Beta readers are a great way to get feedback on your piece as a whole. Unlike the piecemeal approach of sharing your manuscript with critique group members ( a few thousand words at a time, once or twice each month), recruiting beta readers gives you the opportunity to get feedback on the entire reading experience a customer will have when they read the book from end-to-end at their own pace. But how to find beta readers is still a mystery to many new authors. Until now!
How to Find Betas
A beta reader can be just about anyone. Your friends, neighbors, critique group members, co-workers, and strangers alike.
However, it’s usually most helpful to recruit beta readers who enjoy the genre that you’re currently writing in. For example, if you’re writing a children’s book about how to count to ten in Spanish, you should be trying to recruit beta readers in your target age range. This means asking your 50-year-old critique group member to beta read for you probably isn’t the best fit. Find readers in places where your target market’s parents are found, such as pediatric offices, preschools, playgrounds, and parenting websites.
Who are you writing for?
Yhink about who you want reading your book.
Former commercial airline pilots in their fifties?
Young adults who love fantasy novels featuring shapeshifters?
Korean-speaking sous chefs living in the Midwest?
First-graders who read mysteries featuring puppies?
Black teens struggling with depression?
The possible audience you could be writing for can vary wildly. The possibilities are limitless. But not knowing who you’re writing your book for can make it more difficult to find the kinds of beta readers who are going to give you feedback that closely matches what your buying readership will experience.
Where is your audience?
Once you know who you’re writing for, it’s time to find them!
Where does the average reader in your audience spend most of their time?
These could be physical locations such a specific conferences or fairs (E3, Snellville Day, OnyxCon, etc.), certain kinds of offices (medical, real estate, financial, etc.), particular stores (BestBuy, Hot Topic, Lane Bryant, Tiffany & Co., etc.), or areas of town (wharf, industrial park, horse park, downtown, etc.).
These could also be digital locations around the web such as social media sites (Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, etc.) or subgroups within these sites (certain subreddits, Facebook groups, or Twitter chats, etc.).
Now what?
Now that you know who you’re trying to connect with and where they are, it’s time to make contact. This can be done by:
- Becoming a member of the meeting or group
- Becoming a fan of the page or profile
- Contributing to the subreddit discussions
- Getting involved in the live chat
- Starting a meeting at a particular location
- Facilitating a virtual meeting and telling group members about it
- Supporting other authors in groups by liking, sharing, and commenting on their posts.
Don’t be a spammer and enter a group or location with the sole purpose of trying to sell books. This is a huge turnoff for most people. Spend your time trying to get to know the people in the group and supporting their journeys.
Then, when your project reaches the beta reading stage, you’ll have a place you can go to ask for beta readers in your genre and niche.
To learn more about beta readers and the book development process, check out the lesson on beta readers.
