Beta / editing service

[apositi]

THE BETA SERVICE IS NOW DEFUNCT. PLEASE USE THE BETA FORUMS INSTEAD.

Hello, Salad! With the recent attention Salad has received from the Mindcrackers, we have had a large amount of new members join the community. With the increase of new people and new fics, we’d like to propose a beta service, in interest of helping people improve or even just polish up their writing.

But what is a beta? A beta is essentially a peer editor. The beta service will allow people to apply to be listed as a beta or to search for one. It’s basically an aggregation of betas and authors. However, no one has to sign up for this. If you’ve got an existing beta relationship or are looking to just seek out one on your own, you don’t have to sign up here. We’re just trying to make editing more accessible to everyone.

We’re just gauging for interest, but you can apply to be a beta now. We won’t be releasing the service until July 1, at which point people can start looking for a beta. A few more clarifications: we’re not assigning people unless we absolutely need to, and even then if the beta or the author says no, we won’t do so. It’s a mutual decision on both parties, and we’re only here to make it easier to get a beta. That’s the main purpose of the service.

If you’re interested in applying to be a beta, you’ll have to fill out a form and send us a couple things to prove that you can edit. We’re not really opening the forms for people looking for a beta until we are sure that there is enough interest, but you’re feel free to apply. More information can be located here. Feel free to contact Sunset (sunsetmondays), Tsu (tsugrad), and myself (apositi).

Comments

[r7]

cool, I was wondering of something like this existed (y'know, before you spammed (jk) Skype about it).

I would like to apply as a beta, but I cannot find the form that you speak of. As a suggestion, I think you should add a field (if it doesn't already exist) about what type of beta a person is. There are advice-based betas, direct edit betas (/typo catching betas/editor-like betas), and betas that list problems and either provide advice or fixes for them, along with everything in between.

As such, it may be very beneficial to have a field for someone to describe what type of beta they are, so that writers hoping for a certain type can look for them specifically (or those that don't like a type can skip over them). This would also help with either hurt feelings (due to cancellations)or not-as-useful-as-they-could-be beta due to the author not liking the type of beta they have.

[r7]

Okay, found the form. However, I think you shouldn't have to go through the FAQ to get to it, it just makes the system cumbersome.

[apositi]

Sorry about that. We’ll link the form. Thought it was a bit cumbersome, too.

[elfowlgirl]

It's a pretty cool idea! Signed up.

[halcyonlioness]

This was a service was sorely needed. Thanks for taking the initiative and the time to put it together, because I would have done this if I had the time to commit to such a task and influence to pull it off. I'm already blessed with having a good and stable handful of peers in my personal A-Team, so I can only hope this beta-reader matchmaking service will increase the odds that others will find beta-readers that synch up nicely with them.

TL;DR -- Thank you so much for setting this up. Finding a the right beta-reader is very difficult and nerve wracking, but finding one makes a serious difference.

[(Anonymous)]

Thanks, Lioness! This means a lot to us, and at its core, all we really want to do is help people improve their writing. Hopefully things sail pretty smoothly from here, and people can start finding betas soon.

[apositi]

That was me. Oops, didn’t realize I wasn’t logged on.