Chareka Jinks asked Naomi Novik:

As a fellow author, how do find people to read and critique your work? And how do you handle negative comments if there is any?

Naomi Novik I met most of my own beta readers through fandom and fanfic. We met in online discussions or at cons, chatted, got to know each other over time, I knew they liked my work because they told me so, and at some point I asked them to read something and they gave me useful feedback so I asked them again.

It's not that different from finding any other friend, except IMO the key is you need to find people who both like your writing and what you're trying to do in each particular work. The same person may not be the best beta reader for every single thing you write. Someone who cares about you personally and hates the stuff you're doing is probably the worst possible beta reader to ask, because they will do their best to give you feedback in the most well-meaning way but it will be all-wrong feedback, and you have to be pretty experienced to recognize that it's wrong.

Also, they need to be a good match for you in terms of sensitivity and communication style. For instance, you ask about negative comments -- in my case, that is all I really want from my beta readers. I mean, it's good to know when a bit is really working, but for me, I mostly want to hear what's NOT working, and I am impatient to fix it so I don't really want it padded with stuff intended to avoid hurting my feelings -- I am not very sensitive. But if you ARE sensitive and likely to be knocked off your stride by negative feedback, then you want to find a beta reader who will be more positive and more gentle.

However, the trade off is that the negative feedback is what can actually make your work better. So it's important to work on being able to take negative feedback and use it if you want to improve.

As far as negative comments more broadly, like in public reviews after a work is published, those you just ignore, unless you happen to see one that makes you think "oh hey I never thought of that" and it's really insightful in a way that you find useful for applying to your future work. You have little to no context for the commenter and they have no relationship with you, so the chances of their feedback being really useful are small. It's like stopping a random stranger on the street and asking them to read your work and give you feedback. If it was that easy to get useful feedback it wouldn't be hard to find a beta reader.

(Oh, in case it doesn't go without saying: never argue with negative comments. That's like trying to explain to someone why they should enjoy chocolate ice cream when they have just told you they don't like chocolate ice cream.)

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