I haven’t had much feedback from my beta group, recently. I’m actually feeling surprisingly okay about that, because the book is being published, whether they feedback or not.
If my only reason for reading the chapters out loud and recording myself doing it was to elicit their feedback, then I might be more distressed by the lack of it, but actually that’s quite a minor function of the whole process.
That’s not to say I wouldn’t welcome their feedback. I would.
But the reading out loud process is enabling me to see the books from a different perspective. Not just, “How do they read?” but also “How do they sound?” It means I can pick up on so much more than needs to be refined in them. And the recordings mean I can do this over and over again.
And somehow, sharing it with the group adds a sense of accountability, which keeps me motivated even if they’re not reading or listening.
In fairness, they might be doing both and just not chatting much with me about it. They might be waiting for the end, or waiting to see what other people say.
They are my adult kids and partner. You’d think I’d know. But I don’t.
So why don’t I just ask them? Because I don’t nag. I don’t want them to do stuff they don’t want to do. If they do only the things they want to do, they do them so much more happily and with much more engagement. That’s why.