5 Things I Wish I Knew Before Holding my First Beta Read

So you've finally worked your novel to a place where you feel at least vaguely comfortable with letting other people read it. You have a sense of pride in your work, and you are finally ready to show your hard work to the world.

You're ready for a Beta Read!

How do you hold a Beta Read so that you get the most out of it?

My personal experience with Beta Reads has been a bit of a learning curve, to be honest. For my first book, as an example, I held three separate Beta Reads, trying to pin down what the heck I was supposed to actually do (and consulting the powers of Google when I ran into problems).

Needless to say, I went into my first read knowing absolutely nothing aside from the fact that I needed people to read the book and give me an opinion on it.

This turned out to be far more complicated than expected.

That's what brings me to the subject of today's blog: the Top 5 Things I Wish I Knew Before Holding My First Beta Read.