Beta-Readers, Alpha-Readers, or No?

It’s been a interesting weekend. Hypericon was this weekend and even though I technically wasn’t a formal guest, I wound up moderating three panels anyways. Occupational hazard, especially when you’re also staff at the con.

On one of them, the topic of beta-readers and alpha-readers came up and I learned something interesting. Not everyone treats them the same way or as the same thing.

I grew up in fandom and my understanding has always been that a beta-reader is someone that helps you during your developmental phase before you hit the copy-edits and proofreading. Alpha-readers on the other hand are people that help you catch whatever last typos and kind of serve as a preliminary ARC reader.

Some of the people on the panel don’t have both or what they call a beta-reader is more like my understanding of an alpha-reader. Some of them will use betas during the copy-edit phase. Some people don’t use them at all, just working with their editor.

Please don’t misunderstand me, editors are fundamentally crucial to the writing for publication process. However, I have also found it helpful in a lot of cases with some of my writing to also use beta-readers – I find them really helpful.

So I thought I’d open up this question to any of the other creatives out there. What about you? Do you use beta-readers or alpha-readers? Some of them, both of them, or none? Leave your answers in the comments and let’s chat about this.

Whirlwinds and Summer Days

This summer has been more active and there has been more travel this year than in previous years. Some of it good and some of it less so, but specifically the last two months have been one whirlwind after another.

We’ve had some awesome family visits – both Roomie’s extended family and my siblings from the other side of the Equator which was fantastic! We got to have the Fourth of July with my siblings and parents which hasn’t happened in a while and it was truly very awesome. We also introduced my brother in law to the wonders of 1776 and got to spend some time with some really amazing old photos which really only proved that yeah, we’ve pretty much always had this level of sass.

Then there was Hypericon, which if you were at, you probably saw me or my Roomie running around all over everywhere, as the Programming department of the concom. I am thrilled to say that, with a few small exceptions, the con went off exceedingly well and the programming was well-recieved and the quality of guests and panelists were amazing.

It was such an incredible relief to see a year’s work of hard work be executed well. I am incredibly grateful to all the people who I badgered or in one case, shanghaied into coming as panelists and featured guests. It brought a level of class and awesome to panels and workshops that was just superfantastic.

Roomie also went off to her residency for the MFA program she’s enrolled in and that was a lot of running and doing all the things before sending her off to the airline gate ( this was during Hypericon too, so if you saw me on Sunday and I was sort of a space cadet at you, apologies! I’d gotten around 4 hours of sleep total) and off to grown-up summer camp.

Then the AC in the house decided to break that evening, running around looking for contractors and repair people that could work around my work schedule was interesting to say the least. It is still not totally fixed, but we know what the problem is and it should be fixed by tomorrow.

In between doing all of that, the day job has been super crazy as well since it’s summer and vacations among other things are happening. So there’s been a lot going on. So much that my poor ASD brain hasn’t been able to cope as well as I’d like it to, which is why the radio silence from here.

I am trying to be a little better about the home/work/other work/con work balance than I have been, especially with the limited amount of spoons I already have. Compromise is one of my least favorite words, but slowly I am working to destigmatize it in my own head. It’s a great word when dealing with outside life and other people, it’s only in my own head and body that it’s a not great word. A lot of it has to do with forever needing to compromise with my brain and body due to the chronic pain issues…and I know that, but still sometimes knowing that intellectually doesn’t make it hit my less rational and more emotive self.

I have been reading though and writing some. More reading than writing and there’ll be a post about everything that I’ve been reading or re-reading as the case may be. I’ve delighted in some new stuff and picked up old favorites again. There’s something decidedly comforting about picking up a book you’ve read over and over, It’s akin to a warm blanket on a cold night or seeing an old friend.

Tell me about your summers, good or bad, if you like in the comments.