I offer beta reader services for your manuscript. I read books to provide feedback for author clients, including pointing out errors and plot gaps while suggesting improvements to scenes and passages for clarity’s sake. For instance, consider beta reading a form of quality control before professional editing occurs.
What Beta Reading Is
A beta reader is your test audience and shares impressions and insights that can be valuable as you structure and populate your book. Look at it as “test screening.” It’s important to hire a beta reader who is familiar with your genre and has an understanding of your subject matter and characters. Do your characters depict higher-order career roles with specific rules, regulations, and training requirements, such as a doctor, police officer, deep sea diver, etc.? If so, your beta reader’s distinct skill sets and earnest feedback will help you “nail” authenticity from a reader’s perspective.
This ensures that your plot, setting, characterization, dialogue, and action are credible and that you aren’t missing key components. It also helps ensure that you aren’t overusing clichés or defaulting to tropes (figures of speech, metaphors) that weaken the narrative strengths you are aiming for.
What Beta Reading Isn’t
Beta reader services are different than book editing services and should not be referred to interchangeably. Let me reiterate that beta readers do not function as editors. When I’m in beta reading mode (as opposed to editing mode), I’m looking for general improvements. In this phase, I do not supply the copyediting and developmental editing your manuscript may need — the “fine-tuning” aspects, so to speak. Instead, I provide feedback that can be resolved in the pre-edit stage.
Sometimes authors hire beta readers because the cost is lower than editing rates. Then, authors can further self-edit and incorporate beta feedback with revisions and rewrites, saving time and money that would otherwise be spent on professional editing.
Note that an editor is trained in the art and technicalities of writing and the conventions of English. When I take off my beta reader “hat” and enter the professional editing role, I dive much deeper into the nuances of your manuscript, whether it be copy editing, line editing, developmental editing, or substantive editing. Your passages may be tightened, your prose improved, your story arc re-envisioned, your structure tweaked, your flow and pacing adjusted, and other suggestions as needed from a professional literary lens.
Contact Me For Beta Reader Services Today!
Do you have questions? I have answers. Please let me know how I can help with your beta reading needs.
Contact melaniesaxton@icloud.com, and let’s get started!