Alpha Team, go!

Last night, I made it to the end of the first-pass edit of 47 Echo 2. It took me several days longer than I thought — a combination of exhaustion and a particularly vexing story problem (which ended up having a rather simple solution) dragged out the process a bit, but meh. Happens. It also doesn’t help that Spartacus: Blood and Sand is kind of addicting.

So, the book made its way via its truck through the series of tubes to Alpha Team last night, or the first round of beta-readers. These are people who I don’t know very well, and who didn’t particularly dig 47 Echo. There’s a method behind my madness there — if I get some positive feedback from these folks, I know I’m doing something right. Also, they’ll see larger red-flag issues that some fans of the first book might gloss over, which is always helpful. So with NDA’s attached, the first round of beta reads is away. Bravo team will get copies early next week, after Alpha has their way with it.

What about you, folks? Do you have folks pre-read your stuff? If so, what do you find helpful about it? If not, why?