Beta Readers Ep 2 – How To Recruit Beta Readers

First off, there are two types of beta readers – paid and volunteer. I have worked with both, but heavily lean toward volunteer beta readers. There is no right or wrong option, it’s simply a matter of preference and opportunity. 

Most beta readers out there are volunteers, however, if you are struggling to build your team, you don’t want to put in the time to search, or there’s some other barrier to you finding volunteers, you could look into paid beta readers. The one occasion that I worked with a paid beta reader, I found them on Fiverr. They did an excellent job and provided useful feedback, but my preference going forward was building my team of volunteers. The quality of paid beta readers is obviously going to vary person to person, just like with anything else, but if someone is offering paid beta readership it’s likely they have at least some experience with the process and may be more helpful to newbies who are also learning how everything works. That being said, please do your research. I do not advocate for one version over another. 

If you’re looking to build your team of volunteer beta readers, the simplest way to start is to ask. Take to social media and put up posts requesting betas.

Valuable information to include in your recruitment is:
What genre and sub-genre is the story?
Who is your target audience? If you’re writing spicy books you want to be clear that you are only looking for readers that are 18+.
How long is the story and what is your deadline? Providing a word count and timeline of completion will let people decide if that’s something they can take on. After all, 50k in a month is pretty doable, but 50k in a week is going to shrink your pool of potential readers by quite a lot.
Be sure to also tell them what the story is about? Tell them about fun tropes, the gist of the main plot, and relevant content warnings so people can decide if the story is something they’ll enjoy. 

If you have unrealistic timelines or fail to provide relevant information then the chances of a beta reader ghosting you is significantly higher. 

Please be aware that making a recruitment post is likely to mean that the pay-to-read people and the beta exchange people will find you. The pay-to-read betas that approach you are not necessarily of the same calibre as those who offer beta reading as a service, so again, please do you research into anyone you’re giving money to. While beta exchanges (ie. I’ll read your manuscript if you read mine) aren’t inherently bad, you have to be mindful of your time. If you take on reading a dozen manuscripts just to get beta readers then you’re not going to have much time to write.