Musings on beta/crit partners

So, I'm still looking. For beta-readers, crit partners, anyone willing to have a look at my writing because I need an external eye to judge it before I dare to be bad and put it out there.

I'd love to swap, but I'm aware that I'm faster and much more prolific than the majority of writers – beginners or not – so I probably need more than one or two, so I won't submerge the poor volunteer without being able to return the favor.

My offline writers group takes too long to go through a novel (and mine are around 85000words, so not that long, but at 10/20 pages per month with summer break, it still takes years), so I tried online groups. David Farland's Writers Forum was a great place for genre writers, with members of both sexes – but again I seemed to be the only prolific (and indie) writer in my group and I couldn't have one full novel looked at. Not to mention that it died after six months for lack of both submissions and critiques.

I don't like reading in installments – I'm plot and character oriented and need to read a complete story to be able to critique. And I need feedback on completed works, I don't need to brainstorm ideas. I have my loose outline and just write from start to finish without writers block. Now, I might read a partial if you're really stuck and need suggestions, but I'd rather not do it.

So I joined Ladies Who Critique in search of this elusive crit partner and I might have found some. I've also found a brilliant Goodreads group of reviewers and other indie authors that truly support each other, and of course I have my trusted beta and dear editor.

Anyway, I'm making new friends, but I'm afraid this year I'll have to stick to paid editors – which means my first year as indie author will close with a very red balance. But it's a long term investment on myself and I sure hope it will take off within the five years plan.

Now let me prepare to give the Tales of the Southern Kingdoms (two short story collections that can be read as novels as the stories are sequential) to my faithful beta – except we're so much on the same wavelength, she doesn't make many comments! As long as she catches plot inconsistencies, confusing passages and clunky grammar and typos, it's fine, though…

Went through one already published Tale of the Southern Kingdoms on my Kindle ans saw a couple of those darn things (typos, what else?), so I better go through the edited, complete version again before sending it out!