The first year classes at the grammar school I went to were streamed into III A, III Alpha, III Aleph, second year was IV B, IV Beta, IV Beth and so on. I was always middle stream so was either Alpha or Beta.
But I'd never heard of the term 'beta reader' until the year before last, when someone commenting, I think, on one of my Friday Book Blurbs (alas no more) that she would volunteer if ever I wrote the book I'd so enticingly blurbed. It was a reasonably self-explanatory term, however, and I thought no more of it. Until last week when I thought I could do with a few folk to read my current novel and tell me whether or not it works - for them - and if not why not.
So I Googled the term and discovered, at a quick sprint through random posts (couldn't justify the term 'research') that such creatures are rare, temperamental, likely to be either upsetting in their tactless candour or lying in their fulsome praise, mightinsist on payment and will likely want you to reciprocate.
The latter - reciprocation - I would willingly do in theory, but it would ten be necessary to choose readers who write in a similar genre. Which educes choice even further. Always assuming there is choice in the first place.
Anyone any experience they can offer so's I know more before making an attempt to find me some beta readers?
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