This summer I finished writing the first draft of my newest book, a young adult cozy murder mystery set in an indie bookstore during Halloween. After going through and making edits, I made the next important step on my manuscript’s journey; I sent it off to a beta-reader.
What are beta-readers? Beta-readers are readers that look at the draft of your story and give you ways to improve your manuscript. They also let you know what they like about it. I usually send a list of questions I have for them to review while they read my story.
I have a variety of beta-readers that I send my books to. The particular person who read my newest work in progress is published with my same publisher, Mariah Stillbrook. She’s also a huge fan of murder mysteries so it was a match made it heaven. And even better yet, I have beta-read two of her novels.
Mariah finished reading my manuscript and guess what, she loved it! Of course there are lots of things to fix, but she told me that it’s her favorite book of mine yet. Very exciting! So now I’m working through her edits and going to send it off to my second round of beta-readers shortly, to see if what I fixed worked.
Beta-readers help you see things in your story you might have missed or give you ideas you never would have thought of. Mariah gave me some invaluable advice for my newest book and I’m so grateful to have her as a reader, and as a friend. I’m really looking forward to seeing how this book turns out.
The mood board for my story is below. Hopefully I’ll have good news in the future about this story…crossing fingers!
Check out my already published books here. Hopefully this will be published book number three!
Diane Billas 