What do you think of my beta reader instructions?

Honestly, if I got written instructions about how to beta, I'd feel really threatened. I think just have them read and get back to you - maybe suggest using comments, but anything else is piling expectations that will likely stress people out.

I think being aware that a lot of readers won't actually read is key. Most people who say they'd love to see it actually mean something more like *insert generic positive comment*. And, if people actually say they want to beta read for you, you should be able to safely assume they know how to do that.

Your instructions sound more like homework or work-work.
If your betas are so new to the concept, maybe you should either trust them, or let them practice on something else?
I, for instance have generally worked from a printed copy, notes in pencil right on the sheet. And, I only do it for friends. No-one who gives me a bunch of directions is my friend. (Not that I may not like them, but I don't beta 'cold'. By the time I'm putting in work, we know what the other wants.)

If a non-writer friend of mine offered to beta read I'd just say thanks, give him the manuscript or perhaps the first 50 pages or so and let him get on with it.

I doubt those instructions are going to help at all - maybe the opposite.

Bufty said:

If a non-writer friend of mine offered to beta read I'd just say thanks, give him the manuscript or perhaps the first 50 pages or so and let him get on with it.

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Yep, same.

If this is directed towards a non-writer friend, I'd say its too much. Perfect for a new-author though!
I'd keep it lighter, just tell them to make a note on whatever they find issue with and hope for the best. They're your friends in the end. They want you to succeed. I personally haven't had much luck enlisting my friends as beta writers. Its ALL positive feedback from them and there's no way I'm that good writing my first novel.
Saying that, I would be willing to beta read for you if the genre and subject fits. Free of course.PM me if interested.

I had six beta readers for my first finished MS. They all responded, which IME was pretty amazing. Two of them gave me more than "I liked it"; only one (a relative who'd published some decades earlier) gave me anything genuinely substantive.

I thanked them all, because they took the time to read, and that was pretty wonderful of them.

It can take time to find good beta readers, but IMHO starting with a list like this isn't necessarily going to get you what you want. I've got two people who read for me regularly, and they each have a different way of critting that comes from their experiences and preferences, and not my instructions.

Not everyone is a good critter, and a list of instructions can't change that.

Personally, I'd stick with telling people the book is polished but still in flux, and any comments they had - detailed or not - would be helpful. And I'd make sure to thank them even if they didn't give me anything to work with, because reading someone else's book is a gift.

Hi John,

First of all, trust your instincts.

That said, your instructions strike me as overly long. They also make it sound like you are assuming how people will respond.

For example, when something is working nicely, I have no problem popping in a note. As a second example, many books bore me. Sections in virtually every book I have ever read bore me. That's on me; it has nothing to do with your writing or anyone else's writing. Our brains are each wired uniquely. If a passage is of low value to me, I skim ahead. (Published works, not beta reads, which I feel a responsibility to analyze .)

The "every comment will be considered" strikes me particularly problematic. It would shut me down as a reader.

The best parts of your guidance, in my opinion, are these:

(Don't worry about) grammar and syntax issues. (Those will be addressed with editors.) Just read the story normally and make a note whenever a problem calls itself out. (Such as) boring, confusing, wrong, off-putting, or cringeworthy. (You might also have great ideas that could really improve the story and these might involve your) expert advice or knowledge, plot suggestions, opinions on characters, and when you think you’ve figured something out ahead of time.

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^^And that's about enough in my opinion, unless there is something specific you are worried about like the abuse issue in your SYW excerpt.

2 cents. But, trust your own instincts.

p.s. ETA: I'm in the middle of beta reading a manuscript (about 2/3 through it) and just did a quick count of how many comments I have left so far. 393. For whatever it's worth. However, I do also summarize thoughts at the end of each chapter, and I plan to summarize my overall thoughts into a few bullet points (a half page) at the endy-end.

They're doing you a huge favor. Those instructions are obnoxious.

A simple statement is much better.

I really appreciate you offering/being willing/agreeing to read my novel.

