What should I ask my beta readers?
Ask about behavior, not opinion: where they stopped, what they skimmed, where they got lost. Nine questions sent once they finish are enough, with a 1–10 grade for each scene kept as they read.
Ask what they did
"Did you like it?" gets politeness. Readers are poor at explaining why a book did not work, and very good at remembering where they stopped wanting to read it.
So the questions below ask about behavior first. Where did they put it down? What did they skim? The fix is your job; the evidence is theirs.
A number for every scene
One row is not a question. In How to Write a Damn Good Novel (1987), James N. Frey suggests asking readers to grade each scene from 1 to 10. A single reader’s grades say little. Set several readers’ side by side, though, and the scenes that every one of them put below about 6 are the scenes to punch up first.
A grade says where, never why. The nine questions are there for the why.
Beta reader questionnaire
| Stopped | Was there a point where you put it down and did not want to pick it up? |
|---|---|
| Skimmed | Which pages did you read faster than the rest? |
| Confused | Where did you lose track of who, where, or when? |
| Scene grades | A number from 1 to 10 for every scene, written down as each one ends. |
| Believed | Which character did you believe least, and when? |
|---|---|
| Rooting for | Who did you want to win, and did that change? |
| Remember | One scene you still remember a day later. |
| Ending | Did it feel earned, rushed, or expected? |
|---|---|
| Promise | Was there a question the book raised and never answered? |
| Would you | Recommend it to a friend? Who, and why? |
Copy it as plain text
BETA READER QUESTIONNAIRE While reading Stopped: Skimmed: Confused: Scene grades: People and scenes Believed: Rooting for: Remember: After the last page Ending: Promise: Would you:
Sending it
Send the questions when they finish, not with the manuscript, or they read to answer them. The grades are the exception: ask for those up front, or nobody will remember scene fourteen. Keep it to these nine questions. A longer form gets shorter answers, and the last questions get none. Then log the answers by chapter, as organizing beta reader feedback describes, so that three readers stopping at the same chapter stands out.
Who gets it matters as much as what it asks. In The 38 Most Common Fiction Writing Mistakes (1992), Jack M. Bickham warned against taking a manuscript to friends and family or to an amateur writing group. They are not the people who will buy the book. They are seldom candid, and they contradict one another. A working professional is another matter, and his advice there was to listen very carefully.
In Tabularia
The questionnaire covers the whole book; the notes in the margin cover the page. With the Cloud plan, a reader you invite to review can leave comments on the exact passage where they got lost, and those arrive beside your text rather than in an email you have to match up by hand.
Tabularia in brief
- What it is
- Tabularia is book-writing software for drafting, navigating, and revising a complete manuscript, on every device you write on.
- Price
- The Free plan includes the whole writing application, with no limit on how much you write. The Cloud plan adds backup, sync, sharing for review, and publishing for $18 a month, or $172.80 a year.
- Runs in
- A browser: Chrome 125+, Edge 125+, Firefox 140+, or Safari 18+. It installs as an app and keeps working on projects you have already opened while you are offline.
- Opens
- TXT, Markdown, RTF, HTML, DOCX, PDF, EPUB, Fountain, plus Scrivener, Obsidian, and novelWriter projects and Notion exports.
- Saves as
- HTML, DOCX, EPUB, PDF, Markdown, plain text, Fountain, or straight to a printer. The Cloud plan adds a Project archive of the whole project.
- Status
- Public Beta. This page was last checked on September 25, 2026.
Try it on your own manuscript
Nothing is metered: as many projects as you like at any length, the outline and minimap to move through them, drafts and markup mode for revising, snapshots to return to, sheets and timelines beside the page, and export to DOCX, PDF, EPUB, HTML, Markdown, plain text and Fountain. Bring in what you have already written and read it back as a book.
The Cloud plan is $18 a month, or $172.80 a year, and adds backup, sync across your devices, sharing a manuscript for review, and publishing your work as a web page — the readers and collaborators you invite do not need a paid account of their own. Tabularia is in Public Beta and shipping steadily; the release notes record what has landed.