Another Question

[celestlyn]

I had another question for you all. Have you ever beta'd for two different people who have fics entered in the same fest? I had someone ask the other day and I had already done one for someone and didn't feel comfortable about having them both in the same competition, so I told her I was not able to do that one. How do you feel about it? It almost

Comments

[porridgebird]

Interesting question! I'm sure I've beta'd for several fics going to the same fests, but I haven't paid it a lot of attention.

[celestlyn]

Ok, so no real need to feel weird about it then. I've only been beta'ing for fests for a few months and this is the first time I've run into more than one in the same fest. I just did a couple of holiday fests and I'm sure more will come along and I didn't know if it would seem odd. Guess not. LOL! Thanks.

[porridgebird]

I don't know how other betas work - I think this is the first time I've ever really talked to betas, other than people who just beta sometimes for friends. So I'm very interested in how others feel about this!

For me, it's all part of the detachment that has to go along with beta. I'll do the job I'm asked to do, and it begins and ends there. So if a fic is going to a fest or anywhere else, I don't feel like I enter into that part of it at all.

Note! The "detachment" only goes so far :-) I'm actually on pins and needles when a fic gets posted, hoping the author will get a lot of praise! I get so depressed when an author works hard on a story, and it gets none or very few comments. That's when I get tempted to make sockpuppets.

[celestlyn]

Yes, that's really an issue and a bit of a pet peeve for me. It's harder than heck to get anything read on LJ. You have to have tons of friends and comms going and even that isn't enough for a lot of people. Some folks get their stuff read by 'everybody' because of who they are and so very many others get few reads because they don't have those connections. The comms are tight and some can be a bit incestuous. Sad to say that things get more reads on ff.net.

And then there's the commenting issue. I read that on ff.net a story gets an average of 1-2 comments per every 300 reads. That's pretty bad. I try to comment on every fic I read. I can normally find something nice to say, even if it isn't a great fic. I don't tend to read fics I don't like and will stop reading if I find that it isn't to my liking. Commenting encourages authors to keep writing and improving. Wish more people commented.