So I wanted to start a serial segment on writing, like my segment on making manga and the Friday segment Packrat Underground. So here we go. I have been watching some Writer Podcasts recently regarding marketing, editing, running a writer business and self publishing. I was revisiting grydscaen: tribute as I think about getting the book professionally edited or farming it out to beta readers.
I don’t have beta readers at this point and I don’t know really how to get them so I figured maybe I would write about my difficulty at finding betas. I put out a call for a beta reader about 3 months ago. I asked on Facebook to a writer group that I follow. I saw some other indie writers request betas but most of those who were requesting were scifi romance or m/m paranormal romance. These writers got some responses but when I put out my request for hard scifi cyberpunk it was like crickets and no one responded.
So at this point I have one person who reads the book after it is published and will call me on any holes in the plot and try to catch me if I contradict myself. The last book he read was grydscaen: alliance and I am still waiting for the feedback. So far he has stated that I have not contradicted myself and he is relatively strict. He does not read for grammar. I have an undergraduate degree in English with a minor in Japanese so I studied comparative literature and creative writing. I can proofread decently and I usually edit my first draft. Sometimes I have a few words slip through the 5 or 6 proofreading sessions on a manuscript that I go through.
Though I have not worked with any beta readers before I think it might be interesting.
So a beta reader is a reader who when have a completed draft of a novel and the author doesn’t think they can make any changes before going to an editor, you can get a beta reader to take a look at the novel. They don’t do editing but they look at the big picture if the plot works, the characters make sense, if there are holes in the story and let you know those big picture things. One tip: only use beta readers who like your genre.
I did have a specific thing happen with grydscaen: tribute which prompted this blog post. I have professional reviews of this book that are good, excellent actually but recently I ran into a reviewer from an online review site that could not get through the book and said that the story jumped around. Now from the professional and reader reviews that I have for tribute that was never a reaction that I have seen on this book. The reviewer that had issues with the book said the content jumped around. Since the book is an anthology of short stories that were ordered chronologically, the stories are supposed to be disjointed since they are backstory content on some of the minor characters and take place over a period of years. I think the reviewer either was not aware that the book was an anthology or that the stories were separate from each other with only a few having any type of relationship. Then again I know that grydscaen is not escape fodder I actually want people to think about the content and make a decision about themselves and their lives as the story impacts them. So I know that not everyone will like my books.
I do make a very concerted effort to catch typos, have decent grammar (but I am not the grammar police) and go through about 6 or 7 sets of proofreading after I edit the content twice prior to submitting the manuscript for galley conversion to the publisher. A beta reader might be able to catch other items like grammar inconsistencies and some of the typos that I read past. I am still trying to make the perfect book. With tribute I went through 8 proofreads on the galley and had multiple changes and caught multiple line item errors before we got to the first galley. tribute had three galley rounds until we got to the final galley.
Since I don’t write escape fodder any beta would need to have an understanding of the grydscaen world. I am still hoping to find a set of beta readers maybe 2 in addition to the one that I have. With that one person I have a pretty good rapport but the feedback is just on story consistency and character believability. The person knows where I am coming from and brings his own personality to the story. Like one time he mentioned the pristine City versus the slum-level Echelons in grydscaen: retribution where Lino has to go through a checkpoint from the City into the Echelons. He compared it to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the checkpoints there. I had not so much thought about that initially but I was familiar with the region and once that was brought up I kind of thought about it as relevant to the series. When I described Harazar, which is a country that is right next to the City with a more Middle Eastern culture, in a later book I had a desert scene with jeeps chasing a military transport and a little hamlet scene when Lino goes to a fortune teller in the book after grydscaen: metropolis.
Having more betas may actually be good for me but I need to make sure any beta understands my slant and where grydscaen is coming from.
Some people feel afraid of betas because there have been some betas that steal your idea. Again I have not had that experience with my one and I don’t actually call my one person a beta reader but that doesn’t matter.
Some indie published authors will offer you a beta read if you beta for them so having a large network is a good thing. I am rather introverted so my network is not large so this was a problem I have finding betas. And because I write hard scifi cyberpunk with LGBT slant there are less opportunities to farm off and request betas from just a cyberpunk audience. So I struggle with finding a beta.
Well so far my one beta has been good for me. I would still at least like to have one more. I will still try to find one but I want to make sure I am careful so they don’t steal my story. We can only continue to try.