ARC vs Beta Reader – What’s the Difference?

If you’ve spent any time in the book reading and writing community, particularly online, you have probably come across the terms “beta reader” and “ARC reader” and might be wondering, what even are those?

Well, first off, they are not the same thing. They are two different roles played by folks who want to help authors during the writing and publishing process. Sometimes, the same individual can perform both roles.

The first one is a beta reader.

This is like a beta tester, but for your manuscript. They typically read your draft before your final round of edits and give you feedback. Their job is to help you find what works, what doesn’t work, any inconsistencies with world-building, plot, or characters. They can also help check for typos and keep an eye on spelling and grammar, but should not be relied upon to do so since their primary focus is often the story structure.

Good beta readers can be invaluable to an author, but you must ensure that you’re working with someone who is capable of giving coherent feedback and who is not afraid of hurting your feelings if something doesn’t quite make sense to them. This can be difficult for friends and family members, depending on the situation. Oftentimes I’ve found that “swapping beta reads” with a fellow author is a lot of fun and gives good results on both sides as long as everyone completes the project. Or you can even hire a professional beta reader. Their rates are typically inexpensive.

When working with a beta reader, try to keep in mind what kind of feedback you would like to receive, and which areas of the manuscript you’d like them to focus on. Sometimes, creating a short questionnaire can help with this. Always try to find out not just what they like, but also what they didn’t like. Take all the feedback with a pinch of salt.

A slight concern some authors encounter when seeking a beta reader is, what if they steal my manuscript or ideas and use it for themselves? This is usually an unnecessary worry, though very rarely you might stumble across a bad actor. For this reason I recommend you at least know the person you’re sending your work to through more than one previous interaction. Or you might only send them part of it at a time. Either way, it shouldn’t need to be a serious concern. Your work belongs to you as soon as you’ve written it.

Note: In doing some brushing-up research for this article, I stumbled across yet another subspecies of author-friend bookworms known as alpha readers. From what I gathered, this is someone who reads your first draft, before it is edited, to see if the story works out. It’s quite a similar role to that of a beta reader or even just a friend with whom you’d like to share your story. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that, but don’t stress if your book has not had an alpha reader.

Next, ARC Readers.

ARC stands for Advanced Reader Copy, as in you have advanced someone a copy of your book after it is published. They will read it and leave you a review on Amazon, Goodreads, and/or their own blog to help spread the word about it.

These people are like your personal cheer-leading squad. Ideally, you will be able to have a list of ten or more ARC readers when you first publish your book in order that they may read and review it as quickly as possible to encourage better engagement in the algorithm. However, you may advance copies of your book to readers in exchange for review throughout the book’s lifetime for various purposes or promotions.

ARC readers can be found in the same ways as beta readers—online groups, by advertisement, on social media, they can be your friends, or you can hire them via an agency. There are several online agency sites where you may hire both beta and ARC readers if the need should arise. My favorite way to find ARC readers these days is in Goodreads groups for authors. These groups will usually have a thread or chat where you can post a link to your book or advertise that you are seeking ARC readers. The main thing to keep in mind in a group like that is not to spam folks.

Something to note in closing is that with both ARC and beta readers, you want to work with people who are going to give an honest opinion of your work, whether or not they like it. It’s a scary thing, but it is part of the author’s world — even traditionally published authors have to deal with it to some extent — and it can be incredibly rewarding. Be prepared for some folks to dislike it, be prepared for some folks to become obsessed with it. Take all of their feedback with a pinch of salt, implementing what makes sense and discarding the unreasonable. And keep writing.