Beta-Readers and Publishing Options
Contributor
Written by
Ann Heitland
April 2016
Contributor
Written by
Ann Heitland
April 2016

I went to the post office this morning and mailed my completed manuscript to one of my two first "Beta-Readers."  The term is lifted from Roz Morris' book Nail Your Novel: Draft, Finish & Fix with Confidence. Here's what my cover letter said (also lifting freely from Roz):

Thanks for reading the enclosed. If you find it’s too dull or awful to read, please stop and simply mark your place so I know how far you got.

I’d like you to make some annotations as you read, but not to edit for grammar or spelling – –  unless it’s just so obvious and easy that you can’t resist. You don’t need to solve any problems for me –  just point out where you were enjoying the book and where you weren’t.

You may want to use these marks:

zzz  = boring

??? = hard to understand

Checkmark = you like this part

No! = stretches credibility

            What I’m looking for is a gut check on whether this pile of paper is any fun to read.

            Thank you for your time and willingness to suffer through this. I will also thank you for your very honest and frank opinion.

So, now I sit and wait. Or, perhaps catch up on some exercise that I've missed in the last few days as I wrote final scenes and ran Grammarly and AutoCrit. I blogged about that process elsewhere.

While I'm waiting, I've also got a pile of stuff to read about publishing. One option, of course, is to submit to She Writes Press. Another is to go totally indy. Your thoughts?

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Comments
  • Ann Heitland

    Karoline -

    I sent paper copies at their request. Part of the manuscript had previously been through a developmental edit. That was done electronically with Word tracking changes. These readers won't be making changes or edits, just marginal comments as noted in the blog post.

    Thanks for asking!

  • Karoline Barrett

    I'm curious as to why you didn't send them a Word document?  It's so much easier to use "Track Changes" in Word then make comments on paper. 

  • Ann Heitland

    Thank you!

  • Thanks for sharing, Ann! I'm going to share this post in an upcoming newsletter to our community.