearted. It's like, go, go, go. You can do. They're cheering, cheering you on.

Emily:

Cheering but also witnessing. So for me, at least in my alpha reading relationships, there's this read as I go and hype me up. But then once I'm done, you'll have known what I did. And so then it's like you have someone who can brainstorm with you. I feel like when I alpha read for you, for your sequel, I was doing the hype feedback, but I was also just getting an understanding of the story. So once you reached the end, you were like, what do you think about this? I could make these changes and we were able to talk through that. And so that's a lot of what it is with my alpha reader. It's like you're witnessing me as I'm going, going through this and the choices that I'm making and why I'm making them. And then once I get to the end, we can kind of together figure out what the heck I need to do. That's a good distinction. I think that's helpful.

Rachel:

Yeah, I think it, like, we also, before we swapped pages, was like, these are my expectations for you as you read this, and this is what I need. This is what I'm looking for. And then as we gave feedback and you were giving feedback to me and I was at the time giving feedback and I'm behind on your pages, so I need to go. But, like, we were checking in, you know, like, is this helpful? Do I need to go more hype. Do you want me to leave questions or do you want me to? Just like, you know, we were checking in on it to making, to make sure that we were giving the feedback that was most necess helpful at the time.

Emily:

Yeah.

Rachel:

That's why like, any type of relationship like this is a two way street in communication. So as long as you're setting expectations with your alpha reader and your beta reader, which we're going to talk about, but like your alpha reader, your critique partner, to get the most effective, like help out of that relationship, you have to be really clear about what you need or what you're looking for and then continually check in on it. Because it's like sometimes for me it can be really discouraging if I'm in a phase of like, I'm just trying to figure out the story and then there's someone in the background going like, it's not working, this is bad. And then you're like, I know, I know.

Emily:

There's nothing worse than like, I know that that hole exists.

Rachel:

Yes, exactly.

Emily:

Yeah, that's the worst.

Rachel:

Yeah. So I personally feel most comfortable only doing Alpha reading with other writers. That's just for me, that doesn't mean that it has to be like that that way. I know, I know other writers who have their readers alpha read and like, that's it. But at that time, I'm looking for, like you said, someone who can also understand story and who can see the direction that I'm heading in and who can like, help me brainstorm after it's done and talk through things with me. And that's not always where readers, we're like regular readers, non writers are at.

Emily:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think that that's sort of, if you take one thing away from this episode, it's that these labels don't really matter as long as, you know, as long as you're very clear with what feedback you want from someone. It's like these, these labels are only as useful as the clarity that you give the relationship because if you're just like, beta read this, you know, someone that doesn't give someone an idea of exactly what it is that you want.

Rachel:

Yes, exactly. But beta reading, for me, when I, I had had Alpha readers read through my, like, read my manuscript as I was writing it, which was incredibly encouraging to help me finish it, then I was like, okay, I, I know what the problems are. I just wrote them all, so I'm gonna fix them now. I feel like I also have the, the craft knowledge, the skills from the work that we do to be able to evaluate my own manuscript and see these are the immediate changes that I want to make. So I had a period of doing that, of revising, of doing a new draft of making my changes. Then I was ready for beta reading, so I made changes to my manuscript. After Alpha reading, I did a whole nother draft. I read through it again. I approach beta reading as like, I've done what I want to do to fix the problems that I could see and now I am ready to invite other people to help me see what I'm missing. That's tricky because if you're a perfectionist, you're probably never going to get to a place where you feel happy sharing it. Because I would not approach beta reading as like, I've made it as perfect as I can and I'm going to send it to someone else to tell me how it's not perfect. Like, that wasn't where I was at, but it was like, I know the major things that I wanted to fix because I was recognizing them as I was drafting. So I cleaned it up as best as I could. I felt pretty good about it's hitting market expectations, but I just want to dial in on the next steps. I knew it was not perfect when I sent it to beta reading, but I still felt like I had made the big changes that I wanted to make. So beta reading for me is that next phase of, like, I have a good understanding of the story structure, the character arcs. I want to make sure that those things are landing. This is not line editing feedback. This is not word choice or prose. This is like structural. Is the story working phase? And that's when I sent it out to my beta readers and I felt ready to invite that feedback. I wanted to know, are my character arcs landing as I intended? Is the plot clear or where is it confusing? Is this making sense? Are like, are the spicy scenes placed well, things like that. Like big picture questions. That to me is the purpose of beta reading. That's when you go send it to someone else and be like, hey, can you help me gauge if this direction is working? Not is it perfect? Is it ready to publish? Not are all my word choices right? Is the grammar okay? Like, that's not where we're at. We're at like big pictures, the story effective in the way that I intend it to be.

