Question about proofreaders, betareaders and reviews:
What’s the difference between these three? Do they all mean the same thing?
To my knowledge, proofreaders and betareaders are pretty much the same. Reviewers, however, will read your story at your request, usually giving you a list of the things you can improve on for different categories. You usually get a mark/ranking/star rating for how good your story is according to different categories in your story: categories such as plot, directing, diversity, choices, etc. You usually are provided with a criteria and a very honest opinion on your story if you request a review, whereas proofreaders/betareaders will typically just point out errors or grammar issues.
Questions about proofreaders/proofreading and betareaders/betareading:
If the answers to these questions are different for proofreaders and betareaders, I would be very grateful if you would tell me the differences between them!
1- Is proofreading/betareading free?
Usually, yes. I’ve rarely seen anyone charge for these types of services.
2- If it’s not free, how/what through is this fee paid to the proofreader/betareader?
If people do charge, my guess would be that this transaction would be made via PayPal.
3- Do proofreaders/betareaders do one-time proofreading/betareading or can we get a personal proofreader/betareader?
I believe it depends on the individual. Some people are totally okay with being your long-term, personal proofreader/betareader. You’ll just have to ask the individual whether they’re ok with this.
4- What do proofreaders/betareaders do? What exactly is going through the proofreading/betareading? Is it just grammar or directing included, too? Do we just send proofreaders/betareaders the text of our story or do we also send other things, including animations, zooms and speechbubbles?
Grammar & directing issues (including zooms, speechbubbles, animations) mainly, however some may give you their general opinion/advice on the story if you ask them for it.
You will send the link to your story and they will just message you back any issues they found when reading it.
5- How to do proofreading/betareading? I know that all written episodes of stories that have not yet been published can be read when the authors share links. But how does that happen after the story is published? How do we share our story with the proofreader/betareader? Via e-mail?
As for published stories, I’m actually unsure of the process since I’ve only ever proofread unpublished ones.
Hope this helps!