There was a person named Beta. I was told I must date them to be a writer. I put myself out there. Here is my beta-reading extended metaphor of our relationship.
How I broke up with "Beta" as a reader: I beta read for quite a few people. As a budding, aspiring author, I truly put on my reader cap and went all-in, thinking I'd help them by adding comments of what I liked, what needed improvement, some continuity issues, etc.
It was awful. As an English Adjunct Professor at the time, teaching students how to write and refresh their grammar, it was difficult to get through some manuscripts. And I'm not talking about the grammar. That, I can ignore; I read for content on student assignments all the time. Issues with the manuscripts were vast and concerning. I could not continue to beta read after some people were angry about feedback, nasty even.
It wasn't me. As a person who grades for a living, constructive criticism is my game. I cushioned a few criticisms in many positives, but that just didn't help. I broke up with Beta in this regard.
How I fell in love again with "Beta" as a reader: Honestly, I didn't change much, but I filtered who I'd beta for by studying their social media accounts, and by happenstance ran into way more serious aspiring authors who already faced the brutality of query rejections. Desperate for reasons, they actually welcomed any feedback, even the bitter stings. I also joined a critique group of authors who wanted constructive feedback. I realize now I needed confident people to beta/critique for, those who could handle criticism.
Also, being published and criticizing works in our common genre had not gone well. I decided to focus on genres I don't commonly write. Now I'm getting free children's/middle grade books to read to my son, and we give double feedback. Linking my son to this experience has helped us bridge our common interests: my writing and both our love of books. This likely will be the only beta reading I'll continue to do.
How I broke up with Beta as a writer: I'm guessing from the above, you'll think my experience was the same: a novice author thinking her book is amazing and got cut down hard by betas so got nasty and bitter. Quite the contrary. I used friends and family as betas for my first books. I'm told this is a bad idea. I, however, have a more-than-candid friend and a mother who are all about helping me improve; both of them are avid readers and good editors. After their feedback, I was confident in my manuscript. It did well in queries and almost got picked up. Three agents bit, but none panned out.
Then I expanded to strangers or friends-of-friends. This MS had eight more betas, totaling ten. I got little to no feedback about how to improve off the other eight. I was merely told how great it was. Some told me things they'd love to know or see in it. There was no way I was that good, so I took all the additional advice and...destroyed my MS. The requests for fulls evaporated.
I tried the process with another MS. Because we must "date Beta," I played the field. I chose only eight including my dependable duo. Same result. I could not filter feedback because except for my duo, there was no critical feedback: applause and "I'd love to see this!" I did not learn.
I rolled the manuscripts back to the drafts to my duo and that book did well. Both books are published now with only 2 betas and of course my publisher’s feedback.
How I'm friends with Beta, but dating their sibling Critique for now: I am still trying to fall in love with Beta, but twice burned it is hard. I joined a critique group of authors. It was everything I needed. There was criticism, pointing out weaknesses, and also the strengths. They made me a better writer. All along, I needed reader-writers to look over my work, not just readers. Some will argue--they have with me on social media--that readers' opinions are much better than authors in the editing stage of writing. They had the unfortunate distaste of authors saying, "I would do this." Frankly, I love that. I need to see other perspectives to weigh my own.
When beta readers had given me a request list, I had felt I need to fulfill it. It made me lose sight of how I spent my life writing for myself. I love my readers, but the moment I let them dictate what I should do, I no longer will enjoy the craft. Maybe I'd make it bigger, but I would not love my craft.
We shall see if I fall back in love with Beta or we part our ways. I've written and published books without them and my trusty Critique, but I'd like to see the process work for me as it somehow does for others.