Backstory: Where BetaBooks came from

I've had a few people ask me where BetaBooks came from, how Andrew and I started on this project. It's a short but fun story, so I thought I'd share it from my POV.

After writing his first novel, Andrew started emailing ePubs and Mobis to his first wave of beta readers. He started getting feedback and making revisions based on those suggestions, and was looking for and finding new beta readers at the time.

He quickly realized that he was spending more time keeping track of who had read what version, how far along they were, and what notes he had integrated than he was spending writing. That's pretty purpose-defeating, huh?

It happens that Andrew is a programmer as well as a writer, so started thinking about writing some software to help him with his Beta.

About that time he asked me to read his book, and mentioned his frustrations with the process and that he was thinking about making an app to help with it.

I saw an opportunity to apply some positive pressure and flatly refused to read his book until I could read it on BetaBooks.

A few weeks later, there it was! So, I like to think the whole thing was my fault. You're welcome, world :)

If you're a writer finishing up your manuscript and ready to get Beta feedback, we hope you'll try out BetaBooks. Head on over to https://www.betabooks.co and request access, just mention you heard about it on this blog post and we'll hook you up with an account!