Why do we call them Beta Readers?

Authors use a number of different terms to describe the people that read their manuscripts before they are published and give them feedback. The three most common are Advanced Readers, Early Readers, or Beta Readers. It shouldn’t be a surprise that we at BetaBooks strongly prefer Beta Reader and here is why.

Just a small aside about the origins of the term, in case you are unaware. When software is close to ready for the public, it goes through a “beta” stage. A beta is a chance for pre-selected members of the target user group, or “beta testers,” to use the software in close to real world conditions. The first authors to socialize online were tech savvy and used computer terms to talk about their writing. Starting on fan fiction forums and slowly spreading outward, “beta testing” a novel became a common expression. Calling the people who are betaing your book beta testers doesn’t really scan so, in a fairly elegant linguistic tweak, to the term beta reader was adopted.

Back to the main topic: Why do we strongly favor “Beta Reader?” The reason is super simple. We all do a lot of our work online. On the internet Beta Reader, Advanced Reader, and Early Reader are not interchangable. An Advanced Reader is a student who is reading at a competency level that is higher than their grade level.  An Early Reader is a child who has started to read at a younger age than the average. If you google those terms that is what you get and because they both refer to reading, adding writing-specific terms to your search will not help you find the information you want.

Beta Reader however, belongs completely to the process of reading a manuscript before publication. I know better than to try to suggest any sort of lexical orthodoxy to writers but that is why I like “beta readers” and I think we should all try to use it.