Alpha Readers
Alpha readers help save you time and effort by identifying plot and content problems paying customers are likely to notice. Some authors call these readers “beta readers,” but once you see how they use the feedback, it’s clear that their “beta readers” are what I’d call “alpha readers.” Different names, same process!
What are Alpha Readers?
Alpha readers are people who read the entirety of an early draft of your work. It doesn’t necessarily have to be the very first draft (and, honestly, that might be a bit too much to ask of people you aren’t paying), but maybe the second or third draft. These volunteers understand that the manuscript is going to be in rough shape and that they are being asked to provide feedback on “big picture” issues with the piece such as content order, character arcs, and worldbuilding. Alpha readers would not be spending time on nitpicks about things like word choice, spelling, or punctuation. This would generally be a waste of their time at this point. That’s because they could provide feedback that would warrant the removal or overhaul of entire scenes. So it makes no sense (in my mind) to spend time pointing out a misplaced comma in a scene that may not make it into the next draft at all. Also, it splits their efforts between macro issues and micro issues, possibly decreasing their efficacy on both. I’ve found that giving people a single focus tends to get higher quality results. The fewer things you give them to pay attention to, the more brainpower they can put into each of those things. Don’t spread their attention so thin that you weaken the feedback they give you.
Questions to Ask Alpha Readers
I try to keep things simple for my alphas. I just want them to read the piece as they would any other book and let me know what stands out to them.
I understand that, especially as a new author, you may have a million little things that you’re neurotically obsessing over. You’re concerned about how a certain character is being portrayed to the reader or if your pacing is too slow or if your worldbuilding details make sense. But, giving alphas a laundry list of things to consider (and I’ve seen new writers do this to a horrifying extent with literally DOZENS of questions about minutiae!) as they read can make the reading more cumbersome. Instead of having fun reading a great story or learning some new information, they are essentially doing a homework assignment. That’s not how most people read books. I want my alphas to read just like that person who will be paying money for the book once it’s published. Just like I wouldn’t get to influence how the person who pays for a download of my book is going to consume the book by asking them a bunch of questions or telling them what to pay attention to, I don’t want to do that with my alphas either. I want an organic response to what’s on the page.
I want my alpha readers to tell me what stands out to them, not be concerned about what I’m nervous about. Sometimes I’ll find that the majority of the things I thought might make a book more problematic to read never came up with readers. This signals to me that I was fretting over something that wasn’t an issue for my audience. If I had told the alpha readers to pay close attention to those things that I was most concerned about, that would influence their review of the manuscript and push them closer to giving me what I want to hear, versus what actually matters to a recreational reader. I want to make my self-revision decisions based on what sticks out to a customer, not based on my own paranoia about my writing.
To that end, I keep my questions to a minimum and make sure they’re open-ended (no radio buttons, multiple choice, check boxes, etc.). For example:
- What did you like most about this draft of the book?
- What did you like least about this draft of the book?
- Do you have any other comments or suggestions?
That’s it!
Using this method, I tend to get a lot of solid feedback because I let people tell me what matters most to them without influencing it with my own self-consciousness. As I review each set of answers, it’s easy to find patterns in what people thought was beneficial and what people thought was problematic. Using that info, I can dive into self-revisions with a solid idea of the changes I want to make in order to strengthen the piece.
Gathering Alpha Readers
There are probably many people all over the web and in your writing circle who would be willing to be alpha readers for you. It’s often just a matter of asking the question. The next time you’re at a group, ask in the minutes before the group begins or in the time after it ends.
“I’m looking for alpha readers for the [#] draft of my [genre] manuscript. It’s about [#] words long. Anybody game?”
Remember to give the people you’re asking the word count, not the number of chapters or pages. This is because chapters can be of just about any length, from a few hundred words to several thousand. For one author, two chapters is 15,000 words, while two chapters is only 2,000 words for another. Same goes for pages. Depending upon your line spacing, margins, paper size, typeface, and other factors, the amount of pages a certain number of words comes out to can change. If you write 1,000 words, if all of the specs are kept at industry standards, you should have about four pages. However, if you use 10-point font, pick a more compact typeface like Arial Narrow or Garamond, put lines so close they are nearly touching one another, rarely indent paragraphs, and there’s no dialogue, that four pages could easily turn into 2 or even 1, even though it’s the same number of words. So, again, just stick with the number of words to be as accurate as possible.
While you are welcome to enlist as many alpha readers as you like, I’d recommend somewhere between 3 and 10. Remember that you are going to have to read all of the feedback given to you by these people and pull it together into a revision plan for your next round of edits. Don’t make a lot of extra work for yourself unnecessarily.
Prepping Your Manuscript
You could have alphas with various reading preferences. However, remember that you are in control. There’s nothing wrong with being accommodating to an extent, but don’t overwhelm yourself trying to placate a bunch of different people. The easiest way to manage the alpha reading process, I’ve found, is to use a system like Google Docs or Dropbox. You can upload your manuscript there and then give access to everyone who volunteered. They can follow the link in the invitation, download the document, and read it on whichever device they prefer, or even print it out.
Wait! Can’t they steal my work?
Yes.
But, if your goal is to publish, anybody can do that after the book is on the market. Just about every popular published work has been plagiarized or pirated in some form or another. And you’ll notice that not many of the criminals are ever pursued, let alone apprehended and made to pay any consequences. This is because the people behind these thefts of intellectual property are often difficult to pin down. They hide behind shell companies, fake profiles, and pseudonyms that make locating their true identity take more time, effort, and money than will ever be recovered in a court.
