Beta-Reading

About Our Pre-Reading Services

Pre-Reading services are a process where authors can submit their manuscripts for reading in order to receive feedback and evaluate their story, before submitting to editing or begin agenting. Essentially, these services serve as a test screening for novels. Authors can get feedback on their novel, and potential readers' perspective on their story. It is a great way to test out how your target audience will react to your book when it’s ready to be published, as well as fix any inconsistencies in your book that you may have not noticed. A fresh pair of eyes on your novel can help you notice things that you may have never seen before! The Young Writers Initiative is dedicated to helping authors throughout their writing journey. Managing a pre-reading service yourself can be very difficult, and at times, frustrating. We want to ease that burden on you and have you doing what you do best — writing. Currently, TYWI offers a Beta-Reading pre-reading services.

What is Beta-Reading?

Beta Reading is like Alpha Reading (Alpha Reading is a pre-editing service designed to help authors test their works before they are sent off to beta readers, editors or audiences), but more in-depth! Instead of looking at your manuscript as a whole and its core concepts, Beta Reading closely examines plot elements, character, setting etc. For that reason, Beta Reading is recommended to be done after Alpha Reading or for later drafts of your novel. Our beta readers will read your novel through and through and will help you iron out some of the finer details of your manuscript after you’ve clarified the idea and themes you want your manuscript to show.

What is it like having TYWI help you out with your pre-reading process?
We want to make pre-reading as simple and stress-free as possible for you. Working with TYWI is a hands off experience, but you will be able to communicate with your readers (if you wish). We handle the administrative tasks: sending out emails, managing your readers, collecting responses, setting deadlines, and being the "hardliner". Instead, you get to be the friend, making the forms or sending us the questions you want asked while you can talk to your readers without tension. On the flip side, your readers get volunteer hours for beta reading your work, making it a win-win situation for everyone.
How much does this cost?
TYWI's services are volunteer-based, so we do not charge anything. The only thing we ask for is a review after your experience is over. ​We do hope you will complete our surveys and give us feedback so we can improve our services every time.
What are my options?
Chunking Reading
Full Manuscript Reading
Chunk Reading

Do you want to have specific feedback but have your readers read the story more naturally? Chunking might be the option for you. Basically, you split up your manuscript into "chunks” (bundles of chapters). Your beta readers will read these chunks over a few weeks. After reading each chunk, they can answer specific questions on the chapters they’ve read.

Pros
  • You get to have the best of both chapter-by-chapter and full manuscript readings
  • Readers get the effect of reading chapters at their own pace and naturally, while you get specific feedback on each chunk
  • You don't have to sort through each chapter of your manuscript for feedback
Cons
  • You won't get feedback as quickly as chapter-by-chapter
  • Feedback may be more generalized than chapter-by-chapter reading
  • The process will be long (depending on how many chunks you have and how long they are)
*Recommended for writers submitting middle to late stage drafts
Full Manuscript Reading

Full Manuscript Readings are exactly what they sound like. Beta readers will read your manuscript at their own pace (within a given deadline) with no interruptions. We will send your beta readers the full manuscript and they will read it all at once. This will help you gauge how an average reader would react to your book. It is also our shortest form of reading, typically being no longer than 4 weeks.  It is our most popular form of reading.

Pros
  • Beta readers will read through your manuscript naturally
  • Shortest time for reading
  • Feedback best stimulates how a customer would react after buying and reading your book
Cons
  • Unless you ask specific questions in the final form, the feedback may be less detailed than the other forms of reading
*Recommended for authors in the late stages of the manuscript
Customize how you want your reading to be done:
Commenting
Enabling Commenting for your manuscript is pretty simple. This is a feature we can only offer if you share your manuscript through a format that they can easily comment on. If you want readers to react to your work while they're reading, you would have to share your manuscript through Google Docs or online platforms like Wattpad. Readers will comment specific feedback on characters, inconsistencies and minor errors in your novel, as well as reactions to events and characters they like. By enabling commenting you can get a better grip of how beta readers react to certain events in your book or characters.​However, if you wish not to have any comments on your manuscript, then you can elect to have this option turned off. We recommend that you send your manuscript/chunks/chapters in a PDF file if you do not want any comments.
Forms
Do you want your readers to answer questions and give you feedback on specific details of each chapter, chunk, or your full manuscript? If so, you can elect to have form(s). Forms are simply a list of questions that will be given out to each of your readers after they’ve completed reading. Whether they fill out a form every chapter, every chunk, or at the end of your manuscript, is up to you. However, we ask that you do not make any unreasonable requests for our beta readers (e.g. 10 forms per chapter, 100 question long forms etc.). You can choose to either make the form yourself, or send your questions to the BR External Director and have her make the form(s) for you. You will have to make the questions yourself if you want to use forms, but you can always ask to see some of our sample questions if you don’t know what questions to ask. Please note that we usually use Google Forms to create these as it is the most convenient.
With discussion
This is a semi-exclusive option for our volunteers. If you have volunteered for at least 10 hours with TYWI, you will have the option to have a discussion with your readers. You can have a Discord call or Gather meeting with them and ask all your novel-related questions. For those who are not volunteers, you can choose to have an email discussion with your readers.

Stay tuned!

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