The Importance of Beta Readers: How Feedback Can Enhance Your YA Novel

If you are a YA fiction author close to revising the first draft of your first book, you may be wondering what your readers might think of your story. An excellent way of finding out is by reaching out to beta readers.

A beta reader is someone who reads your manuscript to provide honest and unbiased feedback before publishing it. Think of it as beta testing your writing before you show it to your target readers. Ideally, you should have them review your manuscript before sending it to a professional book editor.

Although the role of a beta reader is to critique your work, they offer a subjective opinion. They should not serve as a substitute for a book editor, who will offer objective, structural feedback. Instead, a beta reader’s feedback on the book’s story, characters, and other content helps determine if you need to make additional revisions before an editor reviews, eliminating undue work for them and expenses for you.

Benefits of Beta Readers

You’ve spent a lot of time writing and revising the first draft of your novel, so it can be hard to look at your own work objectively, so having a trusted beta reader can give you a fresh perspective on your story.

While this benefits all authors, beta readers can be particularly supportive of self-publishing authors who typically don’t have a publisher or agent to guide them in writing for their target readers. You can get valuable insight into the strengths and weaknesses of your story, as what might make sense to you may not make sense to a reader.

A good beta reader will be able to recognize existing problems in your story, such as plot holes, inconsistencies, typos, flat characters, pacing, and confusing elements. You could also use them to test the emotional impact of your story and see if you’ve evoked the right emotions with your characters and scenes as you intended.

Finding and Selecting Beta Readers

One of the best ways to find beta readers is to look at online writing communities and forums. These hubs have an abundance of beta readers for you to reach out to, and you could form a connection with prospective readers.

Alternatively, turning to your peers, you’ll find a lot of supportive writers who will gladly take the chance to read someone’s manuscript and provide their honest critique (often simply in exchange for you doing the same). It’s as simple as reaching out and asking if anyone would be interested in reading and giving feedback on your writing.

Family and friends are also viable so long as they show interest in reading your work. The only concern is ensuring they provide unbiased opinions of your work, as it won’t be much help if they hold back on giving tips to improve the quality of your story to spare your feelings.

If you have published multiple novels, try to engage with readers who’ve enjoyed your previous work. And although you can’t be picky, choosing a beta reader familiar with your genre is ideal if you’re able. They will have certain expectations with reading such stories, making it easier to point out foibles in your manuscript.

Finally, there’s no one-size-fits-all answer when determining the right number of beta readers for your story. It all comes down to your preferences. However, I recommend having at least three to five people read your manuscript, with a mix of writers and non-writers, as one or two readers may not be enough to determine whether one’s feedback is a personal opinion or a consensus.

On the other hand, you may become overwhelmed with evaluating people’s feedback if you have more than a handful of people looking at your writing. What matters most is that they’re opinions that you can trust.

Providing Guidance and Receiving Feedback

After someone agrees to read your manuscript, it’s helpful to let them know the kind of feedback you seek. What’s the purpose of getting their opinion?

• Do you want overall impressions of your story?
• Do you want to get down to the nitty-gritty?
• Will they be focusing on the character relationships?
• Or is it feedback on the worldbuilding you’re after?

The list can go on, but if you have doubts or concerns about certain aspects of your story, address them directly to your beta reader. For example, approaching my second novel, I wanted my beta readers to look out for pacing, awkward or stiff dialogue, and organization.

So be specific when asking them questions so their answers will be more valuable after they finish reading your manuscript. Also, remember that they’re people too, and your beta readers likely will have busy lives.

Give them a realistic deadline to finish reading your manuscript, such as at least one to even three months, depending on the length of your story. With my second novel, my three beta readers finished reading my manuscript in less than two months.

Implementing Beta Reader Feedback

Once you get feedback from your beta readers, take some time to process it before you immediately go back to making more revisions. Consider which critique you may want to implement and what to ignore entirely, keeping in mind that their thoughts on your manuscript are simply opinions.

If one reader dislikes something about your book, but everyone else loves it, ignoring the outlier’s thought is probably okay. However, if you receive persistent criticisms from multiple readers, honestly assess their issues and make some changes.

Either way, the decision is entirely up to you in the end. Just be mindful that you’re open to the feedback your beta reader provides and are receptive, so you can consider each critique and avoid being defensive.

Sharing your work means opening yourself to criticisms, warranted or not, as you won’t please everyone. As a creative, it’s often challenging to receive critiques on a story you worked so hard on.

But keep in mind that these critiques are to help you make your book stronger, which doesn’t determine your self-worth. Being an author requires a certain amount of thick skin, and the sooner you adopt this mindset, the easier it will be when you send your work to an editor and then the world once your story is published.

I didn’t know about beta readers when I wrote Getting By. I mostly relied on my book editor’s feedback to strengthen my story, and while I don’t regret this decision, I would have benefitted from having beta readers read my manuscript.

If I could go back and do it again, I would reach out and find people within the community. With my subsequent novel-in-progress, I’ve been reaching out to readers who enjoyed reading my debut novel alongside fellow authors to receive some feedback. So far, it has proved invaluable. If you need a beta reader, get in touch with me at jsims@jairesims.com. I’d love to look over your manuscript if I have time!