Emily:

Yeah.

Rachel:

Yeah.

Emily:

So how do you go about doing that? Like, how did you find your beta readers? How did you put a definition and boundaries around the feedback that you were asking for? Like, what did you send them? Like, can you walk us through those specifics? Because I actually don't know. So I'm curious. And I also think, like, people, people are like, okay, I have to send a beta readers. And then they sit down, they're like, uh, what do I do? Yeah, mistakes get made because sometimes then we just, like, send our manuscript to a random stranger. We don't want to do that. So what do we want to do? What did you do and how did it work?

Rachel:

Okay, so let me start with how I did it for blood in the water, because it carried over into using some of that same group for only fools russian, which is my sequel. So when I was ready for beta readers for blood in the water, I first started with our TW community, and I posted a message in our community that was like, I'm looking for beta readers. I need feedback on this list of things, which was like, character, story structure, you know, romance. Is anyone interested in beta reading? And at that point, I did not promise or offer reciprocal pages because I was like, I can't do that for ten people, but I still need help. Is anyone interested in doing it? And I had people respond and say, yeah. So I got, like, the core group of writers from our TW community, which was a really good start. Then I have, like, a lot of personal friends that I knew were interested in reading it, and those are closer personal friends to me. Like, these are girls that I had grown up with that I was like, I trust your opinion. I know you won't be mean. And I also know that you read similar things to what I read. That was another piece of asking for beta readers, is that I was trying to find beta readers that had read mafia romance that could understand the market that I was writing to because it's different. Especially also with why choose? It's different. Like, writing of why choose? Romance does not appeal to everybody. So I did not want to give that book to beta read to someone who doesn't like or wasn't open to wai choose because I did have some people in our TW community that was. That responded that were like, I've never read Yuz before. Is that okay? And I was like, well, as long as you understand what it is and you're open minded enough to, like, read it, yeah, for sure. That's okay. So I had also, I had asked. I had asked a friend of mine who I knew read a lot of mafia romance to post on their instagram stories to ask, hey, you know, someone's looking for beta readers. Is anybody interested? And I actually got one amazing person from that, maybe a couple. But, like, this was for blood in the water, who she dmed me and was like, I saw this post on Instagram. Are you still looking for beta readers. I had never met her before and I was like, yeah, but can I ask you a couple questions first? And she was like, yeah, of course. So I kind of got to know her a little bit in Instagram DM's and made sure that she felt like a fit for me. She was not a writer, she was a reader, but loved mafia romance and loved why choose and seemed like a kind person. So I did decide to send to her and now she read only fools russian too. So anyway, that's what I did for blood in the water. When I got to only fools rush in, I had a list, I had a chunk from that, but I also had people that I had sent it to that did not beta read it, that did not finish it and didn't give me feedback. I did not include those people on the second list. And not because of any hurt feelings, but just because beta reading is a short time frame kind of thing. And it's like my timeline was two weeks. So I made it very clear upfront, if you cannot read it in two weeks, no hard feelings, but I need it done in this timeframe because I'm on a revisions timeline. So anyway, I had carryovers from the first group that read it and I messaged those people and was like, hey, do you want to read only fools russian? I'm on this timeline, it'll be a similar process. And some of them said yes. So then I use them again. And at this time I also had blood in the water is published. So I had readers who had read blood in the water that had reached out to me previously and said, I'm interested in beta reading if you feel comfortable with that. And I picked a couple of those people that I felt like I really trusted and that I knew felt really, really positively about blood in the water. And that had given me really positive feedback about blood in the water. So I selected a small group of readers. So in this group of beta readers that I did for only fools russian, I had about half that were writers and then half that were like readers of blood in the water.