I'm interested in what you think; what works, what doesn't work, what confused you—really, anything you feel like noting. The more feedback I receive, the better I can make my novel.

Thanks so much for doing this —

I agree with those above who say these instructions are overly prescriptive. Other writers know what you're getting at with these, but so many readers, particularly folks I know outside of writing and even reading circles, aren't going to (nor should they) have the eye for the types of details you are hoping to get. I can see in these instructions you want the reader to be as free as they like to comment on whatever they find, but why not say it that simply?

Hi John -

I don't have a problem intrinsically with you giving instructions to your beta readers. I think you should communicate your expectations. When I beta read I WANT the author to tell me what feedback they want.
Also - I default to just giving a page or two response with my thoughts, suggestions, and impressions of the work when I finish. As such, I would appreciate it if the author communicated they wanted comments on the manuscript & I would definitely do it if they did.

That having been said, I agree with Woolybear that the instructions are overly long, and they seem to 'dumb down' everything - it comes across that your readers don't know the first thing about books and don't know how to offer feedback - even to the point of telling them how to leave a comment on a word document (unless you've had a consistent problem with people not knowing how to leave a comment, I'd leave that instruction off, personally)
While I understand you are trying to be helpful, me (being someone who unfortunately defaults to thinking everyone thinks I'm an idiot) would read this as you don't trust me to be able to give good feedback. I'd worry that you have specific things you want me to say & will get upset if I don't give feedback the way you wanted to receive it.
Ultimately - the current letter reads like you are imposing guidelines on them, rather than just pointing out the areas you want feedback on.

But, most importantly - you aren't thanking them for agreeing to read your work. You NEED to do this.

I typed up what my version of your instructions would be - mainly, my focus was on the gratitude for the beta reader and less on how I want them to do it.
I won't be offended if you don't like my version - honestly, I just have a weird love for phrasing these sorts of things so I just kinda wanted to make my own version

*******************************************************************************************************************
Hello,

First of all, thank you very much for agreeing to read and give feedback on my novel. This helps me tremendously.

The novel is [genre] intended for [age group]. This novel is in its ‘beta’ phase, which means it should read mostly error-free and ready to publish, though there may be some typos or minor grammatical errors

Don’t worry – I’m not asking you to fix syntax and grammar. What I want are your impressions of the story – did you like or dislike it and why? Other things I’d appreciate you considering & commenting on are:
• Was there any part you found boring, confusing, unsettling, or cringy?
• Any critiques or suggestions to the plot or character?
• Was there something you figured out ahead of time / before it seemed I wanted you to (and what tipped you off)?

And of course – if there was anything you liked, feel free to let me know that as well.

You can certainly type up your feedback all at once and send it to me, or you can leave comments on the document pointing out specific lines or paragraphs that stuck out to you, good or bad.

Lastly, if for any reason you are unable to keep reading (either you lose interest in the story or life happens), please just let me know when you stopped and why. I won’t be mad - plus knowing where & why a reader lost interest can be just as helpful as a reader who says ‘I loved it!’.

Again, thank you very much, and I look forward to your feedback!

Maybe just give them a link to your instructions to read if they want to? For someone who is really interested but not self-confident and/or familiar with the process, I think your directions could be reassuring and helpful. I can see others feeling burdened or cordescended to, also.

Instructions feel a bit aggressive. If these are people you know just say what you are trying to discover about your manuscript and so what kind of feedback would be most helpful to you.

My mistake. Just realized these are non-writer folk you are asking to beta read for you and they have presumably responded by saying 'yes, they will', which suggests they know what is involved even though they may not be writers

I would keep Veinglory's suggestion in mind and keep any guidance notes simple and to a minimum, remembering that asking them to do this is a one-way favour that has the potential to disrupt a relationship if it does not work out as hoped.

Good luck.

John, I think it's still...not there. Here's the problem I have with it (speaking of your recent post). There is definitely a feeling of mentor/mentee, or teacher/student, boss/subordinate going on here. But your beta readers aren't your students, really good beta-readers are your advisors.

