Let's talk about beta readers. I'm really excited you guys because this is the first in a series of videos about my personal process and experience with my first round of beta's. There are so many ways to go about doing this that I'm in no way saying that my way is the only way or even the best way, but my hope is that by me sharing my process and experience and what I've learned with you guys that you'll be able to figure out a beta process that works best for you. If you don't know what a beta reader is, a beta reader is a person on author recruits to read their novel before it's published in order to give feedback and suggest improvements to the story. They are typically an average reader who is unpaid so they can provide honest feedback now so the author knows what is working and what should definitely be changed before they publish their book for the whole world to see. In this video, we're going to focus on how I found my beta readers answering questions like when should you start looking for and recruiting beta's? When do you know your manuscript is ready for beta readers? And ultimately, where can you find them? To help you out with this last step, I'm actually going to give you a couple of links that you might not know about already to help you with the process. In future videos, I'm also going to share how I selected my beta readers, how I prepped for my beta's, how I collected and organized their feedback, and tips on how to receive and then process feedback. So make sure to subscribe and hit the bell so you don't miss those videos when they come out. Huge shout out to my patrons over on Patreon for requesting this series of videos and submitting a ton of questions for me to answer, including Amanda Creek, Kyra Hunter, Ryan Willis, Ingrid, Sunday Stevens, and Kamesh, along with some of you great people who follow me on Instagram as well. First, let's talk about the question when should I start looking for and recruiting beta's? Because my answer might surprise you. Because honestly, I would say as early as possible. I had this mentality because one, I wanted to be able to pick my beta's from a bigger group. So I knew that I needed to start early to start building that list and two, people are busy. So even if people are interested in beta reading for you, if they don't get enough time and enough notice about when you're going to need beta readers, you might miss them. So even before I was ready, I just started floating the idea out there and started building my list so that when I was ready, people would already have it in their minds and be excited to set aside time to do so. Looking back, I realized I unintentionally had three waves of asking for beta readers. The first wave was actually when I was still plotting and writing my first draft and I knew some basics, like the genre that I wanted fairies, empires, and all kinds of fun stuff. So I wasn't giving a ton of specifics, but I was giving some details on social media of what kind of book I was writing. And a few people actually approached me and said, hey, when you need beta readers, let me know. So I started writing their names down in a list in my phone. The second wave was when I finished my first draft and I knew I wasn't going to beta read my first draft, but in a draft or two, I was going to be ready for beta. So I did a slightly more direct ask on social media, mostly on my Instagram and in my stories and my feed. I just said, hey, I got my first draft done and I'm going to need beta readers in the future. If anybody's interested, let me know. And from those people that responded, I just added those people to my list. The third wave was when I had given my second draft to my critique partners. So they were reading it and giving me feedback. And at that point, I asked people on social media and also on my author newsletter, which I had started by that time, who would be interested in beta reading because after I applied the feedback from my critique partners, I felt like I was going to be ready for beta's. And at the end of all that, I ended up with 70 interested people on my beta reader list. Now let's do a little bit of a deeper dive about where exactly you can find these beta readers and more specifically where I found them. Everybody's different, but for me, especially for my first round of beta, as I knew it would be intimidating, I sort of wanted to know my beta readers or at least be connected to them previously in some way. So throughout the last year and a half, I spent a lot of time building my author platform, growing my newsletter, networking with other writers and readers, and just generally making friends. As I shared already, I shared some basic details about my book on my social media accounts, got people excited about it so that when I did start asking for beta reader interests, there were already a bunch of people excited to sign up. In my list of over 70 interested betas, I had a few friends that I knew in real life, but most of them were writers and readers that had met online through social media like my Instagram and YouTube channel. But honestly, most of them came from my newsletter. This is one benefit of really diving into the writing and reader community online and starting your website and newsletter as early as possible. I've had my website and my newsletter for about a year now and I have over 1500 subscribers that are already excited about my story. If you've been struggling to grow your newsletter or want help getting started, I actually have a service where I help other authors do the same thing that I've done, which you can find on my website, authorbritingwang.com. If you don't have a platform yet, but you are in desperate need of finding beta readers now because your book is ready. There are a bunch of groups on Facebook and hashtags on Instagram that you can look through and find beta readers. One of those Facebook groups is my Plotter Life Writer's Facebook group and we have a whole thread for people who are looking for betas. If you're looking for even more personal help with your writing and platform, I also have a discord group as a part of my Patreon where we also have a thread where people have found some really great supportive beta readers as well. Another thing you could do is even if you have one or two other friends who have a slightly bigger audience, then you do preferably if they write books for the same genre or audience. You could ask them if they would be willing to share that you have a need on their platforms and see if any of their followers would be interested to beta read for you. I also wanted to add a question by Cam Mes who asked, how do I find sensitivity readers? I personally have a half blind character in my book and so what I did is I just put that detail out on social media and actually had a few people that I had gotten to know reach out and say, hey, I have a visual impairment if you need a beta reader, let me know. If you don't have people coming out of the woodwork offering to be sensitivity readers, you can always ask in the same way you would ask for a normal beta reader on social media. But just keep in mind, depending on the level of sensitivity they are reading from, I have heard that some of them require payment because you may be asking them to read something very personal that could affect them deeply. It might be hard for them to read about. Finally, some of you might be wondering, am I even ready for beta readers? How do I know that I'm ready? Some of you asked, how much editing should I have done before I start having beta readers read my book? Can I be sending some chapters while I'm still writing the first draft? For me, I finished my first draft about this time last year and I spent a few months editing before sending it to my critique partners and at that point I considered it my second draft. If you don't know what a critique partner is, I do have a few videos on that that I'll link below and in the cards because I think it's super, super helpful to have them in general but also to have them read and give feedback to you before you send your manuscript to Betas. Then I started asking more seriously for Betas while I did a round of edits based on my critique partner feedback. This would then sort of form draft three, which is ultimately the draft I sent to my beta readers. Basically, I would never send a first draft to beta readers because it is way too rough and not worth their time. I did send my second draft to my critique partners because at that point I felt like I had better handle on the story but I needed people to sort of bounce off ideas, preferably other writers and at the same time I would be helping them with their story so as more of a give and take at that point and it was okay if the story was in a little more of a rougher form. With beta readers, you really want to make your story the best it can be on your own before sending it to them. You don't want to waste their time and yours with them telling you to fix things you already know need fixing. In my own experience, I mostly listened to this advice. I definitely felt like I had a fairly solid story but there were also specific things that I felt like I needed to test on a slightly bigger group than just my two critique partners to then figure out are these certain things working and in that sense I did have certain things that I knew needed fixing but I wanted a greater opinion before I really knuckled down and committed to certain things and edited the book further. The last thing I want to say on the topic of are you ready for beta readers is I would say I'd strongly suggest for you to be a beta reader for someone else before you go asking for beta readers yourself. I have been a beta reader for a few of my friends now and these experiences happen so helpful and they've given me ideas about how I would want to run my beta readers when I was ready. This also gave me a good understanding of how much work it is to be a beta reader. So when it was my turn to run my own rounds of beta's I had already walked a mile in my beta readers shoes and was sure to appreciate them and not ask too much of them. Do you have any other tips or places you like to find beta readers? Definitely help us out in the comments below and if you want to learn how I actually chose my beta readers and the process of how I sent out my story to them definitely make sure you're subscribed so you don't miss when those videos come out and when they are out I will also link them in the description below too. In the meantime if you're looking for more bright early content check out one of these two videos and we'll see you there.