Your mom!
My youngest should appreciate me starting a blog post like that. For everyone else, I'm sorry, but your mom shouldn't be your only reader before you hit "Publish".
The Blood of Crows releases this month (I'm low-key freaking out), and since the initial draft it's had what I call Alpha Readers (friends and family), Beta Readers (in my case, other writers), and a Professional Editor (the wonderful Fiona McLaren). Every step has been invaluable. They helped with the story, the characters, and the clarity of my writing. Mistakes have been caught, loop holes closed, and pacing improved.
I cast the net wider and wider for each round of people (except my Editor, that was laser focused). And I did that with intent. It's profoundly important to get as varied and diverse a pool of readers as you can. Each reader brings their own perspective, reading style, and likes and dislikes. And having conversations with them during and after they finish reading your book can help hone in on parts of your story that work, and parts that don't.
I don't think I'm saying anything new or revelatory here: They're even more important if your work covers any characters that aren't "you".
I'm a firm believer in the #OwnVoices movement. I also believe imagined worlds should have room and representation for all kinds of people, and writers shouldn't completely avoid writing the "other" from themselves. But if they are writing someone of a different backround, gender orientation, sexual preference, or a character that's neurodivergent, it's imperative that they try to include representatives in kind in their reader pools.
I've seen it referred to as "sensitivity readers", and I'm certain there are places to find them if you don't know someone who is representative of what you're writing, that's also willing to be a reader for you. Though, I feel it should be noted (and this is purely my opinion) if you don't even know someone representative of what you're trying to represent, maybe you shouldn't write something that far outside your wheelhouse until you've made some more connections.
From a purely business/writerly perspective, the last thing you should want is to make a charicature instead of a character. Bad representation is arguably worse than no representation. And if you're one of those people who wants to denigrate (it means belittle, or attack) marginalized groups? Well, there's the... digital representation of a door... or something... I guess... just... go.
In the run up to the release date, I've been sending Digital ARC's (Advance Reader Copies), to a number of people in the writing circles I frequent who wanted to give it a read, and I ordered print proofs to make sure I hadn't bungled the formatting, and to catch any last-minute issues.
Those people... nay... those saintly beneficent beings of light and glory...
They...
Found...
Errors...
And not just new errors brought on by formatting in different reading apps on different devices, or introduced in that last round of edits... No... those I could live through without withering into a tiny stress-ball sized anxiety person. They found errors that have persisted in the text through all the above edits and passes. One error... in the first paragraph of the first page, has been around since 2015!!!
They're the little errors... "though" instead of "through", or little extra or missing instances of "the" or "to". The annoying little "nothing" words that our brain fills in on its own and Word's spelling and grammar checker seems to ignore (Hey Microsoft, I'm not even mad. Just... disappointed.).
Thankfully, there's still time to correct these ginormously, massive, apocalyptic disasters before they're inflicted on the people paying for a book by an author they've never met.
In the meantime, I'll be over there... trying to remember what sleeping soundly feels like...
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