The Value of Beta Readers: Guest Post by Author A.J. Powers

Firstly, I'd like to thank the kind and talented Rich Evans for allowing me to be a guest on his blog. I hope I can provide an entertaining and informative post that is worthy of being displayed on his page.

Beta Readers! Do you have them? Are you one? Do you care? The term "Beta Reader" is a relatively new one to me. Being new to the authoring business I had no idea this role even existed in the writing world; though it makes total sense.

I've been a professional game developer going on nearly seven years now. I've always known about QA in the game industry, or better known as Beta Testers. There is ultimately only one job for a QA (Quality Assurance) tester in the game industry; break the game. Sounds weird, doesn't it? But that's what they are paid to do. It's important that QA hammers on a game like there's no tomorrow to find what can break the game, what looks incorrect, what's not fun, and even at some points, story problems. If a game were to ship to shelves with many of the bugs that are found during development then it would quite likely lessen the experience of the gamer. Having QA find these problems ahead of time does two things: First – It minimizes the amount of bugs that will ship when the game is released. Second – It frees the developers up to focus on the game itself instead of trying to find the bugs.

So how on earth does this pertain to writing and releasing a book? Well in my mind the two aren't that dissimilar from each other. Sure a game paints all the pictures visually for you, dialogue is acted out, and you get to control the hero, but at the end of the day both mediums have a story being told to you through a series of events that unfold in front of your eyes. So with that said, I believe books can ship with bugs!

I'll admit, I just thought of that phrase "books can ship with bugs" as I wrote it out. It doesn't make it any less true, however. As games have matured and become much more sophisticated in storytelling, bugs are no longer limited to the player finding ways to fall out of the world or a giant oak tree floating above the ground. Broken story, bad dialogue, and other story related elements will often find themselves going through the bug tracking database, inevitably ending up in the inbox of a soon-to-be pissed off game designer who is having his "perfect" work ripped apart by QA.

I'll be the first to admit that I hate QA. Setting aside the fact that often in the game industry QA is usually comprised of some odd guys and girls, but rather that no one likes to see work they've done come back from someone that says "This is broken." Having said that though, wouldn't you rather a small group of people find what's broken instead of a disappointed reader who might leave a negative review?

When I write stories – just like when I create art for games – I become so intimate with the piece that I will quite frequently overlook glaring issues. It happens to me almost every week professionally, and it's proving to be the same when I am writing. The biggest issue for me when I write is that I know my story too well, and I forget to explain things that are relevant for the reader to know. Even an instance as trivial as having someone in a car in one sentence, and then out the next. I did this very thing in Loose Ends. In my head it was just logical that the people inside the car exited and continued on their journey, but one of my beta readers, Steve Umstead, caught this and replied. "When did these people get out of the car?" Good question, Steve. When indeed? He (and my other readers) caught things like that all over the place. It's okay to imply things at times, but if it's confusing to my beta readers, it would likely cause confusion to anyone else reading my work.

Beta readers can offer a wide array of services to help improve the quality of your book. Some are good with picking up situations like the example above. Others might pick up plot holes, inaccurate facts, grammatical errors, pacing, the list goes on. Having a handful of beta readers will help broaden the spectrum of bugs to be discovered in your writing, and yes, you will have bugs in your writing. No author has sent a perfect manuscript to an editor; I'm very confident of that. That's nothing to be ashamed of either. As I said before, an author can get so into his/her writing that it's easy for us to skip over "oh duh" moments. I like to think of beta readers as my sanity checkers.

"Well I have an editor," you might say. Well that's good, and an editor is surely worth their weight in gold, but even they miss things. Modern AAA games (the big budget ones especially) have usually HUNDREDS of QA testers playing a single game. The more you get to beta read, the better your chances are to discover problems and address them. Obviously you want to limit your beta readers to a reasonable amount. Some are okay with just three or four while others I am sure go out to dozens. I think between six and twelve is a good number for me.

As indie authors we are now competing with the biggest names in literature. I know it's weird to think about, but Rich here is competing against authors like Steven King. I can find Asylum Lake on the same website as Salem's Lot. So it's absolutely important we try to make our work as top notch as we can so when people purchase it they realize the quality you (the author) have to offer, and most likely for a better price. I think beta readership is a very important part in making that happen.

So don't be afraid to ask some friends to read your book (even if it's just your rough draft), and if someone you know is looking for beta readers, go ahead and sign up if you can follow through with your commitment. It's a win win; you will most likely get an enjoyable read out of it, and will be helping a fellow author not only put a better book out, but improve their skills.

About A. J.

AJ Powers is a professional game developer by day, and a writer by night. Over the years of working in the game industry he has come to appreciate great story telling and is making it a personal mission to tell compelling and thrilling stories that keep the readers on the edge of their seats, and satisfied through the final page turn. You can follow A.J. thoughts and work on his blog at http://ajpowers.wordpress.com/

 A.J.'s debut novella LOOSE ENDS is available on Amazon for Kindle.