Agents vs Acq. Editors vs Beta Readers

Beta readers are usually just there to help you with continuity, make sure you haven't over explained things or skipped over an important part. Ask you to clarify something, that sort of thing. If you're lucky, some of them will line edit for you. In most cases, they're good readers who know what they like. They can tell you if the book is readable and if they're fans of the genre can tell you if it's something they and other fans would like to read.

That's very different from being sellable, though. Agents will let you know if they think they can sell your readable book. They may make a few suggestions on how to make it more exciting, but in general before you send it to them, the manuscript has to be done and polished as best as you can.

Acquiring editors will know how well your book will do within their existing clients and lines. If they think it will sell, they'll sign you and them you'll go to copy edits and line edits. This will hone your book to sheer perfection D Hopefully).

In most cases neither an editor or an agent will beta read a project. If it's in "beta" it's not ready to go live. But you might get some revise and resubmits or requests for changes.

You pick a beta-reader because you trust them and value their opinion regardless of their reading habits.

You can't put all beta readers into one category. They're not all created equal.

I have no clue what acquiring editors are looking for even in my own genre atm, but I'd expect an agent to have their finger on that pulse. I can read a ms and know whether or not I think it works or if it has significant problems, but I can't tell you whether it's something that's being acquired atm.

Think in tiers. Beta in the first step. If ya pick 'em right, they perform an essential first step, a macro filter to catch things you as the creator could never see. Yet they'll never be as complete, and tough, as those put in charge to enact various publisher standards. Took me 6 years and 18 published stories to home in on my beta group but when my MS gets through the first cycle at the publisher, looks like its been hit by two pints of blood funneled out the barrel of a shotgun.

If beta readers worked, 99% of the manuscripts that come in wouldn't be publishable. If you can find that extremely rare, one in a thousand beta who actually knows what makes a novel publishable, which is not the same thing as good or bad, latch on tight. Odds are, however, that all you'll find will be the 999 who just turn your manuscript into a clone of everything else out there, who want you to mimic what they've read, and this does not work.

The best beta readers in the world are agents and editors, and all most beta readers do is screw up your manuscript before agents and editors have their say.