How do people become beta readers?

[+ILuvHats he/him]

I’m not looking to become one, but I’m curious. 

[Snipexe he/him]

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Questioner

How do you become a beta reader?

Brandon Sanderson

People always want to know this! We have beta and gamma readers. Alpha reads are only my agent and my writing group. Beta readers are people from fandom who have proven that they know their stuff and are a part of the community. Peter picks these from people who are on my Facebook, who are interacting with him there, or who are on the 17th Shard. There's no promises you can get in on this. We do change it every book and get some new people, because sometimes we just want people to give fresh eyes on something.

Gamma reads, if you want to read things early, are bug hunters. They can spot a type form a hundred paces. If you are really good at finding typos, you can go to the thread on the 17th Shard, for every book there is a thread, a forum thread that talks about typos. And if you are consistently finding typos no one else has found, chances are good Peter will be like, "Hey, do you want to proofread for us?"

But don't feel like you have to do this because it actually diminishes the book a little bit, even though you get to do something cool, because it's not in its final form yet. I don't like beta reading when I don't have to, I'd prefer reading something with polish.

Barnes & Noble B-Fest 2016 (June 11, 2016)

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Questioner

Can I become a beta reader for Brandon's books?

Brandon Sanderson

Beta readers are some of the people to whom I send early versions of my books for feedback. Usually, these are different from alpha readers, who include industry professionals like my editor, my agent, and my writing group. Beta readers, instead, are usually fans and "average" readers, used as a test audience. I don't expect them to offer solutions to problems; more, these are the people i want to use to gauge how the book will be received.

Most of these people fall into two groups. The first are old friends who have been reading my writing for a long time, and whose opinion I trust. The second are people who have made insightful comments on places like the 17th Shard, Tor.com, or my Facebook page. They are generally people well known in the fandom community surrounding my books--people who have good reputations, with whom we feel we can entrust early copies of books without leaking them.

We do pick from general fans sometimes to do beta readers, but there are a LOT of people who want to do this--and not many slots available. Usually, we pick people who have a special experitise relating to a book I'm working on. (We might pick a person who has been an EMT, for example, when reading Stormlight--to help with Kaladin's surgery scenes.)

I don't generally pick beta readers myself. I leave this to my team, mostly Peter Ahlstrom. I suggest not pestering him with requests, however. Instead, if you really want to beta read, participate in the fan community and get to be known there. Another great way to help is to find typos that HAVEN'T YET been found and post them in the appropriate thread for that book on the 17th Shard. (Don't just send these via email; chances are, peter already knows about them and has fixed them in a newer edition of the book.)

FAQFriday 2017 (April 7, 2017)