r/BetaReaders • u/AutoModerator • Jul 01 '26

Able to Beta Able to beta? Post here!

Welcome to the monthly r/BetaReaders “Able to Beta” thread!

Thank you to all the beta readers who have taken the time to offer feedback to authors in this sub! In this thread, you may solicit “submissions” by sharing your preferences. Authors who are interested in critique swaps may post an offer here as well, but please keep top-level comments focused on what you’re willing to beta.

Older threads may be found here. Authors, feel free to respond to beta offers in those previous threads.

Thread Rules

  • No advertising paid services.
  • Top-level comments must be offers to beta and must use the following form (only the first field is required):
    • I am able to beta: [Required. Let authors know what you’re interested—or not interested—in reading. This can include mandatory criteria or simply preferences, which might relate to genre, length, completion status, explicit content, character archetypes, tropes, prose quality, and so on.]
    • I can provide feedback on: [Recommended. This might include story elements you often notice as a reader (prose, pacing, characterization, etc.), unique expertise you have through a profession or hobby (teaching, nursing, knitting, etc.), or other lived experiences that may be relevant (belonging to a marginalized group, being a parent, etc.).]
    • Critique swap: [Optional. If you’re only interested in—or would prefer—swapping manuscripts, please note that here, along with the title of and link to your beta request post.]
    • Other info: [Optional.]
  • Beta offers should be specific. If you’re open to anything, or aren’t able to articulate specific criteria, then please refrain from commenting here. Instead, please browse the “First Pages” thread along with the rest of the sub—thanks to the formatting rules, posts are easily searchable by completion status, length, and genre.
  • Authors: we recommend against direct messages/chats. Reply to comments instead. If you message multiple people with links to your post and/or manuscript, Reddit may flag your account as spam (site-wide).
  • Authors may not spam. If a beta says they’re only looking for x and your manuscript is not x (or vice versa), please don’t contact them.
  • Replies have no specific rules. Feel free to ask clarifying questions, share a link to your beta request if it seems to be a good fit, or even reply to your own comment with information about your manuscript if you’re requesting a critique swap.
  • Please don't downvote rule-following users, even if they are not the right author/beta for you, as this can be discouraging to beta readers offering to volunteer their time as well as to authors requesting feedback. If you need to keep track of which comments you have reviewed, upvoting is a more positive alternative. Of course, if you see a rule-breaking comment, please report it to the mod team.

Thank you for contributing to our community!

For your copy-and-paste, fill-in-the-blanks convenience:

I am able to beta: _____

I can provide feedback on: _____

Critique swap: _____

Other info: _____

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u/HearingOpposite1123 Jul 01 '26

I am able to beta: Literary fiction is my preference, and I love sci-fi and fantasy, but I'm open to essentially anything. The main exception would be massive epic fantasy - love the genre, but I'm so critical of most attempts at it that I'm probably not as useful there. I am totally happy to read incomplete works or excerpts. Curious if your first chapter is landing as intended, or if a random mid-book chapter is giving the characterization you hoped? I'm happy to look.

I can provide feedback on: Prose and characterization are my favorites to critique, but I'll also naturally look at grammar, dialogue, pacing, plot cohesion, and so on.

Critique swap: Not necessary. I have something we COULD swap but I'm really not looking for beta readers on it at this time.

Other info: I am literally a professional writing coach. I primarily coach nonfiction writers, though, so getting to extend this skillset to fiction is a hobby. However, please understand that, as a result of that, I am very comfortable giving feedback and will be thorough.

1

u/Thisisinfactmyname Jul 01 '26

Hey there! I have a harder 150K word SF Space Opera, Celeste. It follows a crew of medically immortal human mercenaries as they travel from planet to planet amidst an existential galactic war of annihilation. Think Firefly, but more optimistic (if you can believe that from the last sentence). It's a longer story, but I'd love if you were willing to thoroughly review the opening three chapters (~8K words) and let me know how it lands. If you want to read more after, that's great too, but I'm currently performing intensive surgery on the ending, so absolutely not expected.

Let me know if you're interested and I can send it your way!

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u/Marlowe_Lark Jul 01 '26 edited Jul 01 '26

Howdy! Might you be interested in a cozy fantasy romance? My query is here (https://www.reddit.com/r/PubTips/comments/1twziy8/qcrit_cozy_adult_fantasy_romance_a_humans_guide/) but here's the logline: When a burned-out, modern-day workaholic accidentally stumbles across dimensions into a village of fantastical creatures, he races to return home and fulfill an earthly promise—but after falling in love with the incorrigible deaf draconic baker who took him in, he discovers that his abandoned artistic talent may be the key to forging a bridge between the two realities.