Emily:

Gotcha. How many total?

Rachel:

I think like ten or eleven. I said yeah, yeah. And that I would, that was like a top, like top. I would not go more than that. That's a lot of people to invite feedback from.

Emily:

Yeah.

Rachel:

So I don't know that I would recommend that for everybody.

Emily:

Yeah, yeah. And we could talk about that more.

Rachel:

Because I agree, yeah, that's a lot. But I also like, since I was on a tight timeline, I also was trying to like, pad my list a little bit in case.

Emily:

Yeah, I was gonna. Did they all get back to you?

Rachel:

Everyone but one.

Emily:

Oh, that's, that's high.

Rachel:

Yeah. Which is really great. Yeah. And they all gave me incredible feedback too. Like, like effective feedback too, which was really helpful.

Emily:

So how did you go about asking for feedback? Like, how did you set that up? What did you ask them to do?

Rachel:

What did that look like before I, before I sent it to anybody ever? Yeah, anybody I like, set the expectation that I would be asking them questions they needed to answer. So that, I think is the number one line of beta reading is that I had planned to have specific questions. If they were interested in beta reading, they needed to agree to answer those questions. And then all of them were like, yeah, of course, I'll do my best. And since I had some readers who weren't writers that had never been through this before, I kind of had to explain to them, like, don't worry, I'll walk you through it. I'm going to give you very specific, specific questions. So I created a Google form and I had my list of questions in that Google form. And when I sent out the document to everybody, when I sent out the manuscript to everybody, I just had a link to that Google form. It was like, when you're done reading it, just please fill out these questions.

Emily:

So you didn't even like invite back an actual manuscript document with any comments on it? No, I just want these questions answered.

Rachel:

Yeah, I actually had some people ask me if I wanted them to leave inline comments, and I did not. Some writers might. I do know a couple other writers in our community that just did a beta reading process and that did send out a Google Doc and had people respond with inline comments. And that can be really helpful. But I chose not to do that because it can be really overwhelming to get 910 people's inline comments on like a 500 page manuscript. And I did not necessarily that.

Emily:

I.

Rachel:

Didn'T care so much about the inline comments. Like, I had specific things that I was looking for feedback on and I thought some of those comments would trip me up because I wasn't looking for like line comments on this scene's prose. I was looking for like, overall, did the character arcs make sense? Yeah, but that, that could be a personal preference. I do know a lot of writers.

Emily:

You have to be clear.

Rachel:

You have to be clear. Yeah. My feedback form though was long, and that was also my choice. Okay. So for example, for blood in the water, I think I had like maybe 1012 questions, which is also long before only fools russian, I had 29 feedback questions.

Emily:

That's a lot.

Rachel:

It was a lot. But I also was, like, very specific about what I'm looking for, and if it was not in a question, I didn't want to know about it.

Emily:

Yeah. So how do you figure out what to ask?

Rachel:

Okay, so story structure and character arcs wise, my biggest, I had concerns about it, that the plot was too confusing. So I had questions about the plot. I had questions about the power struggle. Leona is on a journey. This is a long thing that she's trying to do to take over the world. It's going to take some maneuvering, and there are lots of different antagonists. So I asked some pretty specific questions about, is the plot, you know, was the plot confusing at any point? Does it make sense why she would go this way? I don't want to spoil anything. So these questions were more specific, but, like, did it make sense why she would go in this direction? Did it make sense why these characters had these made these choices? Did it make sense why the plot ended up here? Was there any pieces that were convoluted to you or that you lost track of? So I had a chunk of questions about the plot, and then I had a chunk of questions about each character where it was like, leona's on this arc, and I kind of explained what my intent was, and I was like, did that make sense to you? Did you feel like she underwent this change going from point a to point b? And then for each of my different guys, I have five guys in this harem. I asked the same question of, like, I intended this for Ciel's character arc. Did you notice that I wanted Ryuji to be in this place? Was it clear? Did you pick up on this? And then kind of, like, the main problem child of this book, I was like, do his choices make sense even if you disagree with them? Like, I know you're probably gonna be mad, but could you at least empathize? Like, so I was kind of asking. I was trying to gauge, was my intent coming across? Well, yeah. So I different. I had different questions for the romance and the spicy scenes, and again, I kind of went a little bit overboard, but I also knew that many of the right. The many of the people I was asking to read were not writers. So I had one beta reader finish. Tell me afterwards. I actually learned a lot about writing from your form.

