I love my beta readers. They're awesome people, from all random walks of life. Sometimes I scratch my head and wonder why some of my more curmudgeonly guys put up with the romance in the books, although I never wonder why the ladies don't mind the body count (See Kipling on the female of the species).
But sometimes, they really do me a solid. Not just the cell phone picture after picture and explanation to explain how a diesel engine works for the research that goes into making sure I understand, despite it only coming out in one line of the story, which I really appreciate. Not just wading through the rough draft, and teasing me about all the words that escaped the spellcheck like colour and honour.
This week, one was just beyond awesome. I accidentally, when I had too much blood in my caffeine stream, sent two beta readers the wrong story. Instead of sending them A Perfect Day (With Explosions), I sent Blood, Oil, & Love, which is going through formatting for print and about to be released.
He didn't tell me I'd messed up. No, the first I knew about my mistake was when one sent a report back, with a few wily typos that had escaped many rounds of copyediting, and a few sentence fragments that had crept in with the last round of editing despite the copyediting afterward.
So, yesterday was the abrupt yanking that draft, fixing it, then handing back to Calmer Half to restart the formatting again (sorry, love!), and after profuse thanks, sending the *right* story to them.
I need to buy that dude a drink. Heck, I need to buy him a whole bottle!
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