Quote:
Originally Posted by J.M. Pierce
I'm curious as to how many beta readers each of you use. Is there such a thing as too many? Thanks in advance.
J.M.
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I asked around, including our reading circle, and got four, two from the circle. Had to twist two arms. All four got roughly a quarter of the book to begin with.
One made good criticisms, did a certain amount of copy editing that I had missed, complimented certain turns of phrase, made suggestions, and hung outside by the mailbox when the next section was due. That's the kind of beta reader I like.
Another took three months to read some of the first quarter, made one comment and didn't ask for more. No loss. He's a fan of detective novels and this is not such a book.
One of the twisted arms, my son who has a BA in lit crit, has nearly forced himself half way through the book after five months. If I'd had an alien, and/or a vampire and/or a werewolf in the book he'd have finished it in a week. His criticism has been valuable from a content point of view.
The other twisted arm, my wife, a language teacher, made it to chapter 5, then became heavily involved in a musical production being put on in our village. She likes my style, but from other things I've heard from her since I asked her to look at my book, I find she's more concerned with form than content, so she'd be a good copy editor. At least she likes my style.
I'd like two or three more of the first kind, but finding them is not easy.