Read part 1 here or keep reading to learn how I found and reached out to beta readers, and shared my all-ages graphic novel before it was published.

Finding Beta Readers

It might be somewhat easy to find people online who want to read a book for free, but I figured I would need to look for specific readers to get the best results–readers who already enjoy the kind of book I was making (ridiculous, cartoony graphic novels for young readers) and who were looking for opportunities to read more.

Although these specific readers would be much more difficult to locate, I figured seeking out fans of ridiculous, cartoony graphic novels for young readers would provide much more useful feedback than a person who just wants to read a book for free.

I started by reaching out to people who subscribe to my email list, follow me on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Kickstarter. I let people know I was working on a new book and that I wanted to get their thoughts on it. This was their chance to read my new book for free before anyone else, and to help me make the book even better! I wrote a couple of posts and made a few video announcements to spread the word, being sure to include a link to my First Readers Club.

Starting an Email List with Mailchimp

I’ve been using Mailchimp for several years and have really enjoyed the variety of quality services they offer, as well as how easy it is to use. I decided I would use their services to collect email addresses and information from interested readers in a simple and easy way, so that I could eventually send out a single message and reach every reader.

I created a new Audience in Mailchimp, then selected Signup Forms and Form Builder to create a new (and free) landing page to collect email addresses.

Designing the form was simple—I just uploaded my First Readers Club logo and typed out a brief description of how the beta reader program works. (Mailchimp automatically included a field for users to enter their email address and provided me with the option to require other information from users, like their name, phone number, etc.)

That was it! Everything was all set up so that when someone signed up for my email list, Mailchimp would collect the requested information and pass it on to me. Easy!

Reaching Out to Beta Readers

27 people signed up the day I launched the First Readers Club. 27! I honestly thought I might get 20 people to sign up over time, so this was a nice surprise.

Although I reached out through my social media accounts 2 or 3 times, I thought I should also reach out to readers who were unfamiliar with me and my other books. While I could have sought out online groups for fans of Dogman and similar comics, I thought I might get a better, more committed response from reading groups that were also fans of all-ages graphic novels.

I found a handful of these groups, mostly on Facebook. The majority of the groups are closely monitored and ask a bunch of questions to users requesting to join the group. Once they verified that I am a professional, published author/illustrator, they accepted my request to join the group and I was able to share my call for beta readers.

My 27 interested readers quickly jumped to 50, then 75, then 100. By the time I sent out my book, I had more than 140 beta readers subscribed to my First Readers Club!

Even though more than 140 signed up to read my book, I figured that half of the people probably wouldn’t ever open the book, and out of the remaining 75 who open it, only a fraction who signed up would actually read it, and only a fraction of them would take the time to say anything about their experience in reading my book. I felt mentally prepared, knowing that the worst case situation might be that only 10% of the 140 people would actually provide feedback on my book (though I hoped more would get involved).

Understanding Beta Readers

I guess I could’ve just sent my book to the readers at this point, but I decided it would be more helpful if I were able to understand a few simple things about the readers. So, I created a simple survey using Google Forms and put together the following survey.

I tried to keep my questions brief, focused on the reader, and applicable to not just this all-ages graphic novel, but to future books that I might release through the First Readers Club. If I could know who was reading my book, I might have a better idea of what to expect from them and what they might expect from me and my book.

Sending the Book to Beta Readers

With a very simple understanding of who my readers were and what they wanted out of the beta reader experience, I was able to start putting together a presentation of my rough draft that I thought would work best for prompting and collecting feedback.

I knew going into the beta reader process that I didn’t want to receive a whole bunch of individual emails from different readers and I didn’t want to open up individual email conversations from a potential 140+ readers. I also knew that if I simply asked readers to share their thoughts in an open-ended way, I would likely only get a few responses, and those I received would likely be lengthy and riddled with information outside the scope of the project. (Again, not saying anything against any specific people, but people generally don’t like answering a lot of questions or providing information.)

Additionally, I thought I might get more feedback if I asked for readers’ thoughts at some point besides after they read the entire book.

There was also the small matter of how I would get the book to readers and how I might prevent any sketchy activity.

