To Be a Beta

It seems like I’m taking a few steps outside my comfort zone lately. Last month it was NaNoWriMo, and although that maybe didn’t go as well as I might have hoped, I still think it was a valuable experience. So, this month I’m trying something else new.

Recently one of my Twitter peoples asked me if I would be willing to act as a beta reader for her new book. I have her fair warning that I had never done a beta read before but that I was willing to give it a try. We kind of left it there for a while; it was the first week of November and I was still trying to get to grips with the daily requirements of NaNoWriMo. But once November was over, I got back in touch and was sent a copy of the novel.

I will admit to a bit of trepidation about this. Not about reading and enjoying the book, I have no doubts there. What I’m worried about is doing it right.

I’m not a published author and I’ve only been reviewing books here on my blog page for the past eight months. Not much of a track record. So, do I have what it takes to be a good beta reader?

Maybe I’m making more of this than I should be but, to my mind, if an author is going to entrust a new book to someone and potentially make changes to it based on what they say, then the beta reader owes it to them to make a good job of it. And if there’s one thing I hate doing, it’s  letting people down.

I’ve already been googling a little about how to be a good beta reader and I think I’ll get a good bit of guidance, courtesy of a worksheet that I found here. So here’s hoping I can be of some use.