Episode 77: Beta Readers
K
Hello, my beautiful cinnabar moths any kind of month you’d like to be welcome to the Writers Triangle, a podcast about publishing and all things books. And today we’re going to be talking about BETA readers, sensitivity readers and reviewers, what they are, what their function is, how we find them? What’s the difference? And what are the different questionnaires that we use for our beta readers and sensitivity readers. And yeah, so let’s dive on in. First, I want to describe what a beta reader is. And a beta reader is somebody who reads your book. And we do, you can do BETA readers at two different points. Once Once, when you have a finished manuscript that hasn’t been edited, and one where you have a finished manuscript that has been edited. And I find that we get the most benefit from doing it once the manuscript has been edited, rather than before, because we have an in house editor. But if you’re looking to self edit your book, then I think it’s beneficial to do a beta reader before. But I think that proofreader that a proofreader would be better suited than a beta reader, and a proofreader is a type of editor that will go through and mark what your edits would be. I think BETA readers are more cost effective, I think proofreading is a little bit more expensive. And so that depends on you know, I think you can find some on Upwork and Fiverr, that are reasonably priced for for proofreading. And that’s before you have a beta reader or proofread or read your but it should basically be fully baked where you want it and you’re looking to just do your final edit, or you have done your final edit sensitivity reader. And we have anybody can be a beta reader for us, they don’t have to have any qualifications or training. They’re just someone who has a lover of books and enjoys reading, advanced reader crop reader copies, and they’re not obligated to do anything other than fill out our questionnaire and send it back to us after they read the book. Some of them go on and leave reviews, some of them do not, it’s not expected that they read the review, they are paid, we do pay all of our beta readers. And if you’re interested in becoming a beta reader for us, you can hit us up at Media at cinnabar moth.com. And, yeah, let us know all you have to do is say I’d like to be a beta reader. And we’ll send you the questionnaire to see what types of books you’d like to be a beta reader for. And we’ll get you hooked up and send you books and get that started fast. One of the ways that we get our beta readers is through our social media, we’ve been very fortunate and that we’re not using any of the paid sites, we had a hit and miss results with the paid sites. And I didn’t feel like we had a chance to the opportunity to get to know our beta readers when we were just purchasing them off of a website. Or as since finding them on social media, we’re able to have conversations with them, exchange emails with them, find out what their interests are, so that we’re not sending a book that’s outside of their normal genre of reading. With the beta readers, we found that we had the best results when we find a beta reader and pair them with genres that they enjoy reading, and a book that they would generally enjoy reading, so it’s not torturous for them to read. And we found that when we were doing the paid sites, people would would use like really broad and sweeping categories that weren’t really specified. And a good example of this is that we have a lot of books with non binary characters. And if people do not enjoy reading LGBTQI plus literature, or they’re not familiar with reading books with non binary characters, it can be very confusing for them, and they can find it very frustrating, and good, better otherwise, that’s the reality of beta readers. So when we look at non binary pronouns, they’ve been around forever. But if you look at when they sort of came into the consciousness in terms of understanding it’s been about the past 10 years, and looking at when they really became a fixture and literature, I want to say it’s been probably about the past five years or so. And this is being recorded in 2023. So, a lot of beta readers don’t really understand the NB space, the non binary space, as well as those who enjoy reading LGBTQI plus literature, and we don’t fault our beta readers, we ask them to be really open with us and we give them a safe non judgmental space. And we’ve told them be as picky as you absolutely can be, and filling out our questionnaire in terms of what you enjoy reading. So the first step for us is we put a call out for beta readers on social media. From time to time, I think we do it a couple of times, a couple of times a year, because we’re always looking for more BETA readers, and they respond to us, they contact us via email, or DMS on social media. And we then send them a questionnaire for what types of books they like, what are the age ranges for the types of books they like. And we also have a basic checklists for the type of trigger warning and content notes that we may have and different books so that they can say yes or no to that type of content in terms of Viola violence level and trauma level to make sure that we’re sending them books that they will really enjoy. Because even though they’re paid, we want them to feel happy about the books that they’re reading. And the reason that our beta readers are paid is because they must fill out the questionnaire and they must read the book within a specific timeframe. And so reading the book and filling out the questionnaire are mandatory, and we have to receive the questionnaire back before we pay them. And payment changes because payment is done based on word count of the book. And I don’t know when you’ll be listening us, I’m not going to say our pay scale, you can email us if you’re if you’re interested and and being one of our beta readers. And we have basically four groups of questions that we have for our beta readers. And that’s pasting wealth building and characters, as well as just some general comments. And we have about five questions. And each of those asking what they think about the pasting in the world building and the characters and general comments for for pacing, the main things that we’re we’re curious about is how they feel about the beginning, middle and end like do they feel like there is a set beginning, middle and end? Do the scenes flow naturally? Were there any areas that they feel like information was skipped? They feel like there was any imbalances? And do they feel like there was any info dumps, right? Because you want to make sure you’re avoiding info dumps? And then world building? It’s just basically were they distracted by any of the world building? And did they connect with the world? Did the actions and characters behaviors in the world make sense? And did they feel like the the world was fully realized and complete? With characters? You want to know if they were able to connect with the characters? Were the characters behaviors? Consistent? How was the dialogue? Was there any sort of added character moments that took them out of the story? And that any of them felt like a cliche or stereotype there are some times that we want the answer to be yes, we want some of our bullies to be very cliche and stereotypical bullies. And sometimes we don’t. And so the answers to these questions aren’t cut and dry, positive or negative. Because sometimes we want those things. Sometimes we want moments that take you out of the book for out of the story for a moment that kind of shake it up, but we don’t want those on accident. And the the general is just, you know, what’s your favorite thing about the book? What’s your favorite character? What’s your favorite part? What’s your least favorite part? And what would what would your rating be? If you were going to rate it on Goodreads or Amazon? And we really love that question.
