The conventional wisdom says don't ask your friends and family to be your beta readers. My opinion differs and here is why.

Ali Standish, the author of the recently released The Ethan I Was Before, surveyed 100 debut Middle Grade and YA authors about their journey to getting published. She compiled some very interesting data that I suggest everyone check out. Andrew and I are always excited and intrigued to see compiled information like this. Here is the opening but she gets into number of novels written before author's first sales, advances, and a ton of other great info. The whole article can be found on her blog here.

Andrew and I are so happy to be able to bring you an interview with Shay Roberts today. He has made heavy use of betabooks.co over the past few months. His thoughtful feedback and precise comments on both his process and the BetaBooks site have been extremely helpful to us as we polish our features and more fully develop our philosophy. For authors looking to find new beta readers his answer to question 10 might prove helpful!

I just finished a little batch of what I'd call "Spring Cleaning" work on the app. These are little things, but hopefully they'll make your time on BetaBooks just a bit better.

We are so pleased to have Scott Reintgen talking to us today about how he betas his book. He has been a great encourager of Andrew and I as we have worked on and grown BetaBooks. We love hearing the different nuances of how authors run and organize their betas. ...