First Draft Feedback from the Beta Readers

By Andrea Bartorelli – Head of Asia Sales, TDT Capital.

I confess I was surprised to hear from Alexander – he had interviewed me in London a few years ago, and we had only spoken a handful of times since then, mostly at industry events.

He remembered I was an avid reader and asked if I would be willing to review his new book, Dark Pools. It was his first novel, and he was looking for some honest feedback as to whether his work was worthy of any further effort. His other beta readers were friends and family, and he wanted to add someone more familiar with the banking industry.

If I’m honest my ‘avid reader’ comment was really just me trying to portray a more learned image and, frankly, I had little time to take on such a project, even if the favour may have resulted in a potential future career opportunity. But my interest piqued when Alexander said the book was about Marcus Flint.

Alexander said he would send out blocks of chapters as he completed them and hoped the readers could provide on-going feedback. And so, the first five raw chapters arrived as a Word document. It took me a while to get round to them, but I was pleasantly impressed, and started to get vested with the characters, the enigmatic hotel managers, Urs and Muttu, Marcus’s suspicious wife, Emma, the mysterious ex-lover, Caitanya, and the philosophical themes Alexander was eking out. Moreover, it was Alexander’s portrayal of the dynamics and politics of the trading floor that was so realistic – I find it so frustrating how investment banking is typically portrayed in the literary world, with constant sex and drugs, as if we’re all junkies at 24-hour parties!

However, with all of life’s distractions, I never got round to providing any feedback and I never received any further chapters.

A few months later, and totally by chance, I bumped into Alexander in Canary Wharf in London. It seems he hadn’t had any feedback from anyone and had canned the book project, assuming there was little reader interest. But it so happened that very week, that a couple of his other beta readers had also asked about the book’s progress. I gushed encouragingly that he should continue and indeed, started to look forward, to the traches of 3-4 chapters that came through every few weeks.

I look back now and see how close we were to Dark Pools never seeing the light of day!

The delay between the chapter blocks didn’t make it easy to critique them, and I found myself rereading passages, but I provided timely feedback, trying not to get bogged down with the grammar and punctuation which I realised would be edited later, but found myself cross-checking some of the banking details, the plot development, and overall, thoroughly enjoying the evolving love stories, the vivid descriptions of the global locations and of course, the many twists.

Later, weeks after I had finished the whole novel, we would have a lengthy discussion comparing Dark Pools with other thrillers - whether there were enough clues to the final reveal, whether there too many, and whether any elements in the storyline could be construed as plot flaws. It made me realise how few in this genre had got this balance right.

Alexander and I would have a call after each tranche, and I got the opportunity to hear feedback from the other beta readers – there were 10 of us. A couple had dropped out at the start about which he was disappointed though others, on hearing of the book, had taken their place.

If I was to suggest a change I would ask Alexander to be more confident next time and finish the whole script or at least larger sections before engaging us ‘betas’, and perhaps he’ll now be more experienced around whom to select.

It seems everyone was focused on different aspects, enjoying different facets – the human interactions, the office politics or the writing style and any criticisms were highly inconsistent even contradictory across the group. It made it difficult for Alexander to decide upon any changes. Perhaps I should get a professional opinion he asked. Maybe, but for me, it didn’t need much changing.

Then came the final shocking tranche – it was on a Friday evening in Singapore, and I was up well into the early hours unable to put the pages down. When I finished I breathed a long sigh, reflecting how someone I knew could have written this book. I texted Alexander immediately in capitals.

“YOU HAVE TO GET THIS PUBLISHED!”