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All independent authors know the scary prospect of either literally or metaphorically typing "The End" and preparing to send their raw draft out into the world. We're all told that beta readers are a vital and non-negotiable part of the process along the way towards publishing. They're the objective eagle-eyes that catch plot holes, fix pacing and help us to prepare our stories for the market.
What Happens When One of the People You Trust with Your Creative Writing Turns Out to be A Digital Pirate?
For one UK-based author, this was a nightmare that became a reality just a few weeks ago.
When A.E. Ward handed over her complete, unpublished manuscript to a beta reader she felt she had carefully vetted, the unthinkable happened. They took the file, uploaded it online and published the novel under their own pen name — effectively stealing Ward's hard work before she ever even had a chance to explore publishing options.
If you've read our post here — covering the story and providing an ultimate guide to the beta reader process — you'll know the outcome of this story, but it's important to emphasise how important a story like this is to serve as a stark warning to the indie writing community. The world of authorship as an independent is filled with incredible support, but it can also be preyed upon by bad actors willing to exploit the trust of creative writers.
You don't need to stop using beta readers in order to protect your work, though you do need to treat the process like more than an informal handshake.
In this exclusive interview with A.E. Ward, we sit down with the author to discuss exactly how this upsetting breach happened, what was done about it, how things have changed since and why it's important to take the process seriously. The answers given to the questions provided are the author's exact words in her authentic voice and provide an incredible insight into the experience as a whole — as well as advice on how to make sure something like this doesn't happen to you too!
How did you source and select your beta readers for this project?
"I advertised for beta readers through a post on Instagram and was genuinely surprised by the response. Around 75–100 people expressed an interest, which was far more than I could realistically work with, so I knew I needed some way of narrowing that number down.
I put together a set of ‘get to know you’ questions, partly to find out about people’s reading habits and experience, but also just to gauge their responses and get a sense of who they were. Handing an unpublished manuscript to somebody is an incredibly personal thing, so I wanted people I felt I could communicate openly with and who seemed genuinely invested in the process.
I deliberately chose a varied group, with a mixture of genders, ages, cultures and locations, as well as different levels of beta-reading experience. I didn’t want twenty people with identical backgrounds giving me identical perspectives. Every beta reader I selected was someone I had never met personally, because I wanted their opinions to be completely impartial rather than influenced by any existing relationship with me.
At the time, I felt I had taken sensible precautions. Everyone had gone through that selection process, they seemed genuine in our conversations, they signed an agreement before receiving the manuscript, and the PDF itself was watermarked. I had no reason to believe that one of those people would then misuse the trust I had placed in them."
Did you have any prior relationship or interaction with the person who stole the manuscript?
"I think it is important for me to clarify that I don't know with absolute certainty which individual was responsible. I have my suspicions, but I don't have evidence that would allow me to definitively identify one person, so I wouldn't want to make that accusation.
My initial contact with the beta readers was primarily through Instagram. Most people commented on my original post, and I then asked them to contact me via direct message (DM), although some approached me directly to express their interest. I had interacted with some of them previously through either their content or my own, while others had seemingly been following my writing journey quietly in the background. None of them were people I knew personally.
Most of the initial selection process and the more informal ‘getting to know you’ conversations took place through Instagram DMs. Once people had been selected, communication moved to e-mail for the more formal parts of the process, including the beta-reader agreement and eventually sending the manuscript itself.
Nobody received a copy of the manuscript without first agreeing to the terms I had put in place. I therefore know that whoever was responsible came from a very limited group of people who had been given authorised access to that version of the manuscript, but I cannot say with certainty which individual within that group it was."
Looking back, were there any subtle behaviours or communication gaps that you now see as red flags? How did this differ to the behaviour and communication of other beta readers?
"Honestly, no — and I think that is perhaps one of the most unsettling parts of the whole experience.