K
But we want to be clear that we are not paying for reviews, they are not paid to review. And you have to make that really expressly clear. And let them know that if they do read it on Goodreads or Amazon that’s completely up to them that this is not payment for review. Has Goodreads is really strict. If you get caught paying for reviews, they will put your book down and give you a strike and you might not be able to upload books anymore. And I don’t know what Amazon’s policy on it. I just know the Goodreads Goodreads policy on it. So the beta readers function is to read the book. And as for us, they read a book, they answer the questionnaire, and then they return it to us and we may or may not make changes to the books based on the beta readers feedback. And if we do we may ask the beta reader to read specific excerpts of the book that address some of the feedback that they give. And beta readers are really great because they allow you to make those changes to your writing before you start getting reviews, and they also prepare you for the types of comments that you may get and reviews. And I like it because it prepares us for negative feedback. That’s because our readers make suggest that we change something, we’re not necessarily going to do it. And it comes mostly it comes in editing, and editing. Some people are really, really hard on books when it comes to editing. And we also often get that there’s just too many typos that they just can’t possibly read the book. And even a best seller is going to have some errors in it. But sometimes it is actually important to the story, that it be edited that way, and that those grammatical errors stayed in the book. And some people might think, no, that doesn’t make sense. But it does, if you’re looking at the fact that our book is our books are sold on every continent except Antarctica. So the writing conventions for the United States. And interestingly enough, it’s usually Americans that think that they have the best grammar in the world. Sometimes the grammar that changes that they suggest are not correct grammar. And sometimes it’s not international grammar, it’s American grammar or regional grammar. So understanding that that grammar is regional is important, but having a beta reader read it. And if they have a violent reaction that’s super negative, about a particular editing a particular edit that just takes them out of the story and makes them miserable, we do look at it and consider if we’re going to make those changes. We don’t usually, if I’m honest, for me, the beta readers are more important, not so much for that type of editing, but for plot editing. And the main thing that I the main thing I value from the beta readers is pacing, that’s the main thing I’m concerned about is the pacing. We have different members of the team that are concerned about other things. And that’s awesome. Because it keeps me held my feet to the fire on things that I maybe don’t care about that they’re like, No, it’s important to readers. And that’s what it does. It gives you a reader’s view of your book. And it gives you an idea of how your books going to receive be received. And for our books, we will have Dominus, we do about five beta reads per book. We don’t do more than that, because of the timeline to get the book to market. And from the time that we get the book to edit, to the time that it actually goes to the printing press. And off to early reviewers. You need we need to have the book for months to be reviewed by magazines. And we put the press release out four months before the book comes out hoping to stir up interviews and such. And we do we start advertising the books about four months before they come out. We announced all of our books at the beginning of the year. That’s when we do our Publishers Marketplace announcements. But then after that we have you know book box subscription clubs that we’re working with. And we have literary magazines and awards people that we’re working with, with different books. And so the beta read has to come before all of that comes because if we’re going to make any changes, it has to happen in between that final edit and before that four to five month lead time for everyone else that we have to offer the book to.
