Beta readers can be an aspiring author’s best friends—or worst enemies. But which they turn out to be can depend as much on the author as it does on the reader. Forming good working relationships with a trusted circle of readers can ensure the manuscripts you submit to agents, publishers, literary magazines, or elsewhere are as good as they can be, without the expense of a professional editor.

I am just about finished with rewrites on my fifth novel (the first four are still in various stages of development, along with the sixth and seventh) and I’m now approaching the point where there’s little writing or editing left to be done with it. And in all honesty, I’m really happy with the way it’s turning out. My beta readers, for the most part, seem to have enjoyed it, too. By the end of March, it should be ready to go.

I started on a new novel last week. I had said I wouldn’t start working on this one until after I’d finished editing my nonfiction book (which is coming along nicely), but the story crystallized for me on Wednesday morning and by Friday I just couldn’t help myself.

Self publishing is generally thought of in terms of a few different options. A good portion of self published authors end up turning to vanity presses. Some authors choose to have a small print run of 500 or 1000 books (or more) done by a local printer. Others opt to use a POD service (like CreateSpace or Lulu) to publish their book. And still others just go the ebook route, making their book available through the Kindle or sites like SmashWords.

To date, I’ve completed at least one draft on five different novels. Two were fantasy, one was science fiction, one was slipstream fiction (though on rewriting it may just become a mainstream novel), and one was women’s fiction. The first novel I ever wrote was a high fantasy epic. It was terrible. The writing itself wasn’t too horrible and the characters were decent, but the storyline was so cliched that I will never let it see the light of day in its current form. Instead, I’ll take part of the basic concept and two of the main characters and start over from scratch. It will bear little resemblance to the first draft when it’s finished.