Emily:

That's hilarious.

Rachel:

She was like, I'm not a writer, and I guess I didn't understand this thing before I read your form. And I was like, that's good. That's what I wanted. Like, I didn't. I wanted to get very specific feedback that, like, didn't disrupt my whole writing process well.

Emily:

And I think that's. That can be one of the distinctions between when feedback is helpful and when it goes sideways is, like, if you don't know what it is that you're asking for, the clarity that you need, then you're inviting people to put their vision for your story into the mix. And that's not really what we want. And that can be frightening, I think, sometimes, because we want people, I'm saying this to myself right now. We want people to tell us what to do and tell us what the answer is. But the reality is, like, people can't do that unless you have an idea of what you're trying to do. So that's why it's important, I think, before you get beta feedback again, talking to myself to finish the dang thing, because then you have an idea of what it is that you're trying to do. And you can ask those specific questions of, like, this is what I'm trying to do with this character. I know it's not working. I don't have a fix right now. How did it come across to you? Where am I falling short of the vision that I'm trying to achieve? And that is when you. You get really great feedback, because people are like, oh, I can see what you were trying to do. And this is what, you know, through the other side of the glass, this is what it's coming across, like, for me.

Rachel:

Yeah, yeah. So I I had, like, but so, okay, the first draft of only fools russian, I was really just trying to figure it out. Cause I'm a pantser. So I didn't know. But that's why I took a second draft to figure out, like, to weave in my intent. So in the first draft, I wasn't ready to send that to anybody because I didn't understand what my intent for the story was until I was done with it. Then I knew what my intent for the story was, and I revised the whole thing. And then I was like, okay, I think I have a pretty good handle on what this intent was, but I don't know if it's hitting right to a reader. So that's when I knew I was ready to send it out. And I have, like, I also think, like, it is so important for writers to explain their intent before they invite beta feedback. Because this book is tricky. Like, there are flawed characters, make flawed choices. And, like, they don't make readers happy a lot of the time. But I wanted to know, like, the way that I wanted one particular character to go was like, he's complicated, and it makes sense in my head, but I can't tell if, like, his thoughts on the page are clear enough. So that was one of the questions I asked about Obie, was like, obi is very challenging, and he's very manipulative. You know, how is he coming across? And it was. It was interesting to get feedback back where some people were like, I don't like him. And some people were like, I love him.

Emily:

Okay, so let's talk about that. Yeah, sorry about that. Because this is, like, this is the million dollar question of, like, how many people do you send it to? Because you need to send it to enough people that you can see that, like, the dissonance. Cause not everybody's gonna agree with every decision that you make in the story. And so, a, you need to know what you're trying to intend to do. Like, you want Obi to be manipulative. You want him to be unlikable to a certain extent, right? You just want to make sure people understand him. So, like, you have to have enough people in your beta pool to be able to filter through, like, is what I'm doing landing? And, like, even if people don't like or want me to change some things, like, are there other people who get it? But you don't want to have so much feedback that you're, like, drowning in it. So, like, how do you decide?

