Notes and Comments

[darkemeralds]

Beta-reader notes on the final draft of Restraint have started coming in. This is the most nerve-wracking process!

The feedback so far is excellent: constructive, knowledgeable, and detailed. Nobody so far hates the novel. But the silences! Do the non-responders dislike it too much to comment? Were they too bored to finish? Are they too nice to say so?

It's impossible to get my ego out of the way. These people are doing me a huge favor and I don't want to press them, but only the fact that I have acrylic nails is keeping me from biting those nails off.

Comments

[greghatcher]

Ha! Welcome to my world. I am assured by people who ought to know that silence means they are liking it.

[darkemeralds]

Gosh, I hope you're right.

Realistically, I have no reason to think any of them are hating it, and every reason to suppose that they simply bit off more than they could chew and are needing extra time. It's a huge job, this whole-novel readthrough gig. I've made it clear that I'm looking for an overview, a "works/doesn't work" binary with no need for analysis or correction, but still, it's a long novel and a big commitment.

So I move forward on the marketing side...

[tehomet]

But the silences! Do the non-responders dislike it too much to comment? Were they too bored to finish? Are they too nice to say so?

Are they (like me, occasionally - I'm not judging) lazy?! :D Just a possibility.

[darkemeralds]

LOL! Yeah, that is a possibility.

I've now heard back from all my test readers. It's taken a few weeks to distill all their feedback into a few clear directives for final edits, but the greatest value of the exercise was to help me define my target audience--something I wasn't clear on before.