Beta Readers Wanted!

21 Replies

Old Mill on two Rivers

Hi!  I’m looking for one or two beta readers for my WIP, The Old Mill.  I have just finished the third draft and am pausing for feedback before I start the copy editing; you know, the fixing typos, wrong words, etc., to make it publish ready phase.  Why am I looking for beta readers before cleaning up the manuscript?  Just in case some of the feedback warrants a rewrite of entire sections.  I want all of the big changes (larger than correcting words and sentences) completed before I worry about those little details.

A little history

I posted The Old Mill as a serial story back in 2017.  It is possible you may have read that very rough draft already!  Early last year I began a complete rewrite.  The basic story is the same, but I added detail and filled out the characters.  I also changed POV, which is why it had to be a rewrite.

The Book

The version that I posted here was firmly in “Urban Fantasy” territory, but I made it a little darker for this version.  I don’t know if it is quite “Horror”, and not the modern, 1,000 bodies and huge pools of blood with very detailed graphic depictions of violence type of horror at all, but it is much closer to horror than my other books.

This is a ghost story, but not a simple ghost story.  There is a little mystery that needs to be uncovered, but that is easily solved.  I hope the main idea is a bit of twist, though it is foreshadowed, so not one of those odd-ball, out of left field twists.

The book is set in a small fictional New Hampshire town and is filled with the type of people you can expect to meet in a small New Hampshire town.  But the town has a past, and there is a dark secret surrounding the original mill owners.  There are a few chapters that jump back to follow the life of the primary ghost of the book.

I do have a draft blurb, but since I haven’t officially put it out, I won’t post it here…  If you want to see the blurb before you decided, I can send it.

Here is a sample I posted Halloween last year – this is from the second draft (I just finished the third).

What I am looking for

As with most beta-reading, I am basically looking to see what people think of the book.  Are there any major flaws?  Do you like the writing?  Issues?  Is it enjoyable?  Don’t read it like an editor, read it like a reader and let me know what you, as a reader, think.

I am not looking for copy-editing type stuff (typos, wrong words, etc.) unless there is something so awful that it is scarier than the story itself ;) I know there are a lot of typos – this is still a draft, not the publish copy.

I want a relatively quick turn around.  I know that is the difficult one. I had originally planned on having this out by the end of 2019.  And then it was supposed to be January 2020.  Here it is, almost half way through 2020 and I am still in the asking-for-beta-reader stage!

Anyway, let me know if you are interested.  If you don’t have my email, we can figure out a way in the comments for me to get the manuscript to you.

Thanks!

21 thoughts on “Beta Readers Wanted!”

  2. Alina Happy Hansen

    Hi Trent, I know that you posted this request for beta readers in May but I’m impressed by your writing and I am very interested in your story. If you’d like, I’d love to be one of your beta readers. A little bit about me, I am a literary intern for DLG Publishing Partners and I have a BA in English. I am also a published poet, writer, and blogger. If you’re interested let me know, I offer my beta read through Fiverr and I can always make a custom offer just for you https://www.fiverr.com/share/aeE1l7 Feel free to message me if you have any questions. Have a fantastic day Trent!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply ↓
    1. trentpmcd Post author

      Hi Alina. I’m just getting some feedback in from the beta readers, so it might be a little late. I will think about it, though, and take a look at the link you posted. It’s not a bad thing to have several sets of eyes look at it, though I’m not sure how much I can afford.

      Thanks for stopping in. i hope you are having a great week :)

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  3. pendantry

    I won’t volunteer to beta-read your WIP as I don’t think I can commit myself to the time at the moment. But have you heard of Scribophile? It’s a community of writers who critique each others’ work, in small easy-to-handle chunks. I’ve used it myself over the last couple of years, it has helped me to hone my own writing. Look me up if you join up (or if you’re already there?) — you can contact me on ‘Scrib’ via that link.

    Best of luck in your writing!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply ↓
              1. cordeliasmom2012

                ok. I sent it again, to both addresses. This time I put “Cordelia’s Mom” in the subject line in case you didn’t recognize the sender name. If you still don’t have it, send me an email to xxxxx so I can simply respond to that.

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                  1. cordeliasmom2012

                    It is odd. I’ve sent a reply to your email; hopefully it will get through. If you don’t get it today, let me know and I’ll try through one of my other emails accounts, in case the problem is at my end.

                    PS – Have you checked your email spam folders recently? Maybe your system simply isn’t recognizing me as a legitimate sender.

                    Liked by 1 person

                    Reply ↓
                    2. cordeliasmom2012

                      Well, if I was a suspicious type person, I might suspect a government conspiracy against one of us. My life is so boring that it would likely be you; but then again, us former alphabet agency employees are probably always under surveillance, even 50 years later. :)

                      Liked by 1 person

                    3. trentpmcd Post author

                      It isn’t a conspiracy about one of us, it is a conspiracy about both of us – some sinister agent does want us to communicate… ;) Yeah, I work for some government agency, so that must be it…

                      Liked by 1 person

    1. trentpmcd Post author

      I am still looking. Right now it would just be a pdf. You can drop me a note (I am going to spell this out so bots don’t catch it and will edit out once I know you’ve seen it):
      trent (at) trentsworld (dot) com

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