Getting Feedback - Question from a Writer

As we have talked about contests and getting feedback, another author asked a follow up question from what we discussed yesterday in the blog post.

Another question might be about where authors can go to pre-screen their novels? When a professional editor loves it and contests love it but agents don't want it, there must be someone missing from the chain.

Getting feedback is tough. This is part of the reason why I am always encouraging authors to join those larger writing organizations. I know a lot of you join smaller community writing groups and these are certainly great for some things, but in most of these cases, these authors are still hobby writers who might have dreams of being fully published, but most won't make it. The larger organizations have people who really see this as a business.

When you join these groups, they often have resources and connection opportunities to find others who want to form critique groups and have that same mentality of building careers.

If you have an active social media following, you can also ask for those beta readers. There are a lot of people out there interested in helping out. Please understand, there will be limits to these people, but they are out there.

Finally, build your own family network. Have parents, brothers and sisters give you honest feedback on your writing. When you do give them your writing, I do recommend that you give them something specific to look for. My wife, for example, will have me read her writing, but she always tells me exactly what she wants me to look for.

Hope that helps! Have a great weekend.