Rachel:

Oh, I don't know. I think it's trial and error. Like, I was pretty happy with how. How much feedback I got for blood in the water. And I think I sent to eight. So at that point, I was like, eight's a pretty good number. And then with only fool's rush in, I had invited a few more people who were interested, and I was gonna. I took it. Like, I'm gonna see if this is too much, and we'll see how it goes. And it wasn't for this book, but next book, I might choose to do more writers than readers. Honestly, I felt like the questions that I had asked were specific enough that everybody was giving me the kind of feedback that I needed. But I also probably asked too, too many questions because it was a lot to sift through. But for Obi in particular, I think the line was about half and half of people who completely understood him and people who were like, I didn't really like him. But I also asked if you didn't like him. Why didn't you like him? And then people were able to be like, oh, I didn't like him because I didn't feel any connection to him. Well, that's something I want to change. I want you to feel connected to him even if you don't agree with him. But then there were some people who were like, I didn't like him because he was manipulative. And I'd be like, done. Like, exactly. That's the kind I'm like, I'm fine with that. Because by the end, he undergoes change. Right. So, like, I'm intending for that because he's on a journey. So good. I also think ten was a good number because I was. I was. I was able to see common threads in the feedback, too, of, like, I didn't like him why? Or I liked him why? But it was interesting how a lot of those answers were overwhelming. And then that just tells me there's personal preference of, like, there are readers who like certain types of characters and there are readers who don't like certain types of characters. And then that makes me feel more confident in my choice of, like, I'm choosing to make him a specific way.

Emily:

Yeah.

Rachel:

And, like, I might get negative reviews about that. I'm gonna have to deal with that. So I'm not trying to write. I'm trying to write a book where this is tricky, because you wanna write a book that your readers like. Right. But I also am not trying to write a cookie cutter story where all my characters are likable from page one because they're perfect. Like, characters aren't perfect.

Emily:

And I don't think, like, if you were to ask somebody to give you their opinions on, you know, like, a season of Game of Thrones, like, the stuff you're gonna get back. Right? Like, there's. So readers don't want that, really. Like, sometimes I feel like I hate this person so desperately right now. And also I drank that up. You know what I mean? And, like, that's. We'll talk about this in a different episode. But, like, you can't control what your readers are gonna say about it. The only thing you can control is, like, what you wanna do with the characters and how you wanna present their humanity and. Yeah, some people aren't gonna like that. And that's. Yeah, yeah, that's whatever. But I feel like when, you know, coming back to beta reading, that is one reason why it's really important to get multiple opinions. I would say, like, at least, like, minimum, three minimum. Minimum because that way, you can kind of triangulate what people are saying, and you can see that not everybody's gonna say the same thing. And I would say more than three, but if you're starting out, you're really nervous about it. I think three is a good number. The other thing that I would recommend is, and I don't know if you did this, but I did not do this. And I found it was a mistake for me personally, was waiting until I had all of it before I dove in, because for me, as soon as I get feedback from someone, my brain and is like, I want to fix all the things, right. But the funny thing about getting, you know, doing bulk beta reading is that you need to triangulate and, like, look at all the different opinions and, like, match up. What did these four people say about Obi and what did these four people say about him? And, like, how am I going to, you know, what? How am I going to make decisions about how to change it? If you only had two of those opinions, right. What you choose to do to revise is going to be different than if you wait for everything and then look at it all together and really start to draw those connections between what people are seeing and how that's lining up or not lining up with the vision that you had for the story, because otherwise you're gonna end up like me and then be like, I made all these changes. Oops, I probably shouldn't have.

Rachel:

Yeah, I did wait. I did wait until I had everybody, and then I also took some extra time. So, like I said, I gave everybody a two week deadline, and then I also took an extra week of no writing time at any of this time. So when my. When my betas had it, I took a writing break. And then once I was getting feedback back, I was not ready to jump back in, like, energetically. And I also needed time to process. But I also had established this relationship with my beta readers. Wherever I. I told them I might ask them follow up questions, so I did. I had some people who made comments, and I would go back to them and be like, hey, I actually. What? I actually have a question about this piece of your feedback. I've heard this thing from someone else. What do you think? If I went in this direction, would that solve. Do you feel like that would solve your specific concern? And I ended up having a lot of these, like, extra follow up conversations, and they're so chill, like, just in, like, Instagram DM's or, like, in slacken of, oh, I had this idea what do you think if I did this? And then I was able to kind of find common ground between a lot of these changes that I decided to make, but I did wait, and I think that was a good decision. I also think so. The first beta reader that I had reading was sending me their reactions as they read it. And not all of those reactions were positive because they were, like, in their feelings in the moment. And that was. I'll be honest, that was a little discouraging, because I was like, I can't quite tell if you're happy or not. I'm happy to have your reactions. I love seeing Rita reactions. That's wonderful. But I also was in a beta place where I was, like, overanalyzing every single reaction that they had.

