Hello from a cheap hotel room in Winnipeg! I mentioned in an earlier post that I’ve been working on Desertbound, my debut novel (coming 2026?). Consider this a bit of a sequel to that post.
As I plan to self-publish Desertbound, I’ve pieced together a loose process that I’d like to document as I go through unique steps: Writing, editing, beta readers, editing again, hiring a professional editor, more beta readers, editing again, publish. That’s just the actual book part, not counting cover art, illustrations, layout, and marketing. Much of what I’ve figured out I need to do is courtesy of guidance from r/selfpublishing.
Once I’d polished Desertbound up as much as I could on my own, I was due for feedback. While the somnolians can provide input, and I love hearing their thoughts, nothing I get from them will be unbiased, gloves-off critiques, and they all know these characters and the shape of the original novella. I needed randos.
Being the redditor (derogatory) I am, I headed to r/betareaders. As is my nature, I lurked for a good while to get the feel of the place before I put together a post, including my first chapter as a sample and a shiny new blurb:
It’s a big world for a little rabbit. Thankfully, Trapper Bray has the ego to compensate.
For thirteen years, he’s charmed the realm as the gold-strung lore-singer, a wandering bard with a gilded lute. He’d call it charming, anyway; others might call it theft, trickery, and tax evasion. When a blind countess offers him a hill of gold to guide her across the continent and back before winter, he can’t help but accept. Not one to settle for more riches than he can carry, Trapper plots to swindle her for all she’s worth.
A stowaway orphan with a dream to become a bard and no musical ability complicates his plans. Worse still, he has to reckon with the countess’s cold demeanour, the occasional dragon, and old betrayals coming back to haunt him. While Trapper signed up to get to the desert if it killed him, he didn’t plan to learn more about himself than he’d like.
I hit post and scurried off to a corner to hide for a bit, because posting things where people can see it is scary. Then I came back around and poked into other threads for critique swaps, then had people coming to me wanting to read more, either as part of a swap or just to beta read it.
Funnily enough, I’ve heard complaints on other subreddits about r/betareaders only working for romance writers, as if that’s all that’s posted, and all that people want to read. That’s not my experience at all. If you’re willing to do swaps, I’d absolutely recommend it.
In the end, I had about 10 betas. While I’ve got a thick skin professionally, my novel’s different from Google Ads copy, and sharing it for strangers to pick apart was daunting.
It ended up being the best part of the writing process so far. I mean, actually writing the thing was delightful, but having every reader come in with unique interpretations and critiques was remarkable. Writing is an inherently lonely art form, so making writer buddies and connecting with them over each of our works soothed that aching part of me. And what really got me high on my own farts: People liked my book. Some people loved my book, and it’s not even 100% done yet.
Beyond the ego-stroking thrill of seeing people thinking about and complimenting you on your story, I also got plenty of critiques. I missed lots in my self-edits, the result of being too close to the project; the average reader is not familiar with talking woodland critters as a storytelling device, another blind spot that comes with being surrounded by furries; there are tweaks I can make to have the story feel more satisfying and coherent.
There were conflicting critiques, because that’s human nature. Chapter six tended to either be seen as the weakest chapter in the book or, in a couple people’s cases, absolutely loved. After I had all my beta feedback gathered, I opted to overhaul it (and hey, that deleted chapter is now bonus content I can use for marketing!). I’ve had people tell me chapter one was too slow and describes too much, and one person say it’s too fast and I should spend much more time describing things. Instead of individual feedback, unless you really agree with it, you should focus on patterns.
There are also, at times, critiques you’ll decide not to listen to, because artists are stubborn bastards. As long as you’ve got rationale, there’s no harm in assessing feedback and deciding it doesn’t work for the story: I had one or two people say they wanted a full description of Trapper, the first-person narrator and protagonist who, for the story’s framing device, is telling you this story in a bar. Logically, I can only slip hints about his appearance in the book. Not to mention, I’ve never read a (well-written) first-person story that describes the narrator/protagonist’s appearance immediately in plain terms.
It was also nice taking a break from Desertbound. I’d been working on it consistently this year, so stepping away while betas reviewed it was a good chance to work on other projects. I’ve been working on rewrites for my Pennyverse novella, Shipping to Pascua. I’ve made a little progress on Desertbound‘s sequel’s second draft. Most importantly to me, I started rewriting Wisp to make it smaller and more executable.
Now, I’ve gotten back into revising Desertbound with renewed vigour and confidence. While I can say I write purely for the love of it, art conveys a message, and the audience is part of that equation, and artists who say they don’t care about other people seeing their work are lying bastards. Having other people read my work and treat it like a real book made it real. This is no longer a weird thing I’ve been putting together, but a novel that I’ll someday hold in my hands (on questionable quality POD paper, but still).
If you’ve got a story you plan to publish, traditionally or otherwise, I cannot recommend beta readers enough. It’s scary and you won’t get ass pats the whole time, but you need thick skin to publish a book anyway, and there’s no better place to grow it than the low-stakes environment of beta reading.
