Stop Using Beta Readers at These Stages (You’re Wasting Your Time)

How to use beta readers strategically—discover the best timing, questions to ask, and how to get feedback that actually helps.

Why Your Beta Reader Feedback Feels Useless

The reason your beta reader feedback feels useless... is because it is.

But it's not necessarily because you ended up with bad beta readers or because you can't hack any critique and threw their feedback out instead of using it.

It’s probably because you got beta feedback at the wrong time. And that makes betas at best useless, and at worst destroyers of your novel and dreams.

So I’m going to share what the right time to get beta feedback is so that you don’t waste yours and can still get the feedback you need to publish a marketable book.

When to Actually Use Beta Readers

Because the truth is, even as aggravating as working with beta readers can be, you do still need to test your story on your target audience. You still need other eyes on your work—at the right times.

See my earlier article for more on who a beta reader should be and what you should expect from one.

Here’s what most writing advice doesn’t tell you:

There are actually two ideal times to bring in beta readers. And the best one for you depends on whether you’ve had professional support earlier in your process. Then you might even want to use betas at both times.

So let me break down the two points in your process where beta readers can be incredibly valuable—depending on how solid your foundation is.

Option 1: Before a Developmental Edit

Now, I need to be really clear about who benefits from this one. Because it’s not the majority.

But this is the first stage at which I recommend using beta readers in my free roadmap to go from story idea to marketable book, which outlines the exact steps I use with my author clients.

You can grab this roadmap for yourself HERE.

But that’s the key—it’s the process I recommend for authors already working with a professional book coach.

This is why:

With authors I coach in my Enchant Your Readers program, they've already had my help as something like an alpha reader (but a pro version) to get their story ready for readers. And they learn a revision process that's super solid and have the craft know-how to back it up for a story that works.

By the time they’re thinking about beta readers, they already have a strong structure, character arc, and killer tight plot. So now a beta reader can show them the experience of how it’s coming across. So for these authors, beta reading can occur before hiring a developmental editor.

And in an ideal scenario, they might have a few additional beta readers saved for after the developmental edit to get insight about how their implementation of their dev edit feedback is landing with a test audience too.

If you’ve already gone through book coaching, or you’ve had professional support and self-edited with a strong revision system, beta readers can be your test audience before any professional editing.

But you have to be at the point where you’re not wondering what’s still wrong or aren’t sure what might be broken… yet you know something still is. Rather, you’re asking:

Is this working as well as it could?

Option 2: After a Developmental Edit

If you haven’t had that kind of support and you’re not confident your draft is structurally sound and already working, hold off on beta readers.

You need someone who understands craft to help shape the story before test readers weigh in.

I’ve done a lot of in-house and freelance edits. And here’s the honest truth:

I’ve never received a manuscript from an author I haven’t coached through earlier stages that was ready for beta readers first.

Every one of those stories needed development before a test audience could give meaningful feedback. So if you’re early in your process or just feeling stuck and really could use some other eyes on your work, a trained critique partner may be a better first step.

And if you don’t have one or know where to find one? That’s exactly why I created the Critique Partner Program. It teaches you how to give and ask for story-focused feedback that helps you grow as a writer and improve your novel.

But here’s why waiting until after developmental editing for betas is so important for most authors:

Beta readers are only test readers and need a story that’s all-but-finalized for you to really get an insight on reader (not critiquer) experience.

Otherwise you get that notoriously useless feedback because those readers were thrown into a story that still needed foundational work.

You’re asking them to test something that's not test-ready.

The result?

• Confusing comments
• Conflicting advice
• Unhelpful or irrelevant observations

Especially if they didn’t know what level of feedback you were expecting from them.

Having and providing the right expectations is key.

I think a lot of the confusion around beta readers comes from not understanding the different types of readers used in the novel-writing process.

[VISUAL: Show manuscript reader chart]

I once created this alphabetized chart of manuscript reader definitions for that very reason—so my authors would have a quick reference. It provides the draft status and stage in the process each type of reader should be used for.

If you want a copy of this chart and access to my whole resource library, find it HERE.

But for beta readers, note again that you’ll want to use them before OR after pro edits depending on your situation.

Beta readers need something that reads basically as if it’s published.

When beta readers see a draft that still needs big-picture work, their comments are especially all over the place. That feedback isn’t helping because your story isn’t at the right stage for them to be useful.

Their job isn’t to polish your sentences or fix your story arcs. Their job is to report on how your story made them feel.

They’re genre-savvy readers, not editors. Not story coaches. Not line editors.

How to Get Better Beta Feedback

However, here’s where most authors slip up, even if they understand all this and use beta readers at the right stage.

If you don’t tell your beta readers what kind of feedback you need from them, they won’t give you anything useful.

If your beta readers don’t know the role expected of them, they’ll overanalyze all the wrong things, freeze up and say nothing—or not much of anything.

You’ll get the…

• "It was good!" comments. Or…
• "Something felt off, but I don’t know what."
• Or even silence. It became an overwhelming task for them because they didn’t know what they were supposed to do. Far easier for them to procrastinate and ghost you.

But you know what’s even worse than being ghosted?

If that daring beta rolls up sleeves to try to fix your manuscript for you like they’re your editor.

That’s not fair to them (all those unpaid hours!) and it’s a spell for unprofessional disaster for your story.

Ask the Right Questions

That’s why I give all my clients and Critique Partner Program students these four essential questions:

• What did you get excited about?
• Where did you stop reading or had a hard time pushing through?
• Where did you get confused?
• What else would you love to see in the story?

That’s it.

These questions don’t demand writing expertise. They’re reader experience questions.

They give you insight into how your story is impacting readers, which is something you’ll absolutely be able to use to make sure your book’s reader experience is everything you hoped it would be.

And if you want those questions along with the full set of tools for working with beta readers and critique partners, those are all inside the Critique Partner Program.

When you use beta readers intentionally and strategically, they become one of your most powerful tools. They help you see what’s resonating—and what’s still a little off—from the lens of a real reader.

So yes—you do still need beta readers, because getting outside eyes on your work is one of the most effective ways for you to know when your book is ready for querying or publishing.

However (and this is a big however), a lot of beta reader or even critique partner feedback you receive doesn’t mean what it seems to at face value.

And not understanding the feedback you receive in this way can still derail your story from your vision for it or into one written by committee. Eesh. So ugly.

Because notes like, “boring,” “it dragged,” and “I didn’t connect with the characters” don’t always mean what you might think.

So I’ll show you how to interpret those beta comments so you know exactly what to fix, what to ignore, and turn that insight into a revision plan, cheat sheet included, if you click to read the next article on your screen now.

Categories: : creativity, editing, manuscript stages, novel drafting, self-editing