Emily:

Yeah.

Rachel:

And that was a moment for me of, like, stop.

Emily:

Yeah. Yeah. And I think we have to be willing to do that, you know, especially when someone goes outside the boundaries of what we asked. But even if they're acting within the boundaries of what we asked for and we're realizing that's not working for us. Right. Like, maybe you. I've had time periods where I've been like, can you please leave me positive comments? Or when I'm like, I'm ready for critical feedback, and then I'm like, actually, no, I'm nothing. And so, like, even you were in my pages a couple months ago, and you started leaving, like, just a few critical comments, and I had to be like, hey, I'm not ready. I was like, please stop. And you were like, okay, cool, whatever. And, like, that. That communication is so important. And, like, that you have to be open to being like, oh, actually, I need to set a new boundary, or I need to ask for something different, because this isn't working for me. Even if you're changing your mind like, that, you need to be okay with that. Yeah.

Rachel:

And I had invited reactions, like, and they were fun. And it just got to a point where I was like, I think I need. Let's pause on the reactions and save your thoughts to the end, and then tell me how you feel about everything. And then, like, their feedback was extremely positive. But if I had, like, dove in that one weekend that they were sending me all their reactions to, like, make all these changes, I felt pretty nervous then. I felt, like, that nervous system activation of, like, oh, my God, everybody's gonna hate it. But, like, no, actually, everybody really loved it, so I needed to wait to make those changes. But, yeah, we talked about my experience. What about you? For behind the Crimson curtain?

Emily:

So I haven't. It's been a while since I've gotten beta feedback on anything. The last time I did, like, a group round of betas was before I queried, so I wouldn't recommend doing it when you're in your first trimester of pregnancy. First of all, sometimes we can't help that. But no, I think I sent it to eight people and I maybe got five responses, which was plenty. And I didn't do the Google form. I sent an email with questions in it that I said, once you're finished, please answer these questions. And like I said, I made the mistake of diving into some of them because they were staggered. I don't think I had as strict of like, a timeline that people were agreeing to when I did it, which was also probably a mistake. So they were trickling in at different periods of time, and so I was kind of trying to tackle them one at a time, which, again, like I said, I think that was a mistake. So for this next one, I'll definitely do it more like what you described with, like, a lot more set boundaries. But, yeah, it doesn't necessarily have to be a whole Google form. I did send the whole manuscript to people, and a couple of them sent it back to me with comments, and I specifically asked for positive comments because I really like scrolling through the document and seeing the moments when people are like, oh, my God. Oh, my God, I can't look away. Those types of things really motivate me. So I did end up asking for that. So that was a lot of a learning process. And then once I had my agent, I worked exclusively with her on it and my alpha reader, and then my editor, I did a couple other rounds, but I didn't use beta readers when I was at that stage of the process. But I do think that for the sequel, I probably will, because my book was in a very different. I had done a lot of revisions on it before it got to my. The first one got to my editor, versus this one is going to be much more raw when it goes to my editor. And so when I send it to her, I will. That's probably when I will send it to betas as well, so that I can triangulate their feedback with my editor's feedback, because an editor is just one person also. And so I was actually. I was actually at an author event last night, a local author event with Paul. Oh, my goodness. I can't remember how to say his last name. The author of Navala, which just came out, and he was talking about how he had a big disagreement with his editor about something in his story, about a pacing issue that he was having. And he was like, no, it must be this way. And his editor was like, no, it does not work. And they were having this argument. So he sent it to some friends and was specifically asked, what do you think about this thing? And they were like, your editor is totally right, but his solution was wrong. And so they were able to figure out that a different solution for the problem is that, er had and everybody was happy. But my point is, right, just having one brain on your story is not going to give you all the answers that you need. And so I will definitely be sending it to beta readers when I finish.

