Is it odd to be scared? I’m working through my last read through now on Earth Shatterer and it’s just about ready to be released into the beta world. And I’m petrified. Well, maybe not petrified but I’m nervous as all hell. I’ve never been nervous about an edit before and I’ve had my work critiqued face to face. This is over the internet. So why am I twitchy?
I think it’s because it’s my first novel plus the fact that I didn’t find nearly as much wrong with it as I did the first novel and that has me pretty freaked out on its own. I’m still thinking that maybe my inner editor’s gone on vacation without telling me but at the same time I’m afraid to dig too deep because I don’t want to start manifesting issues that aren’t really there. I just honestly can’t believe that I’ve written something this aerodynamic on the first go. What if I’m missing something major and the betas find it and go, “why the hell didn’t she catch this?” I’m afraid of that. And losing my editing knack. Now that’s petrifying.
I should be done with it this weekend or early next week and I have three people lined up to beta. I’m going to scour an unbiased fourth person from Absolute Write and maybe I’ll find a fifth, just to have a nice even block of a number. Should I get more? Do you think that’s enough? Should I just hand it out to those people, wait and see what they have to say and then decide if it needs more eyes? Eep.
Pretty reasonable to be nervous but I guess there’s no moving forward until you get someone else’s opinion.
I think three or four is enough though. Best of luck.
I think what your feeling is pretty normal. You don’t know what could happen when it comes to getting betas or the actual publishing – what opinion they might have.
You’ll be fine. Just keep thinking of that dream: to see your book on bookshelves and say that you’re gonna do whatever it takes to achieve that. If you get good news from your betas then awesome! If there are little things that need to be edited, then you work at it.
Either way… it’s gonna become a published book in the end. And whatever happens, you know you’ve worked hard to get it there.
You’ll do fine.
I just survived my first Beta stage (didn’t get all the Beta’s responses, which bummed me out a little). I understand how nervous you are, I felt the same way. But now I’m rearing to go and polish my work.
Good luck.
Thanks, everyone! At the same time I’m nervous about what others will think, anxious to make the edits they suggest and anxious still to actually get my book in query mode. Gah!
It’s you, I don’t think you’ve got any reason to worry, but everyone gets nervous when it first goes out into the world.
As to the number…odd numbers are better, at least in my opinion, that way if you have some sort of tie-breaker opinion, the odd one out (the third or the fifth) can tilt their opinion one way or the other. (You don’t count in the number, because ultimately you’ll do what you want, or what it needs).
That makes sense, Stormy. Thanks! I like that idea of an odd number betas. Good call!