Ever wondered what it takes to turn an idea into a children’s book that sparks joy like confetti?
Well, it turns out the process isn’t any different whether you go with a traditional publisher or you’re self-publishing like us. If any, the scale or scope of the process is what differs from one to one. At least, that’s what we’re learning.
So, we’ve since created our manuscript and illustrations for our upcoming book, The Accent. Alongside, we’ve set up our website and teasers among other things. But just like a hotdog business isn’t a hotdog business without hotdogs to sell, we’ve also got to have a book to sell. True, but even that requires a well thought through process. After all, a hotdog business with bad hotdogs isn’t going to get your business far enough.
Enter beta reading.
What is beta reading?
Beta reading is a pre-publishing stage where a manuscript is given to unbiased readers for feedback on plot, characters, and other elements to improve the work before publication.
Our goal
For this, our goal was to get at least 20 reviews from prospective beta readers over a 4-week period.
Our process
For our beta reading, we needed to ensure we had a simple system of tracking everything from our communication to feedback. What follows is how we went about the process.
Step 1: Advanced Reading Copy (ARC) creation
An Advanced Reader Copy (ARC) is an unpublished version of a book that authors send to reviewers before the official release date. Even if final details, like the book covers, are not locked, the manuscript should be edited almost to a final version so that reviewers are reading the same version of the story that readers will get.
The finished book itself, however, should be similar to the ARC so that reviews left reflect the actual work readers will be reading. Naturally, during the ARC process, sometimes reviewers pick up typos or have other questions, and these may be addressed and corrected prior to publication.
Ours was a pdf copy of the entire book (illustrations and texts) with a few elements:
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- Watermark
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- A disclaimer on the cover that the book is an ARC
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- Link to a review form (shown in Step 2)
Step 2: Review form creation
To meet the goal of gathering feedback from our beta readers upon reading the ARC, we created a Google form with a few fields – name, email, review. The link to this was added to the ARC pdf described above.
Step 3: Email crafting
Next, we drafted emails for our outreach from introductions, follow ups and closing. See below in chronological order.
Next, we also crafted follow up emails because, believe it or not, it does take a few follow ups to get a response from people!
And when a positive response comes, we send along this email with the ARC copy attached.
Another set of follow ups to get them to read and review
Finally, a thank you email when a beta reader’s completed the process by leaving a review via the form in Step 2.
Step 4: Research and selection
With the ARC, review form and communication emails out of the way, we set out for the real work – finding beta readers. For this process, it helps to understand your audience. In our case, our target audience for The Accent could be categorized as follows.
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- Primarily, immigrant or dual-heritage parents in multicultural societies in the UK, USA and Canada. The obvious reason is the theme of our book borders on a relatable experience to them.
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- Secondarily, parents, tutors, organizations who cater to children from diverse cultural backgrounds. The Accent seeks to educate children on the subject, hence these people are also our targets.
Tapping our networks, Google, LinkedIn, TikTok and WhatsApp, we collected over 300 names. We could have gone on but decided to draw the line at 300 with the aim of getting 10% of those to review.
Step 5: Outreach and data compilation
Since we’d decided we’d only send out the ARC via email, we sent out emails and followed up with recipients until we had conclusive results vis-à-vis review. Not all made it through, and we could only follow up for so long. The result is a Google Sheet sample below which we used for the entire process.
What next?
We had 27 reviews in all. We’ve since shared these reviews with our editor who used it recommend edits for finetuning the book. The result of that is The Accent eBook out now with the print to follow!
Conclusion
Does the foregoing process guarantee that The Accent will be a successful book? Well, success is relative, hence subject to different metrics. One such success for us is knowing that our published book has undergone rigorous editing to make it fit for reading. Hence, its grammar, contexts etc. are fit for purpose. We’ll touch on other elements of its success as we journey ahead.
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