Rachel:

Do you think you will do? How many do you think you'll do?

Emily:

Um, my guess is probably eight ish. Again, between five and eight, I think is probably where I'm at because it's also, it's also hard with sequels because it has to be somebody who's read the first one. And so that kind of limits your. Limits your pool a little bit. But I already kind of have some folks from the last time who are going to read it. But even then I'm like, the version that you read before I queried is so different from the final that, like, let me know if it doesn't make sense.

Rachel:

Yeah.

Emily:

Because he might not have read the most recent one, but yeah, yeah.

Rachel:

I also think, correct me if I'm wrong, but, like, you took some time sitting with that feedback before you were ready to do anything with it, or you were like, kind of absorbing it at different times and then you had done another round of revisions and then come back.

Emily:

You're right. Now you're reminding me because I was in my first trimester and I don't. I don't remember if I knew that I was pregnant when I sent it to betas, but I had, like, crazy brain fog fatigue, all the things. And I actually ended up just querying. I had sent it to betas and I was like, I'm just going to query. And I ended up just querying. And I took, I remember I took your feedback, especially, and then some of the others into my revisions with my agent. So after it went, so there, I don't even think I read your letter.

Rachel:

Right, exactly.

Emily:

Until I had my agent, because I was like, I've already queried. I don't want to know. Like, I don't want to know all the things that you think I could have done because, like, I made a decision and I stuck by that decision. Like, I don't think it was like, oh, I made a mistake querying before I got Rachel's feedback, but it was like, I'm just going to hold on to it for when I know I can handle it. And then it was so incredibly helpful because I was able to, like, triangulate some of the beta feedback, talk to my agent about it. And that was, and I took all of that into that revision. And that was, like, a decision that I, I didn't know that when I sent it to you. Like, I didn't know that I was not gonna use it. And, like, I'm sure, like, at the time that I was in my brain, I was like, oh, she did all this work and I didn't use it. I feel so bad. But then I eventually used it and, like, it all worked out. But, like, I was allowed to make that decision in the moment of, like, it's best for me right now to just query it and say I'm done and get to second drama. Yeah.

Rachel:

Yeah, I think that's a. I think that is a point of, like, you might beta read and then hold onto it for a couple months and then a couple months later be like, I'm ready to dive into this because of XYZ reasons. Like, I feel like my timeline was really short on. Like, I chose that timeline, but you don't have to choose that timeline. Like, I, for this book, had a very short revision timeline that I had committed myself to because I had booked an editor. But for the first book, I had no idea what to expect from that first round of beta reading. And I was fully prepared to, like, take a couple extra months to sit with that feedback and figure out what to do about it. And you don't have to rush into doing anything with this feedback and it doesn't expire.

Emily:

Yeah, you don't have to read it right away either.

Rachel:

Yeah, you don't have to read it right away. And that's also why I liked doing it in the form because I didn't get a notification about it. It could just exist all in one place. And when I was ready to go look at it, it was in a form that now can exist in my drive for whenever I want it. But, yeah, I think at that point, once you get the feedback, you get to decide what you want to do with it, when, how long you want to spend on it. You can also choose to do nothing. There were pieces of feedback that I got where I was like, I appreciate that, but I'm not going to do anything about it. That's just like a choice I'm making for a reason that I don't feel like this needs to be changed. And I think that's also, you're still in charge of what you do when you get this feedback back. But, yeah.

Emily:

Cool.

Rachel:

What else? What else?

Emily:

I guess the last thing I would say, I think this, this has been fantastic. We've said a lot today, but the last thing I want to add is so advanced reader copies are, arcs are not beta reading. And I think sometimes that can get messy. If a reader does not explicitly understand that an arc is for a review and not for feedback, then they might send you feedback that you can't do anything about because it's too late. And I had that happen to an author that I was working with, someone, I was one on one coaching, where she sent arcs out to people who didn't really understand what arcs were. And then all of the sudden, she was getting very well meaning feedback about the book, and she sort of had a little bit of a spiral moment because at that point she had made all her decisions, right. And that was it. She was done. She was putting it in the world. And so just knowing that there is a difference between those two things I think is very important. And communicating that difference. Don't just assume that somebody knows what an arc is, and don't just assume that they know what beta reading is. Communication is the takeaway from this episode. Make sure that you are very clear about what you're asking them to do. Cause the last thing that you want is somebody being like, can you change this when it's too late?

