Carla Doria – Fiction Author

I had a couple of beta readers for my first book “The Last Families” and I regret that I didn’t get more. Not necessarily because the book needed a lot of feedback, but because they’re extremely valuable. And when you’re about to launch a book- especially if it’s self-published- you need a team of supporters behind you. Beta readers will be familiar with your book and will be often willing to help you by leaving reviews and spreading your book’s launch on their social media.

But like me, I was afraid to have people reading my book- afraid of the feedback, afraid of having someone tell me “your work sucks” or something like that. This time though, I’m open to as much beta readers as possible, as I explain in this post for my newest manuscript. I’ve already received some feedback on the “When the World Disappears”, and it’s been extremely valuable. Thanks to it, I managed to correct and make significant improvements to the manuscript, the characters, and the story.

During this process, I participated of a beta reading swap as well: you read mine and I read yours. In one particular case with a specific writer, I noticed how writers can sometimes be apprehensive to feedback. In this blog post, I’ll share with you what I observed and I’ll discuss what we must not do as writers when receiving feedback.

My experience with a beta reading swap situation

Beta reading feedback must be listened and considered. Do you have to change everything you’re told by the beta reader? No. But you should listen their feedback carefully and analyze it.

In this particular situation, I had a beta reading swap that turned out one of the most uncomfortable situations ever. We had to finish/cancel the deal even when she hadn’t even started reading my manuscript (I had read almost a third of hers.)

The feedback was given through a shared Google Doc, which meant that the writer and I could see the comments in real-time. From the moment I left my first comment in one paragraph, I got a counter-comment commenting on my feedback. It wasn’t that bad at the start, but then it got to a point where I could see the writer was unwilling to consider any of my suggestions. Though I don’t remember the specifics since that happened a few months ago, I’ve come up with some examples that are representative of that exchange:

I don’t know if you see the pattern here.

My advice on receiving feedback from beta readers

I have to say that I learned giving feedback from others who gave me feedback before. My first beta readers would usually approach their feedback in two ways:

• The more detailed ones would highlight paragraphs and give me comments and observations.
• Other general beta readers would send me a document outlining their general thoughts and their observations of what was not working.

As a beta reader myself, I decided to use the first approach, giving comments in a shared document. Until this specific writer, I had no issues. When I received feedback with inline comments on a shared document, I would assess them carefully. I didn’t agree with some of them, but if a comment pointed out that the reason of character X wasnt’t clear or that I needed to provide more context for situation B, I would go back to my text, analyze the issue, and try to improve where it was possible. If a comment told me that a piece of dialogue felt off, I would take into consideration and make adjustments where I could. There were a few times where I felt the dialogue couldn’t be changed, but I chose not to tell that to the person providing the feedback.

I’m not saying that you shouldn’t reply back to the beta reader and refute their observations, but if someone is giving you advice, LISTEN to it. The beta reader has left that comment to help you improve and not to debate it until someone wins.

This is how I see beta reading- what’s your take on it?