I’ve been on both sides of the writer-beta relationship and both come with lots of questions. I thought maybe we could have some discussion :)

> Finding a beta: always awkward. Do you leave a message on your own journal or on a community and hope that someone’s interested? Is it too cheeky to send someone a private message asking them? Is there beta etiquette?

(I noticed that a fair amount of people said on the Secret Santa post that they would be happy to beta. If there are people on the comm who beta, what would you think about maybe setting up a kind of beta directory for writers looking for betas?)

> Being a beta: has it’s own worries. How harsh do writers want you to be? How thorough? What kind of help are they looking for? What kind of help do betas offer?

> Keeping a beta: is there an etiquette on how many times you can ask someone to look over the same fic? Is there etiquette for how long a beta can take to look it over? Can you have more than one beta at a time? If one beta says one thing and the other something different what do you do? Do you introduce them to each other? If you need a beta again in the future do you have to start all over again or can you email the same beta and ask, ‘um, remember me?’

I’m guessing a lot of this is personal and that there are a lot of different views, and that I’ve missed a lot of questions, so bring on the discussion! And if you’re looking for a beta this could be a good place to start :)