A Beta Reader Is Not An Editor
The wonderful job that beta readers do via Aurora Alexander’s blog
It seems there is the one or other author around who either don’t know what the job of a beta reader is. Also, some authors don’t want to pay for an editor and therefore try to ‘use’ the beta reader to get the editor’s job done.
From what I learned in my ‘long’ career of two published books (and a few lined up)… my order of ‘writing and publishing’ is the following:
- Drafting
- Copying out
- personal editing #1
- personal editing #2
- professional editing (proofreading)
- filing for copyright
- sending the manuscript out to the beta readers
- having the book cover done
- possible corrections when getting the manuscript back from beta readers
- publishing
At times the corrections, added paragraphs or even pages, demand a second round of proofreading or editing.
Now, what does the beta reader do?
Beta readers are helpful people around you – can be friends, co-workers, family members. They…
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Thanks for sharing this post, Marje! 😀
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Welcome Vashti. 🙂
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A very good article. I think I was very lucky with my Beta readers, you included, so there was a real wide spectrum of feedback from the simple story enjoyment to more technical=l, and even spelling/grammer checks. Still, if I go self, I will definitely get one more round of final edits done from my editor!
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Yes it is Ritu. Glad your beta readers and myself could help! Found your help invaluable too. 🙂
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🥰
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Thanks for sharing this, Marje. It’s interesting how many different ideas there are about beta reading. I will note typos and grammar problems, unless there are piles of them. A dozen or two for a whole book is no sweat. In general, I agree that this isn’t a beta reader’s job. 🙂
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