Beta Readers

Before you email a person asking them to beta your fic, beta it yourself. Read it over a few times, read it aloud, see if there's anything you can't change yourself.

Then email the person asking them if they're available to beta your fic. Outline a few things about your fic — the length, the style, the rating. Is there anything that could be disturbing? Is there anything that could be easily annoying? Make sure they know what they're getting into. But do not send the fic blindly.

If the person responds, wait for them to beta your fic. When they give you back your story, don't take their comments as a flame or as criticism against you-the-person. You asked them to look over your story, and if they're doing a proper job, they will find things wrong with it.

And by all means, thank your beta readers.

Beta Reader List

Kate

Likes: Zen pieces. Drabbles. Giles/Oz.

Dislikes: Character hate, unnecessary sex, totally out of character evil.

How much time for beta reading: Very little. I can do very short pieces, but if it's longer, I will forget about it very quickly.

Mer

Likes: Dark, kinky, ambiguous, lyrical, bantery, witty

Dislikes: Mpreg, songfic, Mary Sues, gratuitious feminizing, character bashing

How much time for beta reading: Not that much but I read fast. Short stories and manageable installments of epics are almost always turned around in 3 days or less, but Giant Novels dumped on me all at once might be a problem.

Meg

Likes: Um, just about anything.

Dislikes: The only thing I can really think of is really really dark stuff. Also, I don't hate original characters, but I tend to like fics without them more.

How much time for beta reading: If it's G/O, I'll read it as soon as I can basically. If the fic is really long, and I'm talking like more then 10 decent-sized chapters, that would be the only thing that might take more than a few days.

Colleen

Likes: All ratings, most kinks, fluffiness, darkfic, pretty much everything

Dislikes: There's not much I don't like. Mpreg is a squick, but it really depends. Not much with slapstick type stuff either, but I'm not exactly expecting it from anything G/O.

How much time for beta reading: Let's review. No life. No job. Currently no school. So really? I can read all day if required.