For example: you said, "If you find you’re not having fun, stop!" Assuming your betas are adults, they don't need to be told this. It's kind of condescending honestly. As others have said, I also recommend just saying, "Thanks for reading, it means a lot. Any feedback you have about what worked for you or didn't work would be helpful. Thanks again."

Uh, no. If you're going with a non-author, who's doing you a favor, this is somewhat like:

Thank you for coming to help me clean up my house after having a baby. I hope you have as much fun as I did making the baby... Now extend the idea.

Btw, I picked on that line on purpose. Everyone says it, and almost nobody loves a book as much as its author except for Rowling and Tolkien fans. Which means you're putting yourself on a rather elevated pedestal (at least in terms of popularity). And it's overused. Overused phrases end up meaning nothing. (I'd say cliche, but that word is also overused.)

There are certainly exceptions, but I think a writer's personal circle is usually a lot more concerned about paying bills and keeping up the house than whether or not a draft sucks.

My advice would be to just thank them and assume you're never going to hear from them about the book. I'd let the thing rest (just in case they do respond), and then move on and draft something else.

In defense of fewer instructions rather than more - IME readers will hone in on all kinds of things that aren't even on your radar. I have yet to receive a detailed crit that wasn't mostly made up of stuff I wouldn't even have thought to ask about. One big value in beta readers is that they are not you, and if you give them too many instructions, they may miss the things that would be most valuable to you.

Preliminary notes, which you can skip.

Hello! In my opinion this is much more appropriate than the instructions in post one. If you use this, then whether it is appropriate will depend on your readers, your relationship to them, and on your creative process overall.

Have you considered sending the first portion only of your manuscript to readers?

Send the first 50 pages, say. If they get back to you with feedback, you might adjust your strategy going forward. You might have enough feedback to work with, or realize they are on a totally different wavelength.

As far as the note:

JohnLine said:

Thank you! Your opinion means a great deal to me, and I hope you enjoy reading this story as much as I’ve enjoyed writing it. I suggest striking that.

But before we begin, let me say that your sanity means more to me than this book. If you find you’re not having fun, stop! I’ll understand. Things come up, and different people have different tastes. (I won’t bring it up, but if you send me a note telling me you’ve dropped out, I’d appreciate it, so I can keep track of what readers I have going.) I'd say simply: Read as much as you like, comment however you like, and I'll be happy to see whatever thoughts you have.

Otherwise, the best advice I can give you is to try to make the beta-read as fun for yourself as possible. Leave feedback in the form of poems if you like, or knock-knock jokes. Use emoji’s, or turn it into a drinking game. (Warning: doing a shot every time anyone “lifts a brow” might kill you.) This is sort of cute, but also sounds like you are nervous, which doesn't really work.

If you’ve never beta-read before, and you’re interested in what feedback is most helpful, please read the appendix: “Competitive Beta-Reading: How to Win at Everything.”

The target audience for this is [insert audience here]. (These two short paragraphs work for me)

Thanks for making it this far. Now onto the novel…

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You might get far more mileage out of a three-chapter beta read. Think about starting with that, especially if you've not done a beta read on someone else's full-length work. Then, if they want to read more you can send the rest. But also you'll have feedback... and that's its own can of worms. Because it's not always clear if the feedback is worth taking on board, or not, and ... it can be a mess. Working through beta feedback is... truly work. Lots of evaluation on your part, and then... revisions.

Additional thoughts, which you can skip:

I've seen debates amongst writers (mostly on other SM like FB and twitter) about what a beta reader 'is.' Some say they're a final reader, like someone who might find the book on Amazon, only you are getting their impression before you publish. Others seek readers for help finding plot holes and other structural stuff. There are other opinions besides these.

You know the state of your draft--no one else does. You know who these readers are--we do not.

