This weekend, instead of working half a day on Saturday, I will host the lunch for the local beta readers. (To those of you dispersed across the country I wish you could be here and you have my deepest thanks.)

The Beta Reader Lunch is a tradition of mine going back to the first novel I completed as an adult. (We shall not speak of the novel written in high school.) It’s my way of giving a little back to the people who endured the rough first draft of my novel.

The outcome of these feedback sessions has been highly variable. Sometimes massive restructuring and rewriting happens. Like splitting one book into two or dropping three chapters of meetings. Sometimes there are very small changes, just a point of clarification here and there. And sometimes a book does not survive the beta read process. After the feedback I declare the manuscript dead and file it away as an experiment that failed.

What will be the outcome Saturday? I haven’t a clue. One of the books that died during a luncheon was one that as I wrote I adored ad thought it was one of my best. That’s the point of the beta readers, an observation with some distance, the writer is too damned close.

This is also why all the readers, those at the lunch and those who can only submit responses to my surveys are so vital to the process.

If you did a test read of Phaeton’s Phoenix; thank you.