The BetaBooks Blog

News about BetaBooks, with thoughts on writing, reading, and publishing sprinkled in.

How to Find Readers Who Will Love Your Book

This is post is a guide to help you identify your ideal readers and invite them to read (beta) your book. The purpose of this? Essentially to see if your book works. To give you confidence when you publish and market your book that it is achieving your goals. If you have read our How to Find Beta Reader’s post, this is its spiritual successor. It is informed by four years of helping authors beta, conducting interviews, and doing research. We call it Determining Book Reader Fit.

Writing is Not an Author's Essential Activity

As an author, it can be easy to believe that your essential work is done when your book is complete, and that everything that follows is just details. It's natural to think that the act of writing is the essential activity of being an author. I’d argue that this is not true, that the essential activity of being an author is getting your work read by the right audience.

Encouragement from San Francisco Writer's Conference

I just attended my third San Francisco Writer’s Conference last week. This was the first time Pam and I have worked a conference together and it was great. Her thoughts echo my own so well. I did notice one other thing that seemed different from past years though. This year ...

Three takeaways from San Francisco Writer's Conference

This was BetaBooks' third year at SF Writers, but it was my first. I learned a lot, both from attending presentations and just having conversations with other industry professionals, and especially with authors. Here are the three things I think you all should know: Authors control their own destinies, their ...
beta wisdom

Interview with best selling author Jean Oram

Today I have the pleasure of introducing to you all Jean Oram, the New York Times and USA Today bestselling romance author of feel-good, tingle-inducing, heartwarming romances. She also happens to be a BetaBooks subscriber, so she said yes when I asked for an interview. Hooray! Read on to learn ...