Why your Beta Reader is more crucial than your writing coach

The year was 2013. I had wrapped up an early draft of my debut novel and had forwarded the samples to a couple of publishers and agents. The wait of six to nine weeks was followed by reminder emails from my side when replies flew in promptly with regrets and rejections. A couple of rejection mailers flew in so quickly after my reminder that I was tempted to believe they were auto generated. It was then that I came across this author and writing coach who also worked as a literary agent. Havin...