A beta-reader, if you please!

Hello, this is your mod. I've finished cleaning up the tags for the new year.

I'm starting to notice that some people are using this community in an attempt to find an editor for their full, original novels - works 50,000+ words or more. I worry that betaplease is being used to take advantage of beta-readers for commercial work. This is a space for fandom and fandom-adjacent works, and part of the spirit of fandom (on the fic side, anyway) is that we do not make money on our editing or writing.

After some thought, I've decided the rule is, if you are intending to publish your writing with the goal of making money, it does not belong here on betaplease.

If you are publishing your work with the intent of making money, you should be paying an editor for a professional pass. This is for three reasons:

1. If you are trying to make money on your work, asking someone else for free work so that you can profit is unjust and disrespectful.
   
   
2. Frankly speaking, it is extremely unlikely that you are going to find any editors who are willing to edit a piece of that length for free. Even 10k can be exhausting, especially if you are expecting a professional level editing job.
   
   
3. If you are publishing in a commercial capacity, then your work should get a more professional type of editing pass than what we here in this community can give for free. The amount of effort an editor is going to give a story of over 50,000 words, to a stranger, for characters they don't even know and aren't guaranteed to enjoy reading about, for free, is minimal. You and your readers deserve more than the bare minimum.

I myself have worked as a professional freelance editor for over 15 years. I made this community because I love editing and I love fandom, and I want to support both. Using this community to find free editing for commercial projects feels like you're not respecting editors and our craft. Editing, just like writing or art, is a skill that is honed through years of effort.

With that said, I am not banning original fiction, and any novel-length works posted to betaplease before now will be allowed to remain. And of course, if you are looking for an editor for your 50,000+ word original fiction that you plan to publish on AO3 and are never going to try to make money on, by all means, you are welcome here. However, if I notice continued posts in this direction from this point on, I will return this space to being strictly focused on fandom works only. I have also updated the rules to be explicit on this point.

Thank you for reading, and thank you for always supporting this small community. Best wishes to your writing and editing adventures in the new year.