Off in Beta-land

You might have noticed I haven’t had a book review up lately. It’s not because I haven’t been reading—I’ve been doing tons of it, just none of it is published. With According To Plan in the beta reading stage, that means I’ve traded the job out for reading other authors WIPs too.

I love beta reading time, and I wish I had more time for it when I wasn’t needing to trade manuscripts. I’ll read nearly any genre to find a good beta partner and that means often reading things I wouldn’t normally pick up off the shelf. I’ve just finished a sci-fi dystopia about the uprising of a group of people who were told they were living on the moon, right alongside a YA retelling of Pride & Prejudice. Talk about some whiplash. And the biggest surprise- I loved them both! My favorite part was being able to give the authors some ideas to make the even better, I’ve even heard one has already gotten a partial request from an agent!

In return, I’ve gotten some really good feedback on AtP as well, places to improve and comments that make me feel like it’s going in the right direction.

Sometimes, after all my beta reading, I find myself trying to insert comments on the published books I read. Oops. I’ve just picked up a couple ARC books, so there will be more reviews to come, in fairly random genres, but I think it’s always good to read wide—everything is a learning opportunity.