What is a beta reader?

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J.S Greer

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Among your beta readers, try to have a filthy-minded fourteen-year-old boy and a literal-minded twelve-year-old girl. They will find things in your book that you never expected.

LOL..thats actually a good point.

A beta reader is anyone who likes to read and is willing to read for you and give feedback. Different types of people with different tastes is a good thing, as evidenced by Uncle Jim's post !
 

Little Bird

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The whole "age appropriate" reading tripe gets my hackles up. It's nonsense.


Really? I didn't think so when I pulled a YA book out of my six-year-old's hand in which (in the first chapter, I believe) a teen comes home to find her mother giving her boyfriend . . . I'll leave it up to your imagination, though the author didn't. Then there was the book about the sixteen-year-old werewolf having sex with a twenty-six-year-old werewolf . . .

Our library used to shelve the YA books on the same aisle as the "juvenile" books. I don't think graphic books should be banned, but they don't belong in the children's section, either. There is such as thing as "age appropriate."

Our library has since created a distinctly separate teen section.
 

Jennasis

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Of course there is such a thing as "age appropriate", I just don't think it always applies to Beta readers. Putting your work in the hands of people from all walks of life, ages, etc is a good thing to help you fine tune your work.

Ha...coming from me this is funny stuff. I only worked up the courage to give my Wip to my DAD this week.
 

Little Bird

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Of course there is such a thing as "age appropriate", I just don't think it always applies to Beta readers. Putting your work in the hands of people from all walks of life, ages, etc is a good thing to help you fine tune your work.

Ha...coming from me this is funny stuff. I only worked up the courage to give my Wip to my DAD this week.

Beta readers are still readers. If you want to give a work with sexual content in it to a kid to read, and if you value the friendship of the kid's parents, I'd suggest asking them (the parents) about it first. The same applies to potentially frightening material. I have one child who is almost impossible to scare, and another who was terrified by "Finding Nemo" (Disney movie).

To me, this is common sense. I only bring it up in response to someone saying age appropriateness is a non-issue. It is an issue to most parents.

I'm not talking about the complexity of the plot or the vocabulary level. I don't underestimate children, some of whom are better read and smarter than me.
 

Jennasis

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Beta readers are still readers. If you want to give a work with sexual content in it to a kid to read, and if you value the friendship of the kid's parents, I'd suggest asking them (the parents) about it first. The same applies to potentially frightening material. I have one child who is almost impossible to scare, and another who was terrified by "Finding Nemo" (Disney movie).

To me, this is common sense. I only bring it up in response to someone saying age appropriateness is a non-issue. It is an issue to most parents.

I'm not talking about the complexity of the plot or the vocabulary level. I don't underestimate children, some of whom are better read and smarter than me.


Of course one should get parental consent. But I'm not opposed to the idea of a Beta being someone outside of the books target audience.
 

Little Bird

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Of course one should get parental consent. But I'm not opposed to the idea of a Beta being someone outside of the books target audience.

I agree.

My disagreement was with the statement I quoted by PeeDee
 

Indianasmith

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I've let several people read my one completed novel, and gotten valuable feedback from them all. I would suggest (being a total noob, this may be self-evident!) that you make sure your beta readers are READERS first and foremost - people who enjoy a good story and have eclectic tastes. My primary Beta is an old friend that I have known for years (online only, we have never met) with an incredibly broad range of interests. She loves my work, but also catches every single typo or grammatical error, and doesn't hesitate to ask me if there is something that doesn't quite fit right, or makes no sense, or is awkwardly phrased.
 

Soraya

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I found a group of writers in my genre by asking around at main library of my city. The reference librarians told me about them.
 

Sage

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This thread is 10 years old, so I'm locking. There are a lot of great places on AW to find out about beta readers, including the Beta Reader forum.
 
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