Welcome… I’m New Here! Beta readers

[Nick Roberts]

Hi everyone. I’ve almost finished my first manuscript and I would appreciate any advice please. Do you think I should use beta readers to give feedback? If so can anyone recommend any good sources? Or maybe anybody here is willing to read it? I am thinking to self publish on Amazon if anyone has had experience of this please. The genre is fantasy and the word count is approximately 162k. Thanks in advance.

 

[Vagabond Heart]

Hi Nick,

Well done on finishing your first MS. That's a great achievement and only happens once. Enjoy the moment.
We use The Lab here as the place to ask for Beta readers. If people have the time then they will absolutely help each other out.

But I'd like to suggest something that could be a good thing to do first.
Thanks to Litopia I was made aware of a fabulous editor and writing expert called Tiffany Yates Martin. She wrote a book called Intuitive Editing and it gives a clear checklist for people to use on their own drafts before it goes to Beta readers. I totally swear by it.
Tiffany breaks everything down into clear chapters, shows you what to look for, why things work or don't work, and what to do to fix it.

I'm recommending this because - if you follow her instructions - your MS will be the best you can make it. And that means the Beta readers will have more to praise and less to pick apart.

Hope this helps. xx