Return of the "Volunteer" Beta Reader Scammers!

People really don’t like it when you say you like something but can’t understand why it’s loved, do they? I’m guessing I’ll be putting off talking about Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. That will probably blow up more than one of my fantastically bad migraines! Well, back to the fun.

I swear it took me half an hour to find that schedule button. All the tutorials are from a previous version of Blogger! Anyway, as it’s still a hot topic for me, today you’re going to hear more of my complaining about scam “volunteer” Beta Readers. They just keep coming. I’ve had nine so far, and have scheduled Twitter posts with tips on how to notice them as they’ve become such a big part of my life. I’m turning into a right lobbyist.

I have already spoken a lot about this in my Reddit post: https://www.reddit.com/r/writing/comments/1n4d8yx/beware_professional_beta_readers/ so I am therefore going to focus on things that have come about since I made it.

So these guys come along, largely to a Beta Reader group that specifies volunteers, and answer your post where it specifies acknowledgement and copy of finished book only in exchange.

For those of you who don’t know, writers don’t pay for Beta Readers, not unless they’re highly rich and successful. Probably about one percent of writers, and that money will have come from film rights. My exchange is custom, with the only alternative being swaps between authors, who Beta Read each other’s work. All very sensible.

No-one can pay, and it’s a waste of money anyway. But a few hundred people seem to think there’s a market where there isn’t. Not only that but they have no professionalism, are all the same ability, and are completely unable to compete with real professional Beta Readers who wait for you to come to them, and have long waiting lists. Many of these scammers also don’t seem to know how to speak English properly, rather ironic under the circumstances.

They say all the same things, they do all the same things, and, like an overused story structure, you can start to predict what will happen when.

So here’s me in this situation with lots of scammers, each coming out on cue, one at a time. It’s so predictable that I could quite easily scam them if I had that mentality. The only reason I haven’t set them all straight immediately is in case I’m mistaken about any of them. There is, after all, no reason a volunteer couldn’t do some of the things, not being a professional themselves.

But let’s be real, they don’t. With volunteers it’s more like: ‘Oh, I won’t be able to get this done quickly because I have a full-time job. I hope that’s okay.’ Or maybe some back and forth about how to open the PDF file on Google Drive.

There’s also this things where they all format it all far too similarly, like they learned it from the same class. A class that also gave them inflated ideas about themselves and their abilities. Now, I can’t confirm that it is a scammers only approach, as at least one volunteer hasn’t sent me anything yet, and another is commenting in document, but I sense there is a reason for this. I at least am getting more chapters Beta Read by giving the scammers a chance to prove to me they aren’t scammers. My list of people is getting much smaller, I can tell you!

One thing that keeps coming up recently is reviews on Fiverr. One has said they want one, then brought up having to pay five to ten dollar to do so. Then somebody else said I said I would do one when I’d never heard of Fiverr until the previous person mentioned it. That one was saying it after I’d terminated our agreement, and told them why in a much more professional a way than they could ever achieve.

And there’s me thinking: so, let me get this straight. You enter into an agreement by answering my post in which it makes it clear that you only get an acknowledgement and copy of the book upon completion, yet you are now asking me to review your work, and pay you so I can do it? Not to mention I gave you feedback on your work when that wasn’t part of the agreement, and it meant I needed to read it thoroughly when you sent it to me, when I had intended not to do this until I was ready to compile all Beta Reader feedback?

Not to mention the feedback I gave required effort and energy when anyone else would have just said “That’s good”, not written a mini paragraph about it. Oh, and with my permission, you could use that feedback to promote yourself online. Now you can’t, as I won’t be giving permission. And having done that feedback now puts me in a position where we are even so I don’t need to acknowledge you or send you a copy of the finished book. And I don’t even have to feel the slightest bit of guilt about that. I mean, you are attempting to break our agreement after three chapters if that.

Seems a bit silly, doesn’t it? Especially when they know I have multiple Beta Readers. It’s not like they’re not disposable. There are many, many people doing exactly the same scamming they are doing, and at their level of Beta Reading too. It would be all too easy for me to find someone if I were willing to pay, and only the Fiverr review cost too.

Also, um, you do realise I could write a bad review, right? I mean, a review isn’t just about your work, which is only good by volunteer standards at best. You’ve been very slow, unprofessional, and bothering me far too often, contributing to my lack of sleep and lack of progress. You’re an actual scammer who I could reveal at any time if I were inclined, including in the review.

I principally cannot take up their offer now of only a Fiverr review as payment. Ironically, if they had been upfront about it, I might have taken up their offer purely for my own convenience. Five to ten dollars isn’t much after all. And possibly without any additional stipulations on my part.

Here’s another thing, though, that my more experienced self noticed. I can read my book in three to four days if I go solidly, and I am a slow screen reader. If I were to, say, times that by three to allow for the work being given, the work should be done in about twelve days.

Possibly my numbers are wrong, but these so-called professionals are nowhere near that. The farthest any of them have got is chapter seven – and that’s exceptional. And it’s been seven days. There are four parts, each with circa twenty chapters. That’s going to take an awfully long time. Theoretically, any day now I could choose to cancel all of them anyway just so none of us are wasting time.

With volunteer Beta Readers you have to accept their pace, and any inconvenience that might cause, and just be grateful. A so-called professional can hardly expect to be paid when they work more slowly than some actual volunteers.

Furthermore, I actually needed a quick result from at least a couple of Beta Readers. My schedule changed, and suddenly I am due to do my next draft a year earlier than I planned. I hurried in to find out about Beta Readers and send out a message as soon as I could, but I left myself with very little time. Just to troll me, it has now bounced another week forward.

Not only do I have the same chapters from many people, but there is no way they’ll even be near the end of Part 1 at this rate before I’ve finished rewriting the whole book. At this point not only will I be sending it out to Agents and unable to make further edits of this kind, but the book will have changed so much that any late Beta Reader feedback will be redundant.

Thankfully, as I expected all along, the issues in my manuscript are mostly the same for the whole book, so in practice it doesn’t actually matter as much as it might that I will not have anything like a full Beta Read from anyone. And I’m still not willing to pay. Ha!

More irony, I might have paid that five to ten dollars for a guaranteed quick result. At this point, I’d almost pay that to write a bad review.