You’ve been thinking about your book for weeks, months, years. It’s been swirling around in your head, then you put it down on paper, reread it, work on it, rework it… It’s modified, shaped by your mind for a long, long time, so long that you know it by heart. It comes from you, it emanates from your thoughts, your feelings, your emotions.
So, how do you gain perspective on what your work truly is? How do you know what a reader will think when they read it? How do you put yourself in their shoes when they discover this text for the first time, after you’ve lived with it for months, even years?
Beta reading. It’s the best, the only, and the essential solution for relearning from your text and improving its content, story, and characters, whether you choose to have your manuscript reviewed by people you know—some closer than others (the less close, the better)—or by professionals.
As an author, you lack the necessary distance to offer constructive criticism on what you have produced. And you need a neutral perspective on your book, a fresh perspective capable of seeing imperfections and inconsistencies, capable of telling you if a particular character is sufficiently developed, if something is missing from their physical description, if the ending of your story was known from the beginning even though you had decided to maintain suspense, or if, on the contrary, it doesn’t fit with the story or the personality of the main character.
As an author, you can never truly put yourself in the reader’s shoes. You will always try, because it’s important to do so if you hope to be read, but you will never fully succeed, simply because you are the author and there will never be a first reading, a first impression of your own text.
All the manuals that address the topic of writing and publishing novels will be of no use either. The master Stephen King said of his book, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft : “This book isn’t very long, for the simple reason that most books about writing are full of nonsense. Novelists, myself included, don’t really understand what they’re doing, or why it works when it’s good, or why it doesn’t work when it isn’t.”
Only a beta reading will help you see things more clearly!
But by whom? How to proceed? You might consider having your novel proofread by a few close friends, friends of friends, or clients of your neighbor or cousin, to get their feedback. This is already a good step that could provide some constructive remarks and avenues for reflection to help improve your text. But this exercise will quickly reach its limits, because you yourself might doubt the remarks of others, and even more so, your acquaintances (whether close or not so close) won’t want to offend you by being too honest with your manuscript. And ultimately, they might not even have the time to delve into it…
The best solution remains to entrust your manuscript to professional beta readers, whether paid or volunteer. Indeed, there are people whose job it is to do this, or others who are accustomed to this type of exercise and who enjoy rereading manuscripts for pleasure. They are called beta readers.
So how exactly do we define a beta reader? It’s a reader (not a publishing professional) who guides the author through the final stages of their book by providing feedback. This differs from publishing professionals who offer proofreading and editing services to identify and correct spelling, typographical, and syntax errors, or to provide a detailed analysis of your manuscript’s components (characters, narrative, structure, dialogue, etc.) and areas for improvement. The professional and the beta reader thus play two roles that are both complementary and entirely distinct.
A second reading is essential for the author
A beta reader helps an author significantly improve their manuscript. But for that to happen, they must be a good beta reader. By definition, any “test reader” is a beta reader. Yes, but not all beta readings have the same impact on a book: your mother’s, for example, will reassure you because she’ll tell you how talented you are at writing, and so will your best friend’s. Whereas a completely neutral and impartial person will give you a more honest, more critical, and more constructive opinion.
As an author, you need to find motivated, knowledgeable complete strangers with whom you feel comfortable enough to entrust your manuscript and who will work with you constructively. The goal is to avoid having your text destroyed by negative feedback from beginning to end, without any possibility of improvement. A beta reader’s job is to identify inconsistencies in the story, analyze the narrative structure (plot, characters, etc.), share their positive or negative impressions, and then encourage the author on the quality of their work and the strengths of their book. Indeed, in the demanding process of beta reading, when something is successful, it’s important to acknowledge it.
As we mentioned earlier, your beta reader also needs to be motivated to undertake this task, which requires a great deal of seriousness, curiosity, rigor, and commitment. In his book, *The Great Novel of Writing *, Pierre Ménard explains that “it’s not unreasonable to consider that one hour of writing involves three to five hours of editing.” An author like François Bégaudeau, for his part, estimates the number of revisions he makes at six or seven.
In their feedback form, the beta reader will also need to use the right words to explain what they think could be revised. They must be tactful and approachable to ensure a constructive collaboration that encourages you to rewrite, rewrite certain passages, and further develop your text.
There is no good review without good communication. Nor is there a good review without a good argument. A conscientious beta reader will be able to write to the author each time explaining the reasons behind their remarks, criticisms, and feelings.
In short, before entrusting your manuscript to a beta reader, make sure that all the Terms of Service are clearly understood and will be strictly adhered to! But what exactly are the underlying rules of the author/beta reader relationship? And how does a beta reading process work?