K
And interestingly enough, that means it has to happen. Two months in advance of that we have to get the final beta read from it two months in advance of that, because we have to send it to the cover artists before we send the book out to all of the reviewers. Now getting a beta read if you’re getting beta reads, please be aware of your timeline. Are you trying to get those literary reviews? Are you are you working? Who are you working with on your marketing, what’s your marketing plan and make sure that your beta readers come the feedback from the beta readers come in enough time that you’re able to make those adjustments. So that’s BETA readers next is sensitivity readers and our sensitivity readers we get them the same way but you by putting out feelers on social media and we also have relationships with different communities and people in those those communities that we hit up and asked to do sensitivity reads you can reach out and via social media or your own personal life or you can you know again go to like Upwork or Fiverr and higher sensitivity readers. For me the sensitivity reader must be from the group that the character is in that you want the read for So for example, we have a middle grade book my, my best friend Athena, and we have a wheelchair user that is a middle grade girl. And we had a sensitivity read for that. And we’re fortunate enough that we know, cup couple of wheelchair users, some adult and some middle grade that we were able to send the book to. The reason that we do some adult and some middle grade for a middle grade book, is we want adults making a decision, would they allow their child to read the book is a question that we ask if we’re doing some heavy reads, on middle grade? Is this a book that you feel has positive representation of wheelchair users? And is it accurate and factual, and do and we want to make sure that I have a personal bias against Enzo porn. And what inspo porn is, is where you take someone that has a disability, and you make them heroic and make them overcoming their disability. And I just really don’t enjoy that I’m disabled. And I just don’t mind being a source of inspiration for anyone. I don’t think my struggle is inspiring, because my struggle is also known as my everyday life. And so I want to make sure that that’s the whole point of representation is that people get to see themselves represented an everyday life doing everyday things, just being a human in the world, not a source of inspiration, not heroic, not, you know, doing the most overcome kind of thing. So that’s something that’s part of our questionnaire is, you know, does this feel like they’re supposed to be a source of inspiration? Or do they feel authentic to everyday life. And so the questionnaire is a little bit different for sensitivity reads, we have a reality check. And that’s actually what I named it. For me. That’s just my point of view. So for a sensitivity reader just to backtrack a little bit, a sensitivity or contacts is just like a beta reader does. And then we send a questionnaire about how do you identify? And it’s what disability do you identify with? What pronouns do you identify as? What gender we have gender, sexuality, sexual orientation, and abilities and disabilities? And that for us, allows us to know, what type of books should we be sending to you that you are a member of that community, because with sensitivity readers, it’s really, really important that they’re a member of that community. The reason that we do five is because we don’t think any one person can represent an entire community. We just don’t believe that. And through my own lived experience, I know all of my different identifiers, I’m still one person and one opinion, so we want to have multiple opinions and multiple, multiple points of views. And we do ask them all of the questions that we ask our beta reader, but in addition to that, we have the reality check. And that is, you know, does this feel like this person exists in the real world? And does this feel like they’re living everyday life and functioning to life? And does it feel natural?
K
Does it feel authentic, were there any moments that that took you out of the story or that it was distracting or unreal, and they get back to us, and we do listen to our sensitivity readers, we do actually make changes based on what they read. So if we’re doing things in the order that we do, then we do sensitivity reads before we do our edit, because sensitivity reads get kicked back to the author, if we have a book that has that needs a sensitivity read. And if we have a book with a wheelchair user, if we have an autistic character, if we have a non binary character, all of those types of things we do a sensitivity read for, and especially anything that’s outside of how I identify I do a sensitivity read for to make sure that we’re being respectful and authentic to those readers, those lived experiences knowing that for sensitivity readers there are they are just one experience in that space. And so we do take it to heart. If there’s something sometimes we have been in the position of having sensitivity readers who disagree with each other. And we do contact them and say, Hey, we had a difference on stereo here that said this thing. Have you heard this in the community? And what do you think of this comment? And sometimes they just really disagree with each other and they never come? into a place of agreement, we don’t identify who the other sensitivity reader is we just say, Hey, we are getting this conflicting feedback. And then we have to make an executive decision on that based on what their responses are, which is why we pay our sensitivity sensitivity readers because they are working, you know, they’re not reading just for fun. They’re reading with the questionnaire in mind, and they’re having to do follow up emails, and follow up questions and responses, and then reading. If we tweak things based on their feedback, we then have to send it back to them and say, Hey, how does this read? And does this, you know, address this comment? And if we’re not going to address the comment, we do need to communicate with them about what our thinking is, and why we’re not