There is one person who has communicated very little since receiving the manuscript, and the feedback they did provide didn't always seem to correspond particularly well with the story itself, which made me question whether they had actually read it. However, that same person had been incredibly enthusiastic beforehand and has since commented on posts I've shared about the manuscript leak, expressing their shock at what happened. So, can I honestly say that means it was them? No.
It is very easy, with hindsight, to start looking for clues and pointing fingers at the people who have been quieter or less engaged, particularly because so many of my other beta readers have been incredibly supportive. Many of them have gone above and beyond since the leak happened. But somebody communicating less, not finishing a book or providing limited feedback doesn't make them guilty of stealing it.
That's probably one of the biggest things I've taken from this experience. I can have my suspicions, but suspicion isn't proof, and I don't think it would be fair to accuse somebody simply because their behaviour looks different when viewed retrospectively.
The uncomfortable reality is that whoever did it didn't present themselves to me as someone I shouldn't trust. If they had, I wouldn't have sent them the manuscript in the first place."
You mentioned getting them to sign agreements — can you expand a little on this? Did they fill out any forms, sign any documents, or make a clear statement in writing agreeing to specific terms?
"Yes. Every beta reader was sent a written beta-reader agreement before they were given access to the manuscript, and nobody received a copy until they had explicitly acknowledged and agreed to those terms.
The agreement covered confidentiality and made clear that the manuscript remained my intellectual property. It prohibited sharing, copying, reproducing or distributing the manuscript or its contents, including posting extracts or screenshots online. It also included restrictions around the use of AI tools and set out expectations regarding the beta-reading process and feedback.
Readers were required to respond to the agreement in writing, confirming that they understood and accepted the terms and acknowledging that, by agreeing, they would adhere to the conditions laid out within it. Only after I had received that confirmation did I send them the manuscript.
This is something I think is particularly important to emphasise because I hadn't simply sent an unpublished novel out with an assumption that people would know not to share it. The expectations around confidentiality and use of the manuscript were explicitly set out and agreed to beforehand."
What file format(s) did you use to share your manuscript? Or did you use an online platform to share your manuscript? If so, which?
"I sent the manuscript as a PDF file directly to each beta reader's individual e-mail address. I deliberately chose PDF rather than an editable format such as a Word document, and I didn't use an online manuscript-sharing platform.
The PDF contained a general watermark identifying it as a protected beta-reader copy. Each reader received the file individually by e-mail rather than through a publicly accessible or shared download link."
You mentioned watermarking the PDF files — were they individually watermarked for each reader? Did you restrict the files with view-only permissions, or distribute with trackable links?
"From a technical perspective, the main security measure I used was watermarking the PDF. I didn't use individually identifiable watermarks, trackable links or view-only permissions because the PDF files were sent directly to each reader.
Alongside that, I relied on the written beta-reader agreement and the explicit confidentiality terms each reader had agreed to before receiving the manuscript.
Looking back, this is probably one of the areas where I would do things differently. I would now individually watermark every copy so that a leaked document could potentially be traced back to the person it had originally been sent to.
However, one thing I have learned through all of this is that there is an important distinction between making a document traceable and making it impossible to steal. An individual watermark wouldn't necessarily have prevented somebody from sharing the manuscript; it may simply have made the source of the leaked copy easier to identify. I've also since learned that watermarks themselves can potentially be removed or obscured, so even that isn't a fool-proof solution.
At the time, I believed that a watermarked PDF combined with a written confidentiality agreement was a reasonable level of protection. I now know there were additional safeguards I could have used, but I also think authors need to be aware that there probably isn't a security measure that can completely eliminate the risk once another person has access to your work. Ultimately, at some point in the beta-reading process, there has to be an element of trust."
Did you distribute the entire manuscript at once, or did you send it in chunks/chapters?
"I sent the complete manuscript at once. My intention was for the beta readers to experience The Second Thread in the same way that a reader eventually would — as a complete novel.