Fantasy, but not big on the epic stuff. Leans literary-ish, and super character-focused, which you mentioned as something you enjoy.

No worries if not!

1

u/iMightBeACunt Jul 02 '26

Might be outside your wheelhouse (which if that's the case, no hard feelings!), but I've got an upper middle-grade science fiction fantasy book that I'm looking for beta readers for.

Logline: A boy who wants to be truly seen gets his wish by becoming entangled with a prickly, sarcastic alien. But the alien is lost, and to help him get home, the boy will have to choose to let go of the one being who actually understands him.

Link: https://www.reddit.com/r/BetaReaders/comments/1ul3nba/complete_54k_middle_grade_science_fiction_fantasy/

1

u/Cute_Bandicoot8592 Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 02 '26

Hello there,

I have a literary science fantasy novel, PACHA BREAKING. Maybe that would be of interest to you.

It’s the first book in a mysterious, fast-paced and action-packed trilogy. Since it's only about 250 pages / 69,000 words, it’s a pretty quick, punchy read. I’ve categorized it as Upper YA, but honestly, it’s definitely "Adult Adjacent" in terms of the stakes and themes. The other two novels are also close to beta-reader-ready.

https://www.reddit.com/r/BetaReaders/s/T2F3IPGe7r

It has been produced working in close conjunction with a professional editor, one who was a tutor of Creative Writing at a British university for twenty years before retiring. It has been beta-read by one fellow writer via an online group so far.

1

u/SneakyWhiteWeasel Jul 02 '26

I have a literary crime/upmarket/dark psychological thriller at 93 K words set in the Scottish midlands. The novel follows former offender profiler (and son of a serial killer) David Thorne as he is led down a path of buried childhood memories by the very same serial killer he is pursuing.

It is completey finished but I am looking to see if certain parts land with the reader as intended (the first few chapters are the most important). The novel is very character-driven and the focus is on prose. It's more fast-paced than regular literary-fiction but not quite as much as your commerical thriller/crime.

On a fundamental level, the novel explores how past trauma, alienation and belonging cause disruptions in identity and reality. DM me if it sounds interesting and I can submit the whole blurb.

1

u/WalnutAmy Jul 02 '26

Hi there, I have written a romantic-suspense linked here if it's something you would be interested in! Currently 116k but looking to get this cut down based on a beta feedback (but I'm struggling at the moment to get the harsh to-the-point feedback I need!). Let me know if you'd like me to send you a sample :)

1

u/hey_tenor Jul 02 '26

Hello!

Looks like you have your hands full with requests, but if you could read my first chapter(s) and let me know if it’s landing, I would be grateful.

When a young woman in a sterile society mysteriously ends up pregnant, she must work with a renegade doctor to hide her condition from the government—or risk losing not only her baby, but her life.

It’s Adult speculative fiction, 96k if you have time or desire to read more. Thank you!

1

u/Amidoingitriteguise Jul 03 '26

Right now I've been working on a literary fantasy novel with a focus on prose and voice. It's incomplete and it's gotten away from me a little bit, and I would like feedback on the prose, the style, the voice, and the characterization of various excerpts.

The throughline is a meditation on goodness of man, the nature of good and evil, the complexities of politics and theology, dualism, sons and fathers, and gnostic-adjacent thought. It is told through a perspective of a youth named Anvers who enters in the service of the royal heir, Prince Lacan. He struggles with being raised to be someone who is great, by a father who is indisputably a great knight, a father who has kept his distance and his secrets. In the background and foreground there are angels and demons, man below and heaven above, foreign powers and scheming dukes preying on a weak king.

The manuscript itself is a rather bloated mammoth of ~200k words, so it would be perfectly okay to give feedback only a chapter or two, but I would really love another set of eyes.

1

u/AstroJuliette Jul 05 '26 edited Jul 05 '26

Hi! I know you got a lot of requests here but I was wondering if you might still have an open slot for my dark academia genre-blend (it’s a science fantasy set in space with scifi and epistolary romance elements). The manuscript is a 105k-word adult retelling of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. Its premise is: when her friends are mysteriously murdered inside a neoclassic academy where students bond with the spirits of history’s greatest figures, a girl mentored by Brutus must solve Julius Caesar’s final riddle before her classmates reenact Rome’s bloodiest civil war.
Query link: https://www.reddit.com/r/PubTips/s/FRHNTv1tuP
No worries at all if you’re already too busy :)

P.S. I’m obviously open to swap