Many authors think that having submitted a copyright registration is some kind of barrier against piracy and that’s just not true. Holding a formal copyright to a document just means (1) IF someone decides to copy your work and pretend it’s their own, (2) AND you somehow find out about it, (3) AND you can trace the individual or business at fault, (4) AND you can afford to hire a lawyer, (5) AND you’re willing to spend the months / years it may take to start and finish the lawsuit process, then you can rightfully show that you own the intellectual property in question because you’ll have your registration submitted or in hand.
But…that doesn’t keep them from doing it in the first place.
So, yes, any time you share your work with a family member, friend, critique group member, co-worker, or professional, there is a chance that they could steal it. If you follow the precautions covered throughout this site, you can lower your chances of that happening, but there’s no way to eliminate the possibility completely.
This is just the cost of admission to the world of being a published author.
The only guaranteed way to not fall victim to plagiarism is to never get manuscript-strengthening help from others, and never publish your manuscript in any form. Saying you want to be a published author, but you don’t want to risk piracy, is like saying you want to live, but you never want to feel any discomfort (hunger, fatigue, anger, confusion, etc.). Life doesn’t work that way. Publishing doesn’t work that way.
Setting Expectations
Some writers feel better about sharing their work this way if they have a limited disclosure or non-disclosure agreement that volunteers sign off on before they gain access to the manuscript. Here’s an example:
By submitting this form, you agree that you will not share the document you are being given access to. This includes discussing it with anyone but the author, messaging anyone about it, sending copies of it to other people, and storing it after you have read it and provided your feedback to the author. By typing your full name in the box below, you agree to this non-disclosure agreement.
You can tweak your message based on how you want to get the agreement of your alphas. For example, if you want to simply place a similar paragraph at the top of your manuscript, you could write “by accessing, viewing, and / or storing this document” instead of “By typing your full name in the box below.”
To reiterate, doing this because it makes you feel better is fine. However, even if someone agrees to these terms, that doesn’t physically stop them from breeching the agreement. Once they have access to your manuscript (now or after they purchase it from a bookseller) they can do whatever they want to with it. All you can do is hope to catch them and hope that bringing them to justice is worth the headache, time, and money you’ll have to spend in order to do so.
Set a Date
I recommend giving people ample time to get through the manuscript. Many will likely get back to you more quickly, but give them the time they need to read through the piece and give you solid feedback. I normally use a rate of 10,000 words per week. For example, if you have written a 50,000-word novel, give your alpha readers 5 weeks to finish. If you’ve written a 110,000-word piece, give your alphas 11 weeks to get through it. Remember that these people are volunteering. So, this isn’t something they are being paid to do and they get no direct, concrete benefit from participating. Don’t be inconsiderate of their time and responsibilities by piling on and demanding they finish your 100,000-word book by the end of next month.
Gather All Feedback Before Making Updates
I have run across multiple authors and screenwriters who don’t do this. They send out version A to 10 people. Then they use the first three sets of feedback they get to start making revisions and tell the other 7 alphas to stop reading and wait for a new version. Now the rest of us have to stop in the middle of the manuscript and start all the way at the beginning. Then version B goes out. Once a few more alphas submit, the process starts all over again.
This is time-consuming, inefficient, and frustrating for your alphas. This is no way to treat your generous volunteers!
If you’re the author in this example, invite your 10 alphas to read. Give them the time they need to finish, and wait until you get all 10 sets of feedback before making any revisions.
How You Want Feedback
If you have a specific way you want to receive your feedback, be sure to tell your alphas this in advance. For example, some people create a Google Form and list specific questions they want people to ask (this is how I ask the three questions in the example above). A link to the form is placed on the last page of the manuscript with instructions to click the link and answer the questions. This helps make the process more streamlined for the reader since there are no extra steps. As soon as they’re finished reading, they segue right into the feedback process.
You could also ask that they insert comments directly into the document and email that to you (or submit it via a form).
They could also simply email you a summary of the major problems they saw with the piece so that you get a bulleted list from each person.
Consider what you think would work best for you and incorporate that information into your invitation to become an alpha (whether that invitation by an email, form, verbal request, etc.).
Review and Revise
Once you’ve collected all the commentary from your alphas, it’s time to determine which changes you want to apply and then apply them. Just take each bit of feedback one at a time. You may notice that there is a pattern to people’s reactions and suggestions. If that happens, I strongly encourage you to take that change into consideration. It may not be pleasant, but if you have a bunch of people who don’t know each other pointing out the same thing they didn’t like, it’s likely going to be an issue for your paying readers as well.
That being said, you’re not obligated to take all, or even any, of the advice provided by the alphas. For instance, someone may say there isn’t enough time spent on the romantic relationship between two characters. But, since you don’t want to write a romance, you can ignore this feedback, even if multiple people bring it up. You are allowed to make executive decisions. This is your project.
Next Steps
Once you have reviewed the feedback you’ve received and applied the suggestions you think fit, jump into a few more rounds of self-revisions. I’d recommend at least one additional round of self-revisions, but no more than three. If you think you can handle doing more rounds of self-revisions without getting stuck revising forever and never moving forward with the rest of the process, go for it.
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