I know there has been debate about the usefulness of alpha and/or beta readers. But if you are lucky enough to find a couple of good, reliable ones like I have, you may be interested in getting your head around Google Docs. It makes it easy for your alphas and betas to comment on your document, meaning that you will have the comments exactly where you need them, without needing to start a new document if you don’t want to.

For the record, I’m using Windows 10.

1. Start by opening Google Drive.

2. Click on ‘New’

3. Click ‘Upload file’

4. Find your document that you want to share and click on it.

5. Once the upload is complete, you will get a message at the bottom right of your screen.

6. Click on the title of the document. You should get this screen (only with your document, not mine.)

7. In the top centre of your screen, you should see ‘Open with Google Docs’. Click on the arrow and choose ‘Google Docs’ from the dropdown box.

Once the document opens, go to ‘File’ and click on ‘Save as Google Doc

8. You now have your document saved on Google Drive as a Google Doc. But, at this stage, your betas can only read, not comment.

Firstly, you will need to go to the far right at the top of your screen, where you will see a pen/pencil. Click the downward arrow and choose ‘suggesting’.

9. Above the pen/pencil, you will find a blue button that says ‘SHARE’.

10. Click on the blue SHARE button. You should get this screen:

11. This is where you have choices. If you have the email address for your readers, you can add them to the ‘Share with people and groups’ section. There may be other ways to do it, but I haven’t gone there yet – lol.

I have a group that we use to share our work, so I use the ‘Get link’ section.

12. You can see on the above image the blue ‘Change link to Kerry A Waight’ in the ‘Get link’ section. Click on the equivalent for you, then click the down arrow again. You should get the following screen:

Click on ‘Anyone with the link’. A word of caution: make sure you know who is getting this link.

13. Next, you will need to change the role of the person you are sharing your document with.

Click on the downward arrow on ‘Viewer’. Change to ‘Commentator’.

14. Click on the blue ‘Copy link’, copy the link – and send it where you will!

Hope this helps someone. And if anyone can suggest anything else, please feel free.

Cheers

Kerry

Categories: Google Docs

Tagged as: alpha readers beta readers converting documents to google doc google sharing documents

Kerry A Waight - Author

A writer of historical fiction and paranormal stories.