I wanted feedback not only on individual chapters, but on the story as a whole: the pacing, character development and relationships, whether the more complex elements of the plot made sense as they unfolded, and ultimately whether the ending worked. To give meaningful feedback on those things, they needed to be able to experience the complete narrative naturally rather than receiving it piecemeal.
At the time, I didn't consider sending the full manuscript particularly risky because that is ultimately what beta reading requires. These were people I had selected specifically for that purpose, who had agreed in writing to keep the manuscript confidential, and who had been sent a watermarked PDF.
Would I approach the distribution differently now? Possibly. But there's also a practical reality that at some point, if you want somebody to beta read your novel, you have to allow them to read your novel. That's where all the contracts, watermarks and security measures eventually come down to one fundamental thing: trust."
How did you first discover that your book had been published under someone else's pen name?
"I discovered it completely by accident. My husband had been helping me update my author website, and we were checking that some new metadata tags were aligning correctly with Google search. While searching for the book, we started noticing my title appearing more than once, but associated with a name that wasn't mine.
Initially, I desperately wanted to believe it was some sort of technical mistake. The internet is a huge place, titles aren't necessarily unique, and I wondered whether somewhere along the line the wrong author name had simply become associated with my book.
Then we found the Goodreads listing. There was my title. My book cover. But somebody else's name attached to it.
Even then, part of me was trying to find an innocent explanation. The moment that disappeared was when I read the synopsis attached to the listing. It contained significant spoilers — details about the story that had never been made public and that nobody outside of myself and the people who had been given the manuscript to beta read could possibly have known.
There was also a link associated with the listing which led to an external website. Initially, my own security settings prevented me from opening it. My husband eventually managed to access the page, and that was when the situation became even more frightening: there was my manuscript.
The site only allowed us to view a short preview before attempting to redirect to another external page, which his browser's security features blocked, so we couldn't establish exactly what happened beyond that point or whether the entire manuscript could ultimately be downloaded.
What we could establish, however, was that the preview contained my actual manuscript — and the watermark I had placed on the beta copies had been removed.
That was the point where there was no longer any possibility of explaining it away as a some kind of error, a coincidental title or somebody copying an idea. Someone had obtained the unpublished manuscript I had distributed privately for beta reading, removed its identifying watermark, and uploaded at least part of it online under a false author name.
I don't think I'll ever forget that moment, because there is a very strange transition between thinking 'Surely this can't be what I think it is?!', and realising that it absolutely is."
What sort of emotions did you feel when you found out, and how did you navigate them? How long did it take for you to recover from the shock — or are you still reeling?
"At first, I felt completely destroyed. My immediate thought was 'Well, this is it. What is the point of continuing?' In my mind, my book was now out there for people to potentially read for free, under somebody else's name. They would never know it was actually mine. They would never know how much work had gone into writing it, how much it meant to me, or that somebody else had taken something I had spent so long creating.
Then my husband and I went into complete panic mode. The emotion almost had to be pushed aside because suddenly there were practical things we needed to do. 'Where had it been uploaded? Who do we contact? How do we get it removed? How far had it spread?' We were desperately trying to limit the damage and exposure before it went any further.
Then came the anger. I couldn't comprehend how somebody could do that. I'd trusted these people with something incredibly important and personal to me, and somebody had deliberately broken that trust. I was furious with whoever had done it, but I was also incredibly angry with myself for being so trusting with something that meant so much to me.
With a little distance, I know I shouldn't necessarily blame myself for trusting people who had given me no reason not to trust them. But emotionally, that's much easier to say than it is to believe.
I still feel angry when I think about what happened. But if I'm honest, the emotion that has remained more than anything else is sadness.
I'm sad that this is now part of the story of this book, because this isn't how I planned any of it. I'm sad that my experience of publishing my debut novel — something I had imagined and worked towards for so long — went wrong in probably the worst way I could have imagined. I'm sad that the situation forced my hand and made me make decisions about the future of the book before I was ready to make them.
