The Beta Library consists of two parts, the Workshop and the Library.

The Workshop is open for all members to post and give feedback. No fees to pay, no credits to earn. Post. Critique. Keep doing it until you learn, earn or find something better to do with your time.

The Library can only be accessed with a paid subscription. It comes with a lot of benefits for a serious writer or a professional reader, or casual readers and writers who want more.

Subscriptions start at £5 a month and can be cancelled at any time, so it won't cost you much to find out how the Library can benefit you.

The Workshop gets you sage advice from other members to develop your skills and improve your prose. Simples.

It doesn't cost anything to post in the Workshop and your entry will be live until you have received feedback from three readers.

We don't use a credit based system to force anyone to give you feedback, but the The Beta Library is all about accountability and we manage the carrots and sticks to get you constructive and productive feedback.

So much.

We give you a Desk of your very own where you can store your work and share chapters or entire manuscripts. You can create read requests to invite readers from the Library to collaborate with you or give you feedback. And you control exactly who has access to your work, and for how long.

You also get a mailbox and opportunities to develop working relationships and collaborations with other members.

If your manuscript - or you - needs it, you can have a Journal to share maps, glossaries, cat pics and cover art with your friends and collaborators.

That's not all either, a Library subscription gives you access to premium areas of the Workshop, chat and longer histories. The Workshop was built to develop essential skills, but the Library can give all the tools you need to find the support to get your manuscript into print.

No, you don't have to pay.

You can find free readers who looking for collaborations or taking reads to build their rating. Or because they really like reading and being part of bringing new talent to the market.

Readers in the Library who only accept paid read requests will be marked with their rates, and there's no obligation to hire them.

Our readers are curated by our grading system, and you can see them in action before you employ them.

Yes you can. How much depends on just how good you are - an effective beta reader is a sought after beast! The readers who buy books aren't the only ones a writer needs, behind almost every good book are the readers who helped make it into a book people wanted to buy.

Any enthusiastic reader can be valuable to a writer and it's a better use of your time than doom-scrolling. Critiquing literary work is a skill, and it's one you can develop here.

The chance to read, critique and learn. You can practice on real writers in the Workshop, and you will get feedback on your work to help you improve.

You can build a basic grading in the Workshop, and demonstrate your work alongside our writers.

You can find read requests in the Library, and writers can find your profile.

You can build a comprehensive grading to display on your Library Profile by responding to read requests and delivering the feedback writers need.

You also get access to more read requests, mail and chat to help you work effectively with writers, a Journal to help manage your notes and The Beta Library will help keep you on track with managing your works in progress.

Yes you can. Writers can read, readers can write. You can't have one without the other, and here you can be both. Or one. Whatever.

Yes we did. We think they earn their keep, and we can't provide this site without them. Check them out here.

You need to buy credits to add to your account which you can then use to pay other members.

We do it this way so payments are guaranteed for readers who deliver the work, and writers have protection against readers who don't.

Credits cost £1.00, and you can buy them as and when you need them. Buying credits is subject to any transaction fees that apply to an online payment - there's no way we can get around this obligatory expense.

The Beta Library does not add any platform fees of our own to transactions and we keep fees as low as possible for everyone. We support creatives everywhere, and understand how hard it can be to get a book into print on a tight budget.

You can cash the credits in your account any time.

We take privacy and copyright very seriously here.

Only members can access the site. The Workshop is open to all members, but there is a limit on how long your work will be available.

In the Library you control who you invite to read your work, and how long they have access.

You won't find data-harvesting cookies here, we take your personal data as seriously as your content; we don't collect more than what's essential to deliver our services, and we don't share or sell your data.

The Beta Library is only interested in bridging the gap between readers and writers by bringing them together effectively.

There's loads of great sites offering writing and publishing advice and services. The Beta Library only does one thing, but we try to do it better than anyone else.