Would You Like To Critique The Sequel To My Novel?

(NOTE: Based on time elapsed since the posting of this entry, the BS-o-meter calculates this is 13.266% likely to be something that Ferrett now regrets.)

So I’ve finished the sequel to my upcoming novel Flex, and now is the time that I send it to my usual group of beta readers.
The problem: I need four or five beta readers who haven’t read the first book.  Because inevitably, someone who hasn’t read the first book will pick up this one, and I want to know whether it’ll make any sense to them.
So!  If you’re willing to read for me, contact me at theferrett@theferrett.com.  (Don’t expect to hear back immediately; I’m driving to New Jersey to present at a conference, but I’ll get to ya.)  Priority will be given to published writers and/or people who’ve critiqued my stories before.  (And if you have read Flex already, either because you blurbed it or reviewed it or whatever, you automatically can beta-read for me if you want.  I just didn’t wanna bug you.)
What I am not looking for is an proofreader.  When a story’s in this early a draft, entire scenes will be dropped, characters may be re-motivated, whole plotlines may be shifted like writhing anacondas – and so I couldn’t care less whether there’s a misspelled word in a chapter that I’m going to rewrite from scratch.  What beta readers give are usually not line-edits, but overall impressions – does this person act like such an idiot that you stop rooting for them?  Did the Big Plot Twist feel cheesy?  Do these relentless references to Fight Club (hint: there are relentless references to Fight Club) make any sense if you haven’t seen the film?
Turnaround time is 6-8 weeks; I’d like to start redrafting come Christmas.  And thanks for thinking of me.

1 Comment

  1. Sage
    Nov 6, 2014

    I’d be happy to. I also read pretty quickly, if that matters. However, I have pretty much zero experience, so there’s that.

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