addressing any concerns that they may have? And have it? Do we get to a place where they feel respected? And they’re okay with our decision? Or is it negative because we never want a marginalized identity to feel negative after reading one of our books, right? We want them to feel seen, heard, validated, represented, and respected. So we are, there is a lot more people with a sensitivity read, we have had sensitivity readers that left the experience feeling unsatisfied with our answers, because we’re not able to accommodate everybody. And sometimes some opinions are so extreme. And that usually tends to be when someone’s doing a sensitivity read based on something that I identify as based on a part of the community that I belong to. And I may say, I’m making this decision as part of the community. And I’m not going to follow what you’re saying here, I just agree with you on this. And while they leave, feeling unsatisfied, they always feel respected. And that’s really important that your sensitivity readers always feel respected just as a rule of thumb, and ours are paid. So they’re respected and paid. And that goes a long way of saying, Okay, we’re gonna agree to disagree on this. We all have our sensitivity readers are still with us, we have all of the ones that we started with, and we’re always getting new ones. And if you like to be a sensitivity reader, and you come you belong to a marginalized community, but you know, absolutely hit us up. Or you can leave a comment down in the comments. And we’ll absolutely follow follow up on that. The last thing I want to talk about is, readers. Readers, reviewers is what I meant to say. And reviewers are anybody who reads the who reads and Advanced Reader Copy or the book after it comes out and writes a review. We’re very lucky that we have a PR list and our PR list. We’re very fortunate that we have a bunch of people who have agreed to review our books and the process to review our books, we do not pay our reviewers. And we basically find them anyone who’s ever reviewed any book you’ve ever written, if you come up with another book, I say it’s worthwhile to send them an email and off offer them a book, we send all of our viewers a physical copy of our books, if we’re able to there’s some regions of the world where it gets tricky. Because of the laws, we have difficulties shipping to some parts of China, not all throughout China, and some parts of India, not all throughout India, there are parts of India that require that we register everyone that we’re going to send a book to, and not everybody wants to be registered. And I’m not quite sure why that’s a rule in certain regions. But it is and we just respect that. And then in China, sometimes books are banned, and we’re not able to send and we’re not able to ship to North Korea at all. We haven’t had any success with shipping to North Korea. So those are the regions of the world where we can’t ship books, but we do ship paperbacks to all of our reviewers. And we hope that they donate them to libraries or raffle them off or give them a way that they do something so that the book gets another life. And we just ask that they don’t resell them. Because they received the book for free. We know some reviewers do sell books that they received from us and we don’t really hunt them down or do anything about that because they are giving us a review.
K
And to be on a PR list. You just have to be reviewing books. And we announced several times a year that our peer list is open and we’re always happy to add reviewers to it. And with the reviewers we just say hey, what kind of books do you like? And when you tell us what kind of books do you like we send a little snippet or a little descriptor. If a book has a backlog we may send Do the back blurb and ask you if you’re interested in the book. And then we also send you advance notice of what books are coming out in the next year, and then we put you on the PR list for them. And we ship to the PR this usually about I want to say three months before the book comes out between two and three months before the book comes out. So that the reviews, the reviewers have time to read the book because we liked the reviews to start hitting about a month and a half to two months before the book is x app actually released. So that way there’s buzz about the book and people are seeing is that when we announced it released, people have seen it on social media and the social media that we’re on in 2022. We’re on we are on Tik Tok, we don’t post any tech talks yet. And so this was 2022 and 23 as the first half of 2023. So we’re not posting anything to tick tock yet. And I go back and forth on it. I really do. Like, some days I’m like, Yes, we should absolutely do tick tock and other days, I’m like, No, I don’t want to do tick tock. And when I talked to the team, the rule of thumb is we’re waiting until we we have certain levels on our other social media is what the team tells me. I’m like, cool, I like that answer. There, the social media that we have is Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook and or on tick tock, Mr. cinnabar. Moth pub on all of them and YouTube, and or some of our pub on all of them. And you can hit us up, you can DM us or email us if you’d like to be a beta reader sensitivity reader or reviewer. We’re always always open and excited and welcoming to new readers. And the reviews. I mean, you know it right is the spice of life. And we think the more people have, the more variety we have. So yeah, that’s beta reader, some savvy readers and reviewers and we hope this was helpful. And if you’re listening to this, wherever podcasts, whatever podcast platform you’re listening to this on, please be sure to leave a review and rate us and if you’re listening on YouTube, please be sure to give the video a thumbs up and subscribe. And I’ll talk to you in a couple of weeks and we have an interview coming up next week. And slips my mind with you on so bad. But yeah, I want to thank all of our beautiful cinnabar moths for listening and if you’re not a cinnabar moth you could be any kind of moth you’d like to be or even a butterfly but I’m not Mariah Carey and I’m not trying to bite her rhyme bye