Naturally, the beta reader will approach the text differently than the author. During their reading, they will constantly ask questions about the plot, the characters, and the settings, and will try to question everything that is written—not what the author intended to write—in a rigorous process of observation and research. This is more about the content than the form. The beta reader will be very demanding of the author, but without putting themselves in their shoes. They will adopt the perspective of a reader, and that is how they will help the author. Recognizing an author’s talent is one thing; demanding that the story meet the expectations of a broad readership is quite another. It is then thanks to this constructive feedback that the author can rewrite and improve their book. That’s why it’s best to gather feedback from several beta readers (not just one), because it will then be helpful for the author to compare their comments and note the most frequent criticisms on which everyone seems to agree. We advise authors to find between three and five beta readers. Beyond that, you risk being overwhelmed by all the comments and advice, to the point where you might think you need to start your manuscript from scratch. And below that range, you’ll certainly lack the material and opinions to decide which piece of advice to implement, and so on. With three to five beta readers and constructive feedback on your novel, you should be able to pinpoint your book’s strengths and weaknesses.
This work will enrich the beta reader’s knowledge and can be useful to them as an author, as well as for future beta readings. They will become increasingly effective and better able to guide authors. Novelist Roxane Dambrea published a manual, *Become the Beta Reader of the Year!*, which is full of advice for beta readers seeking methods and offers food for thought for authors looking for good beta readers.
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Your manuscript deserves to be reviewed, analyzed, and corrected by a team of professionals. All of the workshop’s literary consultants and certified proofreaders work for leading publishing houses that publish fiction, non-fiction, and children’s literature.
Find beta readers
Before deciding where to look, ask yourself if now is the right time to submit your text. We advise you to proofread it several times to eliminate any glaring errors or obvious inconsistencies you might find yourself. This will also save your beta readers some time. Then, when you feel your manuscript is sufficiently polished, submit it, take the plunge, be bold, and prepare to receive feedback. It’s often insightful and constructive.
But how do we do it, where do we start?
Initially, you’ll find numerous forums for reading and book enthusiasts—free online spaces that facilitate exchanges between authors and readers. A simple registration and you’ll be ready to be read and critiqued by your new community. But along this path, you’ll sometimes stumble upon a rare gem who does remarkable work, and other times—unfortunately more often—you’ll encounter a reader providing inconsistent and ultimately counterproductive feedback. It’s up to you to decide whether you can trust the people registered on these free platforms.
In any case, we advise you to have fairly extensive discussions with each beta reader before submitting your manuscript. Furthermore, the various forum moderators will prevent you from submitting your novel until you have proven yourself as a beta reader. Once you have done so, you can either directly post a short excerpt from your manuscript that you would like to have analyzed by other members, or post a message briefly explaining the plot of your story. For a very short pitch, we offer advice when you present your manuscript on Edith & Us . For a slightly longer summary, you can find our article explaining how to write a good summary . Don’t forget to specify the target audience for your book; this is important information for the beta reader.
Similarly, there are also many dedicated Facebook groups. The principle is exactly the same; only the forum differs. On this social network, the character limit will force you to be brief. You can, of course, exchange more details via private message once you’ve found a volunteer.
You can also use a reading company or collective. This ensures that your work will be reviewed by skilled enthusiasts, some of whom are authors themselves and highly experienced in the field. For example, the Compagnie de Lecteurs et d’Auteurs (CLéA) has developed its own proofreading methodology based on the experience and expertise of writing workshop facilitators and publishing professionals. The collective currently has 85 readers who can provide an external and multifaceted perspective on an author’s work. Each manuscript is reviewed by three readers who then write a joint report.
After reading
So, you’ve received the feedback from your beta readers, thanked them, and planned to mention them in the acknowledgments section of your book. Now it’s time to read the reviews, study them, compare them, make your choices, and ask yourself how you could achieve this or that.
This marks the beginning of a significant period of self-reflection. Readers have pointed out weaknesses, strengths, qualities, and flaws. You will need to focus particularly on the negative points. There will also be remarks that were only mentioned once or twice, and with which, even upon reflection, you don’t entirely agree. It’s possible that, after further consideration, you will decide to disregard one of them.
In any case, even with professional help, a beta reader can only offer their opinion. However honest and sincere they may be, it remains just that—an opinion, with its inherent biases and subjectivity. They may have missed certain elements of the story that others have seen, felt, and interpreted. You are free to modify a passage or leave others out. Remember, it’s your book we’re talking about, and the final decision rests with you.
Once your text has been revised or adjusted, you can certainly resubmit the changes to your beta readers to gather their feedback. Engage with them as much as possible. This is also an opportunity to ask them more detailed questions about other points, concerns, or doubts you may have that your beta readers haven’t raised and on which you’d like their opinion. Be sure to ask them about the characters’ credibility, their descriptions, the originality of the story, the coherence of the events, the pacing of the narrative, the opening (the first lines and pages of a novel), the ending, what they liked most, what they liked least, and so on. Then, with the experience gained from these feedback sessions, you too may develop the desire to help your colleagues and conduct beta readings. You will then be well-positioned to offer sound advice.
To take it a step further, you can even send the new version of your novel to a professional editor and/or proofreader. The combination of a professional and a panel of beta readers will allow you to take your book to the next level compared to the first draft.
You can then choose to self-publish and/or submit your manuscript to the partner publishers of the Édith & Nous platform. By working with beta readers and/or professionals, you will maximize your chances of attracting the attention of publishers active on the platform!