I decided that a digital PDF was the only feasible way I could make the rough draft available to all First Readers Club readers. A PDF would. Also afford me many other unique opportunities.

I uploaded the PDF to my DropBox account and changed the settings to prevent any downloads. (I’m not so much worried about the potential of readers stealing my ideas, but I don’t want unfinished work spreading outside its intended context and giving others an incomplete and incorrect view of the whole project.) I limited access to the PDF to only First Readers Club members by adding all 140+ email addresses to the permission settings. I also set the PDF link to expire on a certain date to avoid any viewing of the file after that date and prevent views/comments on the rough draft beyond the feedback period.

I added an “instruction” page to the beginning of my PDF so that readers would know what to expect when reading the PDF and how to offer feedback. I added “stop” pages at the end of each chapter and provided an embedded link in the PDF for readers to click and add their thoughts on that specific chapter. I created a simple 5-question survey via Google Forms to capture reader feedback for any given chapter in the book and then I created a final, separate survey for readers to offer their thoughts on the book as a whole.

Prior to sending the book link, I sent a few short emails outlining when the book would be available, how to access it, and how to provide feedback.

(I’ll stop here to mention what a unique challenge it is to write clear and concise instructions for any audience. I have so much admiration for writers of manuals, troubleshooting guides, and other sets of instructions that guide a reader through a system in a simple and easy-to-understand way. It’s a real skill and something I would like to improve as I continue sending out communications to my First Readers Club.)

Accepting Feedback

I should say something about accepting feedback from others.

Opening yourself up to opinions from others means you are taking a risk that someone might not like your work or enjoy it the way you intended. This risk is inherent to sharing your work and an important way to better understand how people interact with the things you make.

If you are genuinely terrified of what others might think of your project, then you might want to seek feedback on a much smaller scale. (If you are an illustrator, for example, you could post 2 variations of the same image and ask your audience which of the 2 they prefer. If you are a writer, you could post a brief writing sample and ask your readers if the writing makes sense. You could do something similar with character designs, page layouts, or other aspects of your work.)

Chances are that if you have written and/or illustrated a book of your own and are ready to look for beta readers then this is probably not the first project you’ve worked on and probably not the first time you’ve opened yourself up to the opinions of others. This is good.

Making a thing (any thing: a pie, a table, a story) means putting time and effort into making that thing. Because it is our time and effort, we can’t help but identify with and feel some kind of attachment to the thing we have made. It hurts when someone dislikes something we’ve made, because it feels like they are disliking a part of who we are.

It’s important to point out that we as people tend to like things for a wide, complicated variety of reasons that even we don’t understand all of the time. One person might enjoy Monet’s paintings because they love their grandmother and their grandmother loves Monet’s paintings. Someone might like a song because of a repeated guitar phrase. We as creators can’t control a reader’s experience with our work…at least, not entirely.

For whatever it’s worth, I think that a lot of writing is actually psychology. Think about it: an effective writer is concerned with persuading a reader to care about something—a character, a situation, a place. A writer is concerned with picking the words that best guide the reader to think a certain way about certain things. A writer is concerned with sentence length, tone, and texture. This goes for fiction as well as non-fiction and spans all genres. My point is that you can’t control someone’s attachment to Monet’s paintings through the love of their grandmother, but you can create an endearing character who loves their grandmother, who happens to love Monet’s paintings.

Again: sharing your work in any capacity is taking a risk. Only you can decide if the risk of hearing negative things about something you have created is worth the toll it will take on you. Conversely, it is a risk of a positive response. Can you take it in stride, knowing that one person’s positive feedback isn’t necessarily representative of other people’s views? Do you have enough self-awareness to continue to improve, even if you receive nothing but encouragement?

Beta Readers

Were you one of my beta readers? Have you been a beta reader for someone else? Have you asked beta readers for help? Leave your thoughts in the comments section below–I’ll be sending out more books in the future and want the experience to be as good as it can for me and my readers.

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Read Making & Revising My Graphic Novel (Part 1/3) here

Read Making & Revising My Graphic Novel (Part 3/3) here

Join my First Readers Club here (and read my newest book for free!)