As a personal note, I've sent the first 65% of my current WIP to three siblings who enjoy being part of my process. They like the world I've built, and they are helpful souls. Some people advise 'don't use family to beta read.' (and some would call this read an alpha read anyway.) Thing is, no one family is like another, no one writer is like another, and no one book is like another. My sibs might not get back to me on the draft, they have various other life-things going on, and that's fine and dandy. But, they all genuinely want to see what I'm working on, in the same way I might want to see the (fictional) half-finished hutch one of them is building in their woodshop. Because we have a shared past, we share opinions and tastes and so on--I might have ideas about their project (and vice versa) which will help in the creation of it. (Biscuit joints? Seriously? No man, you've got to do the dovetails.)

So, for my sibling readers, I might send a note with jokes and so on. Family is different to strangers.

At some point down the road, I'll reach out to writers I've worked with before. At some point after that (or maybe at the same time) I'll reach out to writerly strangers. The note would change. My expectations, too.

lizmonster said:

In defense of fewer instructions rather than more - IME readers will hone in on all kinds of things that aren't even on your radar. I have yet to receive a detailed crit that wasn't mostly made up of stuff I wouldn't even have thought to ask about. One big value in beta readers is that they are not you, and if you give them too many instructions, they may miss the things that would be most valuable to you.

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Seconded. If people explicitly ask me for guidance I will give some broad statements about pacing/characterization etc, and if I have a specific thing I'm uncertain about I'll ask "what did you think of X?" but overall I try to keep things open and flexible. It's often really helpful to me to see what different readers hone in on. A scene might provoke two radically different reactions in two different people, but if I introduce it with "so I need to know if this scene is suspenseful" then that's the only thing they'll focus on, and I might miss other observations they would've had.

I really wouldn't do this, John. Firstly, your betas are doing you a huge favour. If they'd invited you for dinner, would you send them the recipe with instructions on how you want it made? Secondly, it's more than likely that anyone who needs instructions had no idea what they were getting themselves into and your instructions will just cause all sorts of expectation and panic. Remember that most people who say "I'd love to read it." are only Being Nice. Thirdly, and most importantly, you're undermining the whole idea of beta-ing, which is to get a reader's response on what That Reader thought about Their Read. You're trying to control what they read for and how they respond. That's not a beta read. And you're telling them what you would find acceptable feedback - that's not even kind.

I really think trust the book, send them the book, and a nice box of chocolates when they're done. They are - and I can't stress this enough - doing you a huge favour which is only going to be in any way helpful if you let them get on with it.

Also - if they don't like the book enough to finish, they'll tell you they were loving it but Something Got In The Way of finishing. The best you can do is ask them where they stopped reading.

Let them keep face, and protect your friendships. If they don't know how to beta, they can google.

Unless they ask you for instructions or questions they should answer, I wouldn't send it to them. I know I've had beta readers who want to know it advance what to look out for while reading, but others I let dive straight in.

I mean, they know what they're doing if they even asked to be a beta. The whole point of being a beta (at least to me) is experiencing the book the way a reader would. For the first time with little information and no in-sight from the author.

Akvranel said:

First of all, thank you very much for agreeing to read and give feedback on my novel. This helps me tremendously.

The novel is [genre] intended for [age group]. This novel is in its ‘beta’ phase, which means it should read mostly error-free and ready to publish, though there may be some typos or minor grammatical errors

Don’t worry – I’m not asking you to fix syntax and grammar. What I want are your impressions of the story – did you like or dislike it and why? Other things I’d appreciate you considering & commenting on are:
• Was there any part you found boring, confusing, unsettling, or cringy?
• Any critiques or suggestions to the plot or character?
• Was there something you figured out ahead of time / before it seemed I wanted you to (and what tipped you off)?

And of course – if there was anything you liked, feel free to let me know that as well.

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Friendlier. I could work with that.

Even people who read a lot don’t necessarily know what kind of feedback will be helpful to an author. It does no harm to ask a beta reader a few informal questions to get them started as long as you also ask them to comment freely on what ever catches their attention. I also find that unless I know a reader quite well it is helpful to ask them to complete a tick-box questionnaire on their reading habits and preferences. That way if a 50-year-old crime aficionado finds one’s YA thriller shallow one knows how to read their comments.