There are parts of this experience that I can fix. The listings can be removed. I can publish the book under my own name. I can move forward with the launch and reclaim the story as mine, but I can't go back and have the debut experience I was supposed to have before this happened.
So yes, I'm still reeling in some ways. The panic and devastation have subsided, but the anger and sadness haven't completely disappeared, and I'm not sure they ever will.
I think I will always grieve, at least a little, for what was taken from me."
Did you attempt to contact the beta reader directly, and if so, how did they respond?
"Because I couldn't identify with certainty which individual was responsible, I contacted all of my beta readers rather than accusing anyone directly.
I told them what had happened and how devastated I was. I explained that, because the manuscript had only been shared with that very limited group, I knew the leak had originated from a beta copy. I actually pleaded with whoever was responsible to remove it.
At that point, I also told the group that I was looking into legal advice. I wasn't trying to make threats or accuse innocent people; I was desperate to stop the manuscript spreading any further and hoped that if the person responsible realised I knew what had happened and was taking it seriously, they might remove it themselves.
Every single beta reader responded to me. Every one of them expressed shock, sadness or anger about what had happened. Nobody admitted responsibility, which obviously meant I was no closer to knowing who had actually done it.
But this was also the point when something quite unexpected happened: some of my beta readers really began to rally around me.
Several encouraged me not to give up on the book and advised me to publish it under my own name as quickly as possible. They offered advice, practical help and emotional support. They helped me spread awareness of what had happened and, in the weeks since, some of them have become incredible champions for the novel.
A number of them told me they had taken what happened quite personally, themselves. They viewed being trusted with an unpublished manuscript as a privilege because an author is handing them something incredibly precious and asking them to be one of a very small number of people allowed to see it before the rest of the world. They were angry that somebody had abused that privilege because it doesn't just affect me; incidents like this risk tarnishing the relationship between authors and beta readers generally and making other writers frightened to trust people with their work.
I think that's something I really want to make clear. I don't want this experience to become a warning that beta readers themselves shouldn't be trusted. One person betrayed my trust, but the response of many of the others reminded me why that trust exists in the first place.
I'm incredibly grateful for the support some of them have shown me. What started as a group of strangers I'd asked to give me an impartial opinion on my book has, in some cases, turned into people who have genuinely championed both me and The Second Thread through one of the hardest parts of its journey.
I do have my own suspicions about who may have been responsible, but suspicion isn't evidence. As much as I wanted answers, I wasn't prepared to accuse somebody of something this serious when I couldn't prove it."
What specific steps did you take, and which platforms did you have to contact to get the pirated book taken down?
"The first thing my husband and I tried to do was work out exactly where the manuscript was being hosted and who was behind the website. Unfortunately, we couldn't find any useful source or ownership information for the site, and despite trying again since, we still haven't been able to identify it properly.
I contacted Goodreads to report the unauthorised listing and explain that it was my unpublished novel being displayed under a false author name.
However, before I even received a response from Goodreads, something unexpected happened.
Approximately three or four hours after I sent the message to all of my beta readers explaining that I knew the manuscript had been leaked — pleading with whoever was responsible to remove it and telling them I was seeking legal advice — the Goodreads listing appeared to have been removed.
Around an hour after that, we could no longer find the unauthorised version through the Google searches that had originally led us to it.
I want to be very careful not to draw a conclusion from that timing that I can't prove. I don't know whether Goodreads acted incredibly quickly, whether the person responsible saw my message and removed it, whether somebody else reported it, or whether something else happened entirely. I simply don't know.
What I do know is that within a matter of hours of contacting my beta readers and beginning the reporting process, the material that had previously been readily discoverable through Goodreads and Google was no longer appearing.
The difficult part is that I still can't say with certainty that the manuscript has disappeared from the internet completely. I don't know whether copies exist elsewhere or whether it remains hosted somewhere that simply isn't easily discoverable.
All I can say with confidence is that, as far as I can currently establish, it is no longer readily accessible through the routes by which we originally discovered it.
