The Power of Beta Books
What is a Beta Book?
In a nut shell a beta books is when release your book in a beta format. So you get it as good as you can get it, but you may feel there are a few things still to change. Then you release it with only a little fanfare and marketing and test the waters.
Why would you want to buy a few dozen copies of your own UNFINISHED book?
It makes a better book in the end. Now, I know it sounds like a risky move, but hear me out. I tried it and it worked. It really helped me make my book shine. I got a lot of free editing tips, found out what worked, and didn’t work, and ended up with a better book. It worked great.
Why You Should Try It.
There are three things that I found helpful about putting my beta book out there.
What the audience liked and didn’t like. – Does the font work? How about size of font? Book size? And even cheap editing. Writers see things differently than readers. Sometimes it’s hard to get common people to read and ‘edit’ your book because they feel they aren’t qualified. This is an easy what to fix that.
Make sure you like it. – Though my book passed professional standards, there were small things I found I liked better. For example, my first round of books didn’t have the chapter names in the table of contents. Now you don’t have to add them. About half and half do and don’t, but I realized after I went with I didn’t like it that I really wanted it. That’s an example of just one thing, but it helps you get the idea.
Promotion – It helps you get in with the right people, for free. It got me good editors. But it also helps with getting people to come on to read the audiobook, do professional reviews, and so forth. Most of the people normally would have asked me to pay, but because I sold a good amount of copies already with just the beta copies, they were willing to do it for publicity in exchange.
So though it may seem counterproductive, I’ve found making a beta copy to sell for a month or two before making the final copy worked wonders for my book. It can’t hurt to give it a shot. If you do, let me know how it goes in the comments below.
