Okay, some notes.
Unlike in the entry round, I'm not going to send "Got It"s for crits and beta requests. Mandatory crits are a finite number (unlike the infinite possibilities of entries), and if something went wrong and I didn't get your entry or messed up getting it from my inbox to the Beta Project docs, I'll be checking in with you before the deadline, and you'd be able to resend it. So don't delete your sent PMs, because it'll be much easier for you to send the already formatted entry back to me from the one you've already sent. To the best of my knowledge no crit has ever been lost, but I like to be ready for the day it is. All other crits are infinite possibilities, but if someone were to see that their crit didn't appear on June 2, they'll be able to add it themselves or send it to me again after I've posted.
Send all crits to me. You can batch them in one e-mail or send one at a time. You can crit things you weren't assigned.
And anyone can crit!
Send beta requests to me. How this works is that after the entrant does all their mandatory crits, I will start sending requests to them. They will receive the name of the requestors, and it is up to the entrant to contact the requestor and start the conversation about sending the novel to you.
Critters, if you want to beta read an entry that you have critted, please be specific about that. If you say in your crit that you would like to read the novel, I will consider that feedback, not a request. If you say in your crit that you would like to beta the novel, I will use that as a beta request. If you send me a message outside of the crit that you want to beta, obviously, I'll know it's a request.
If you want to propose a beta swap (which you don't *nods seriously*), you
must let me know that before I send the beta request to the entrant. You have a ton of information to decide whether you want to volunteer your time on those novels, and it's not fair to ask the entrant to take on your novel blindly on. Just because I want to read a contemporary YA, doesn't meant the author of that novel wants to read the third book in my superhero trilogy, for example. A lot of entrants also request from the BP, and it's not fair for you to get to plan out how many books you have time to beta and then intrude on their betaing plans by adding to it. If you're an entrant wanting a swap, first of all, trust the system. You don't know how many requests you'll receive by the end. Second of all, the entrant has the ability to read your entry for themselves. If they didn't choose to request it, it's probably not their thing. It's not a slight on you. It could be that even though you like their genre, they don't like yours. It could be a small element is turning them off ("Man, this erotica fantasy sounded great, but then the author mentioned the angel, and I'm worried it gets religious on me."). It could be that they're not into your style of writing. It could be they just beta'd 3 other books that kinda were similar-ish and are burned out. Anyway, it's a little weird to say, "I want to read your book, but only if you'll read mine," right? But if you just can't help yourself, please please please, request the swap through me. It gives the entrant a little time to research what you write and decide if they want that swap (even though they've already requested 10 entries) before contacting you.
All right, I have to go to rehearsal, and I already have 12 PMs of crits in my inbox, so I can only imagine what it will look like when I get back