218. Building Your Inner Circle of Support: How to Find Beta Readers

This short episode packs a punch!

“We may write alone, but we actually edit together.” - Beth Barany

Did you know building trusting relationships with your beta readers can make the process easier when it comes to your next book as they’ll be waiting for the email about your new story?

Listen to this episode of How To Write the Future titled “Building Your Inner Circle of Support: How to Find Beta Readers” where host Beth Barany shares why it’s important to nurture your beta reader relationships, where to find beta readers, and what questions you can ask them after they’ve read your book.

Beth also shares an actual sample email in the resources you can adapt to your book from her article: “3 Essential Editing Tips: Beta Readers (Pt 3).”

ABOUT THE HOW TO WRITE THE FUTURE PODCAST

How To Write The Future is a podcast for science fiction and fantasy writers who want to imagine better worlds—and write stories that bring those futures to life. Each episode offers practical craft guidance, creative prompts, and big-picture inspiration to help you draft, revise, and publish with purpose.

ABOUT BETH BARANY

Beth Barany is an award-winning fantasy and science fiction novelist and creativity coach for writers. Through her services and products, she guides novelists to write, revise, and publish stories that matter—blending practical craft guidance with a big-picture commitment to bright imagination, deep meaning, and wide-open possibilities. She calls writers to create with hope and courage—and to speak truth through art, even when it stretches them into a new version of themselves.

RESOURCES

Getting Feedback on Your Novel by Beth Barany

https://writersfunzone.com/blog/2022/01/19/getting-feedback-on-your-novel-by-beth-barany/

3 Essential Editing Tips: Beta Readers (Pt 3) by Beth Barany

https://writersfunzone.com/blog/2015/09/17/3-essential-editing-tips-beta-readers-pt-3-by-beth_barany/

Transcript

BETH BARANY 0:00

We may write alone, but we actually edit together This episode is, about finding beta readers. Nurturing your supporters, your fans, and beta readers is a relationship. It is not, transactional, in my opinion. You can have transactional relationships, but I want to encourage you to have, real relationships with your beta readers. Hi, everyone. I'm Beth Barany. I am the host of How to Write the Future podcast. I'm a writing teacher and coach and specialize in helping science fiction and fantasy writers. So today we're gonna talk about, how to find beta readers and the importance of beta readers. How do you find them? You may find them in your critique group, writing group, online, in your social media channels, on your email list. If you have a Substack, that's a good place to find them. If you're in a writing community, that's a good place to find them. So what do you ask beta readers? Here's what you ask beta readers. And you can follow the resource link for the actual sample email that I suggest you send to beta readers. So first you wanna get their agreement and get them on a waiting list so that when you are ready to send out for more feedback to these beta readers, you are ready. You have a list of people. So there you are, you have your list of people, and you get right to the point. Thank them for their, their feedback and support. Tell them that you have attached the manuscript with the working title, or maybe you have a fixed title. Give it to them in the format they like. I usually offer people Word, PDF, or EPUB. And Draft2Digital lets you convert easily a Word document into an EPUB and PDF. And I collect what is their preferred format ahead of time in a Google form. I have a sample of that. You can see my actual beta reader request form also, in the resource section. You tell them how long it is and you give them a deadline. People love deadlines. And then you give them a list of questions. Here are six questions that I ask them, and they're in the email, and I say, Short answers are fine." These are not editors. These are people who are reading your book for free. We're not expecting them to be editors, copy editors, fix our typos, although some people will because they can't help it. So here's what we want to ask them. Number 1: At what point does the motivation or the actions of the characters seem realistic? Number 2: Where does the story get boring? Number 3: What was missing? What do you want more of? It's two different ways of asking the same thing. Number 4: What would make this a five-star story for you? Number 5: Do you feel attached to the characters? Number 6: Optional. Any line edits like typos or grammar would be great. Then I tell them this. I say, Thank you for your honesty. I would rather learn that my story doesn't work now than learn that it sucks from Amazon reviewers, and I don't take constructive criticism personally. Thanks again. Have a great week." And then I do my sign-off. So that is a sample note that you can send your beta readers. Let me know if you have any questions about finding beta readers or dealing with beta readers so I can answer them in an upcoming episode. That's all for this week, everyone. Write long and prosper. Hey everyone, I'm coming to you from outdoors, at a local cafe in Oakland, California. Hope summer is treating you all well,