by the BookTown Team
Every writer’s goal is to have a bestseller hitting the stores and staying up the charts for a very long time, to achieve this, you must have flawless work, or at least almost flawless. Achieving this feat for writers is a somewhat herculean task as you have a wide variety of readers, each with eyes for different kinds of flaws, each needing something spectacular to wow the emotions and serenade the faculties.
How then do writers create this balance if they cannot let the general public be the first reader of their manuscripts?
A balance has to be created, a few people have to go through the work to give the writer the feel of what general public will think of the initial work, and these people are known as Alpha and Beta readers. Several writers use both words interchangeably but in reality, they have separate meanings and differing responsibilities, regardless of how similar they may be. Permit me to briefly define who they both are before delving into the crux of this article for clarification purposes.
The Alpha reader is someone who can be really honest with you about your work, they do not need to have an English degree or some qualification of a sort. They just need to understand your purpose for writing, have the good command of English, be diligent enough to spot errors and be able to communicate in clear language the exact way they feel about your manuscript without mincing words. This person could be a family member, spouse, friend or colleague.
The Beta reader comes in to read the work after you have made the corrections necessary based on the recommendations of the Alpha reader. Now, different from the Alpha reader, the Beta reader should be familiar with writing from a more professional perspective, must have vast experience and expertise in the writing game so as to provide professional advice. Consulting a good Beta reader should naturally help you waive the cost of hiring an editor as most Beta readers are writers themselves and so they know exactly what is required for each kind of write up.
EDITING BASED ON THE READERS RECOMMENDATIONS
All of the above beings said, it is expedient to discuss how you can utilize the recommendations of both readers, more specifically the Beta reader in churning out great material for the satisfaction of your audience. The next few paragraphs will enlighten us on who we need as Beta readers, how to prepare our manuscripts for Beta readers, what we expect from them, and how to adapt their feedback constructively.
Who do you need as Beta readers?
A lot of people will recommend close family members, friends and spouses, however, time and experience have proven that these are somewhat the worst Beta-readers ever. Not because they are not good readers or because they do not want to give their best, but because they mostly would not want to hurt you so they end up being lenient on your work. The people you need are folks that can give you feedback without trying to sugarcoat it. If you cannot employ a professional, you might look at one of these classes:
- An acquaintance, who can go through each sentence and tell you if they can fully understand because it makes meaning rather than because they know the way you communicate.
- A part of your target audience, someone who can read from the perspective of the people you hope to buy the book. They can tell you if it is appealing or not.
- An unbiased fellow, whose feedback you can always count on.
You should look at hiring more than one reader, probably between three and five for best quality.
Preparing your manuscripts for Beta readers
One of the responsibilities of the Beta reader is to help the writer edit his work, it is, however, important to have done as much self-editing as possible before handing it to them. While doing your personal editing, create a list of what you think needs to be fixed while presenting your work to the reader, you present the list alongside. Tell them to help figure out if what you thought needed editing actually needed it, their opinion will help you figure out if you were on the right track or not. You should also ask each reader which format they prefer, Microsoft Word, hardcopy, etc. and give it to them just the way they want it.
What to expect from your readers
It is evident that when you give your work out to a Beta reader you are expecting feedback on how to properly edit your manuscript to make it a tiptop, yet some writer might do this in the vaguest of manners. You should come out straight telling your reader the exact kind of feedback you expect, for example, state clearly:
- What their thought is about the entire write up and the different modules.
- State if the discovered some missing or out of place pieces.
- Enumerate parts of the work that seemed superfluous.
- Ask questions where they do not properly understand.
- Set a date for submission.
These put together should be helpful in editing your manuscript and making it the top notch write up you always wanted.
Adopting feedback constructively
It can be somewhat painful to see all your hard work being criticized, a number of writers might even become touchy as a result but if you want the best, you must condition your mindset for the critiquing. These are few tips you should remember:
- Your goal is to get a tiptop book.
- Your readers want the best not the worst for you.
- Having a couple of stuff to fix does not make you a bad writer.
- You do not necessarily have to accept all the criticisms.
You must ensure that you push your ego out of the way if you want to produce a good book or write up for the public. You need to evaluate each feedback properly and see how it fits into your work before implementing.
Once you are done with implementing the feedbacks you can almost be certain that you are coming out on top of the charts.
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