In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People is out with the beta readers. Well, maybe not all, as I have at least one more to get it to. I have begun to receive reports.

The first reports had to do with typos. Many typos. I knew that when I sent it out. My wife has read about 2/3 of the book and marked typos as she went along. I took her mark up and made some corrections, but not nearly all. So I knew the version going out to beta readers had typos.

From Nov 3 through Nov 8 my wife and I travelled to Rhode Island via Oklahoma City to attend a funeral. During that time, during gatherings of family and friends, I was able to talk face to face with two of these beta readers. One has finished the book, and gave it good praise (not glowing, but good). Of course, he’s a Yankees fan, so I was expecting him to not like—wait, don’t want to reveal too much of the plot. He has been feeding me e-mails pointing out typos, but I was able to get his take on the whole book.

He said, in answer to my questions, that the scenes in the new Yankees Stadium were believable. I was wondering about that, so that’s good feedback. One of his comments was that, at the beginning of the book, there was nothing to ground the book in time. Since it was talking about the Mafia, he thought it was set some decades ago. However, further into the book I have some references that make it clear the book is contemporary. If I can add some similar references much earlier, then the book will be grounded in time. He also thought I didn’t have enough ethnic names in the book for ball players. I can look at that easily enough.

The other beta reader I met with had read through chapter 26, so about 60 percent into the book. He of course mentioned the typos. He also said that the mob girl in the book, who is playing a role much out of character for her, is not believable. No, that’s not exactly what he said. He said it’s hard to believe she could effectively play the role she’s called upon to play by her gangster boss. I’ll review that, and see if there’s any way I can improve her believability. She undergoes the greatest character arc of all the characters.

So, the feedback begins. I have the book out with four other beta readers, and will send it to one more tonight. I’m looking forward to the wide range of opinions I’m likely to receive.

Last week I put out a call for beta readers for In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People. It was already in the hands of two people, one a relative one a friend, in a state of completion a few chapters away from being finished.  I haven’t received any feedback from them yet. But I decided to put out the call anyway and see what happened.

I mentioned this to Lynda and she asked, “What’s a beta reader?” I explained it is the next level of reader after the writer, who is the alpha reader. It is those who act as amateur editors and focus groups, who read the book in a stage somewhere between first draft and near-camera-ready and provide feedback to the author. In this sense a writer’s critique group is a bunch of beta readers for each other.

That feedback notion is what I’ve had trouble with. I’ve buddied up with other writers to read and critique their book-length works, and them mine, only to have it all go one way. I fulfilled my part of it but didn’t receive the promised feedback on my work. Then I had my first, unpublished novel, Doctor Luke’s Assistant, that a relative in my wife’s family wanted to read. As these were older people, I wasn’t expecting feedback. But they passed it on to a younger relative, who did give me some feedback. Part of what she wrote was, “I found some typos, perhaps as many as 50.” To which I asked, “Did you mark them?” To which she answered, “No.” As that was unsolicited feedback, I couldn’t be too upset. But why wouldn’t someone mark typos on a printed copy of a book on which they intend to give the author feedback?

On Documenting America, I sent that out to perhaps six beta readers, or seven including my wife, and received limited feedback from one. The feedback he gave me was valuable, mainly which told me that he wasn’t really my target audience. The feedback that my wife gave me, that she didn’t want to read beyond chapter 1, indicated that she wasn’t my target audience (so I guess I received limited feedback from two betas).

From my call for beta readers for FTSP, I received six responses. The books are all in their hands, or in one case in the mail. My nephew Chris is more than halfway through and is e-mailing me the typos as he encounters them. Since he is a rabid baseball fan (unfortunately for the NY Yankees), I hope he’ll give me feedback on the plot and on the baseball situations. Finding typos is of huge value. Knowing the plot makes (or doesn’t make) sense, knowing the book hits (or doesn’t hit) home, knowing someone would (or wouldn’t) recommend this book to their friends is also huge—just as valuable. I have a ninth person to send it to, a former colleague who asked for it some time ago but who didn’t respond to this particular request. Nine is a good number, especially for a book about baseball.

This time I asked for something specific: feedback of whatever nature the betas wanted to give me within 30 days. I realize this is a gift people are giving me, and no matter what I ask for it is a gift—I can demand nothing. People are busy. Good intentions are often overwhelmed by the necessity of living. Got it.

So we’ll see how this goes. I’m hoping for at least five responses out of nine. I’ll be anxious to see if these people are in my target audience. I’ve always thought I write the type of books I like to read, and if I like to read them there’s got to be a couple of million other people who would like to read them. DA is perhaps changing my opinion about that.

Last night, about 9:45 PM Central Time, I put the closing words on In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People. Well, that’s not quite true. A few minutes later I thought of something I meant to say in the last scene, so I added that in, just one more sentence. The word count is 87,079. That’s 2,000 more than I was shooting for, based on my understanding of what the market will accept for a book like this.

So what’s next? I am tied up with my day job exceedingly between now and Friday evening, so will ignore FTSP. This weekend I hope to do some more wood sawing and splitting, keeping on working and building my muscles, and hopefully driving away the lingering effects of the ehrlichiosis. I have other writing to do: some articles for two different web sites, some non-fiction book stuff, as well as research for those. So I plan to let FTSP sit on the computer (properly backed-up, of course) for a week, maybe two.

When I get back to it, I’ll finish printing it, then read through the whole thing on paper. I’ll be looking for typos, as well as plot inconsistencies and places where the action isn’t adequately described. Also I’ll be looking for problems such as excessive telling rather than showing, head hopping, info dumps, etc. Although, I’m pretty sure I don’t have any info dumps, and that I used a nice mix of showing and telling. Head hopping I don’t really care about, but I’ll be watching for it. I suspect this will take two weeks.

Then, after the plot consistency review, I’ll do my own line and content edit. This will be looking for better ways to say what I wrote, in fewer words, with stronger verbs and fewer adjectives and adverbs. This should take three weeks or even a month. After that will be another proof reading. I will likely include what I call a “software edit”; that is, using MS Word features to search for typically overused words, such as that, there (not referring to place), -ly words, -ing words, forms of “to be”, etc. I’ve somewhat trained myself not to use too many of these as I write the first draft, but they creep in unawares, and must be rooted out.

So that all adds up to two or three months of editing, maybe less if I can find concentrated time to do it, and don’t distract myself too much with other works. Surely by that time I’ll have heard back from the agent, be it pass, accept, or more info. At that point I’ll have to give serious thought of how I want to publish it—especially if the agent passes. Self-publishing will be an option on the table.