Rachel:

Yeah, but I also literally, like, two weeks ago, I was talking to one of my readers on Instagram, and she dmed me a question about arcs. She said, or paraphrasing, but do you make a lot of changes when you send out arcs? And I explained to her, no, like, that's not what arcs are for. Another author was doing that was inviting feedback from Arcs, and she was like, I was so confused. So I think this is important for writers and for readers. Like, that's not what arcs are for. Arcs are for. It's done. It's for reviews. But this one author that she told me about, and then I looked on their goodreads, and that's exactly what they were doing. They had sent out arcs inviting feedback. It was the non final version. So she.

Emily:

So it was basically beta reads?

Rachel:

Yes, yes. And like, they were responding to their Goodreads reviews. Oh, this isn't the final version. Of the book. I'm still making changes to it. And like, people were like, then why did you send out arcs? And they were like, oh, well, it's for advanced readers. And you're like, no, that's nothing. An advanced reader copy is. The book is done, so you're getting it into hands of readers ahead of time for reviews. Advanced reader copies are not for feedback with the asterisks. When I sent out my arcs, I invited typos. That's it. And that's pretty common in self publishing. I'm not sure about traditional, because there's a lot more logistics, but, but it's.

Emily:

So funny because I actually had an arc reader, a friend of mine who's been an alpha and a critique partner and all this stuff. But I sent her the final because she hadn't read it and she was reading it, and it was an arc copy. Like, I sent her the Netgalley art copy that my publisher sent me, which is unproved important.

Rachel:

Yes.

Emily:

And she found a spot in the book where my character's a con artist, and so certain people know her by certain names, and someone called her by the very wrong name. And she was like, I don't know if it's too late to change this. And it wasn't. She got to me three days before I had to send in my last final proof edits. And I was like, thank God you said something. So, like, something like that, you know, I'm glad that she broke the rules.

Rachel:

But yeah, yeah, I think typos are the only thing. So when I sent out arcs, I was like, if you notice any typos, please send them to me. But besides that, I don't want to hear anything else. Yeah, but I did have, I did have arc readers. I probably sent out maybe close to 100 arcs and I got like a decent chunk of them sending me back like the same typos. And I was able to be like, oh, I fixed that. Thank you so much. Fixed, done. Go leave your review. But, yeah, so for authors too, like, don't do that. Don't, don't request feedback for arcs. That's not what they are for. If you need feedback, if you need more feedback, you're not ready for arcs. You are ready for beta reading. And on that point, you can do multiple rounds of beta reading. Like, you don't, you don't have to do just one of them. If you do beta reading, you make your changes and then you send it out again for more beta reading. There's no rules. Do that. If you want to do that, but, like, don't invite. You're setting the wrong expectation with readers, and you also are looking a little foolish. Arcs are not for that. And so readers only for reviews and pay attention to, like, some authors don't ask for typos back, but arcs are, as you said, unproved. And, you know, you're still making, like, your final, final tweaks in that period before you give away your, like, finished final, final draft. But pay attention to, like, what is that author asking? Do they, do they even want typos? Because maybe they don't.

Emily:

Yeah.

Rachel:

Cool, cool.

Emily:

Well, that was a good one. And if you have any questions, you know, ask us in the yeah, especially if you're in tenacious writing. We talk about beta reading a lot in our open coaching calls and slack and stuff. So if you have questions about how to set it up, there's a lot of people in the community who have done this before in various ways, and so there's lots of advice. But if you want to build a successful, fulfilling, and sustainable writing life that works for you, you've got to get on our email list.

Rachel:

Sign up now to get our free email course. The magic of character arcs after seven days of email Magic, you'll have the power to keep your readers flipping pages all through the night.

Emily:

Link in the show notes. We'll see you there. Bye.