Writers, I have a small request. Well, for me it’s more than small, because I’m also a writer. Could you please take the time to find some Beta Readers who will check your final draft for typos, missing words, and weird formatting?
An untruth
I know there is a teaching out there that readers don’t notice the typos and their minds automatically read the correct word or fill in the missing ones. Well, I’m telling you that if there was an America’s Got Talent for writers, those books with errors would get NO from all the judges.
Yep, all your fans who are die-hard readers, the ones who will follow your series because they love your story, will probably re-think that if there are too many of these errors. And new readers will pass on future books if they deem the error percentage too high in the one they just finished.
What I’ve seen
In the past month, I have read several books from different authors, in different genres who have had too many of these types of errors. Who pours Mike on cereal? And why was Charley suddenly Clyde (more than once.) And I don’t want to stop and reread a sentence because there is a word missing or extra words added. Do not get me started on DO when the author meant DON’T. Struggling over sentence meaning is like stopping to change a flat tire on a road trip. By the time you get back on the road, you’re tired, frustrated, and want to stop for the evening early.
Never give your readers any reason to stop reading. You want them to stay up late or cancel their other activities to read your book and the others that follow because of how excellent it is on every level.
My truth
Half-a-dozen or less in 60,000 words will probably go unnoticed (unless it is the character’s sudden name change) but more than that and it slows the story way down. I got frustrated reading What do at the end of a line. There was no punctuation to show an interrupted thought. Just two words that I had to guess why they were there and what the writer’s intent was.
As an author, we can become snow-blind to all those errors because we’ve read our manuscript a gazillion times. Fresh eyes can make all the difference. These beta readers don’t need to be fellow-authors, just people who love to read your genre. (Your genre is a key, otherwise they may not finish it.) Send a few people the final draft of your story and asked them to note misspelled words, extra words, and a shift in formatting. Give them a deadline to get it back to you. Most avid readers can get it to you within a week. Unless you have lots of errors, then it may take longer.
Their only job is to look for those three things because I am assuming you’ve already paid an editor to check your story arc, grammar problems and other story issues. Authors who don’t have their work professionally edited live to regret it when it comes to sales and review rankings. Again, after the final edit send it to beta readers and then fix those errors before pushing the publish button.
And I don’t care how many books you’ve published, continue to do it. I’ve heard readers criticize best-selling authors who feel they don’t need their manuscript edited or beta read anymore. Those authors begin to lose followers. The errors make it appear the author doesn’t care as much about their readers.
So, please have as many read throughs of your book as you can before it is published. Your readers will love you for it. And I guarantee if you don’t someone will lower that 5-star rating to a 3-star or less because they got irritated reading through a myriad of errors.
Do you use beta-readers for your final draft?