What is a beta reader?
A beta reader is like a beta tester or a trial reader for your story. Before your manuscript is published, a beta reader will read your story and provide a report about their thoughts regarding what worked and what didn’t. It’s more subjective than developmental editing but certainly more budget conscious.
Free beta readers vs paid
Finding beta readers for free is an option! You can put out feelers on subreddits such as r/DestructiveReaders or r/BetaReaders, or you can find critique groups online. The downside is that the quality of the feedback may vary widely and ghosting is extremely common, especially for full, novel-length manuscripts. Finding a stranger—or a handful of them—to dedicate so much of their free time to both read your story and provide feedback can be a difficult, time-consuming task. Many authors turn to paid, professional beta readers to eliminate that level of uncertainty and get feedback from someone with experience.
What you can expect from me
I provide inline comments via Track Changes in Microsoft Word to tackle issues, concerns, or praises within the manuscript as well as showing my live reactions to the events of the story. After I finish reading, I write a report that averages 3-7 pages, depending, that covers feedback on a macro scale for topics as needed such as character development, motivation, pacing, genre, plot, and consistency. I don’t cover spelling and grammar when I beta read, though I might note some smaller errors if it’s a quick fix. No AI is used at any point in my process.
My Rates
$0.0015
per word starting at 50k words
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Includes your manuscript with inline comments and a separate letter document
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Absolutely no AI used in my process
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50% upfront, 50% upon delivery
Published Portfolio
Testimonials
I truly appreciated Alexa’s in-depth thoughts and comments on this story. I am currently working on rewriting and restructuring the story, and through Alexa’s reader comments, I am able to pinpoint how to better pace the story so that the reader’s expectations for pacing going into the story match the actual pacing of the story, and how to better open up the PoVs in scenes to better explain their inner motivations to readers. Alexa’s reader’s report and beta comments have been a great help in showing me how to restructure, strengthen and improve the story in its next form, especially in terms of pacing and character through-arc. Thank you!
sephymartell
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
This was my first time working with Alexa, and it definitely won’t be my last. Her attention to detail is really next level, and she caught things that multiple other readers didn’t. Thank you so much!
emilywright1804
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Very great with communication before during and after services! Reader report was thorough and what I asked for. I’m looking forward to working with you again on future projects!
imajoker15
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Alexa’s comments were both respectful and helpful at the same. She was able to point out what worked well in my manuscript as well as what could be improved. She communicated well throughout the process and was always kind and considerate in her comments. I really appreciate all the help she has offered and would highly recommend her as a beta reader.
rosemilesauthor
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Request a Beta Read
Fill out the form below or send me an email at [email protected]