I need some Beta Readers! Please be my Writerly Friend!

That’s it!  3rd draft done and dusted.

The next stage for me is to get feedback.  I’m blind to the multitude of errors, faulty plot points, grammatical mistakes, lack of character development, personal writerly foibles and general shoddiness.

I can’t see the wood for the trees.

So here’s where YOU can fit in.  You can be one of my beta readers!

Sarah LaPolla wrote a good piece recently concerning recruiting beta readers in her blog post – The Beta & the Omega:

…the advent of online forums and blogs and Twitter have made finding beta readers that much easier and that much more common. And most times you never even meet them in person.

So I’m putting her words to the test. This is a call out to the internet to get some beta readers.

Show the dog the rabbit!

OK, so I finished my novel, ‘Broken Branches’.  It’s 60,000 words long. I suppose it would be filed in the science fiction section but it’s more of a dystopian story.  There’s no aliens, spaceships, ray-guns or airships with steam powered bazookas. Sorry.

Here’s some blurb;

The UK prides itself on a population connected by heritage, improving every generation via meticulous compatibility testing based on the potential child created, not love. A ‘parental democracy’ drives this development, approving or denying applicants wanting a child. Men are made sterile to avoid sullying thoroughbred lines.

Down in Wigthorn, on the South Coast, this suits Charlie down to the ground. After a hard day window cleaning, there’s nothing he likes more than harmlessly pursuing the girls. Charlie’s good looks and easy charm means the pursuing doesn’t take long but a one-night stand may have consequences that last a lot longer.

Grace’s husband wants children and has applied for the sterility antidote so they can conceive, Grace isn’t too sure though. Like Charlie, her twin brother, she’s not a thoroughbred and fears what she may pass on.

Grace and Charlie are genetic islands; orphaned by their parents, cast adrift by their ancestors, branches broken from the National Family Tree.

What’s inside may seem worthless now but soon the government, terror organisations and foreign agencies will pay any cost to sequence and replicate their genomes, but to what end? Build supermen? Breed GM soldiers? Create perfect citizens? Who knows.

But it all begins when you start the first chapter.

(Feel free to crit the blurb in the comments!)

Click here to download a PDF and read the first 2 chapters.  If you want to continue and not only read the whole thing but also provide feedback, then contact me here.

I’m no-one, so who am I to determine the expertise of a potential beta reader?  If you like what you’ve read so far, then you’re good enough for me! If you haven’t liked it and really want to tell me…then even better!

I very much doubt I’ll have to confront this option but if so, I’ll limit it to 10 beta readers.

I’m also up for ‘swapping’ reads.  So if you have a novel (now or in the future) we can swaps crits.

O’yeah, if you’re not going to participate but like the idea then retweet this or stick up a link to this post.

Thanks!