Status Update - Book 2 - Cover Art Complete - Second Beta-Read Drawing to a Close

This past week, I incorporated the second round of beta-reader edits into Chapter 7 - leaving only Chapter 8 still to go through the final edit process. It's taking longer than I would have liked it, now that my daughters' school year is back in full swing, but we're almost done.

For those who haven't worked with a beta-reviewer before, I thought I'd describe a little of the feedback that I, as an author, look forward to receiving.

The beta-reader process is not really about identifying spelling or punctuation errors - although that can happen too. It's more about getting a different perspective on things, from a reader who's willing to be candid and critical where need be. This means identifying scenes which need to be re-written, paragraphs which needed to be combined, word choices or descriptions which missed the desired effect, and so forth.

I also look forward, of course, to the occasional word of encouragement for scenes which had the desired effect. I will share a few of those from my latest novel here:

"I love every scene about Elise. And scenes between Sybille and Elise are nice."

"I like this comparison/description."

"I like how this little detail says a lot to the readers because they know the reasons and feelings behind it. This is a great example of saying only a little (in terms of word count) to actually say quite a lot, specifically to reveal how a character is feeling."

"I liked that scene a lot."

"The descriptions in this part were really nice and added to the tone/mood of the scene."

And of course, no beta-review of Book 2 would be complete without at least one tongue-in-cheek reference to one of their favorite characters from Book 1:

"Needs more Barg."