Beta readers and querying
I have never been a beta reader, but they sure are important! I have been reading a lot of ARC's lately and that almost feels like beta reading in some cases. But! I actually have my own beta readers now and I am so excited.
So I finished my 5th draft of my first novel, and it is now in the hands of beta readers. Of which, I have 3, and am about to ask a 4th person. So far, haven't had any feedback, but am happy that everyone is taking their time, and I trust them to give it to me straight but also provide real feedback. I know 1 of the readers has finished a first read through and will do a second read and take notes. 1 of my readers is going to take forever, but I value her feedback, so I'll be patient!
While I have been waiting, I have drafted my query letters, and boy was that not fun. It is truly a different set of skills to write a pitch than it is to write the book. You get 1 page to sell yourself and the book and kiss the agent/publishers ass. It is a fine balance, and I think I am happy with the draft. Now I just have to personalize the letters for each agent- name, previous authors/books they worked with/on, and I also have a whole paragraph that changes depending on the genre I am querying (which is 6 different genres that I am prepared to query for). Then I can start sending them out! Super exciting, but we'll see what happens. I am guessing I'll end up rewriting the letters at least 3 times over the course of the 10 rounds of queries.
Now that I have finished all of my letters, or at least the skeletons of them, I am back to waiting. I am busying myself with some other novel's outline, which is also super fun. So far I have 3 outlines in varying degrees of done. My sequel's outline is fully done and fleshed out, I am finishing a rough outline that I will then turn into a full outline for a fantasy book, and I have to add about 75% of an outline to a fantasy/crime book. I think I will leave the sequel for a bit while I query the first book, but I don't know which of the other two I want to write first! The fantasy/crime book started as a teleplay that I have been working on for about 8 years now, and the fantasy book is an idea that I came up with this year. I love both of course, otherwise I wouldn't bother going through all the effort! It is a toss up between the two, maybe I'll flip a coin.
I am also debating if I want to take a break from book writing and all that nonsense while waiting for the betas to give me feedback. I could happily work on some short stories- I have someone waiting for me to continue "Postcards From Nowhere" the short story I shared here- but also I have TONS of random prompts that I might do as a little brain exercise in the mornings. I might start doing daily short stories (and share the prompts) on here, and maybe one day I'll compile them all into one book, and that book will have a single copy that I keep on my own shelf!
Thanks for letting me ramble, I'm off to outline some more!
-Elizabeth