There is some relief in that, but not complete peace of mind. Once you've seen your unpublished manuscript sitting on a website where you never put it, it's very difficult to ever feel entirely certain about where else it might be."
What evidence, if any, did you have to provide to the platforms to prove you were the original author?
"In the end, I actually didn't have to provide any. When I contacted Goodreads, I reported the listing as unauthorised and explained that I was the original author. I also made it clear that I was able to provide evidence to substantiate that claim if required.
Before I reached the stage of being asked to submit any of that evidence, however, the listing disappeared. Because I don't know whether Goodreads removed it or whether it was taken down by whoever had created it, I can't say what evidence Goodreads would ultimately have required from me.
I was prepared to prove my authorship if necessary. I had the original manuscript and earlier drafts, correspondence relating to the beta-reading process, the agreement that had been sent to the readers, my own records relating to the development of the book, and a public history of discussing The Second Thread and my writing journey under my own name.
One lesson I would take from the experience is the importance of keeping those records. Save your drafts. Keep your e-mails. Keep dated copies of your work and records of who you have sent it to. Hopefully you'll never need any of it to prove that your own book belongs to you, but I was incredibly grateful to know that, had I been asked, I had a substantial trail showing that this story was mine."
How has this experience changed how you are approaching your upcoming launch under your own author name?
"It changed almost everything.
Before the leak, self-publishing The Second Thread wasn't my plan. I had been pursuing traditional publication and was prepared for that to be a long process. I knew there were no guarantees, but I wanted to give the book the opportunity to follow that route.
Once the manuscript appeared online, I suddenly had to confront the possibility that this route had been compromised. Traditional publishers are understandably cautious about work that has already been published or distributed elsewhere, and although what happened to my manuscript was completely unauthorised, I knew it was something I would potentially have to disclose to any future agent or publisher. I couldn't know how that would affect their decision, but I knew it could complicate or even jeopardise my chances.
At the same time, somebody else had already put my book online under another name.
I realised that I could either continue waiting and hoping that traditional publication might still happen one day — while knowing that my manuscript had already been leaked — or I could take control of what happened next.
So I decided to publish it myself.
That decision meant essentially learning how to self-publish a novel from scratch in a matter of weeks. Suddenly I was dealing with formatting, ISBNs, Kindle editions, paperback and hardback files, cover specifications, proofs, distribution, pricing and all the other things I had never expected to be doing at this stage. Everything I thought I had months, or potentially years to learn became something I needed to understand almost immediately.
It has been exhausting, and there have definitely been moments when I've wondered whether I could actually pull it off, but it has also changed what launch day means to me.
September 8th isn't simply the day my debut novel is published anymore. In some ways, it feels like the day I take it back.
This time The Second Thread will be out in the world because I chose to put it there. It will have my name on the cover. It will be presented in the way I wanted it to be presented, and people will be able to read the version that I worked so hard to create.
I'm much more conscious of security now and I will approach advance copies very differently in the future. There is a nervousness that wasn't there before, and I suspect I'll always be more protective of unpublished work because of what happened, but I'm also incredibly excited.
The leak took away the publishing journey I thought this book was going to have. I'm not going to allow it to take away the joy of actually publishing it as well."
What is the single biggest piece of advice you want to give other authors about protecting their drafts?
"Simply to know that this can happen. Since the leak, I've had lots of people tell me, with the best of intentions, 'You should have done this', or, 'You should have used that'. And there are absolutely additional security measures I will use in the future. I've learned a huge amount from this experience, but the uncomfortable truth is that none of those things can guarantee that somebody won't leak your work.
A different watermark might have helped me identify where the leak came from, but it wouldn't necessarily have stopped somebody sharing it. A contract makes the boundaries and expectations absolutely clear, but it can't physically prevent somebody from breaking those terms. Ultimately, if another human being can read your manuscript, there is an element of trust involved.
So my biggest advice is simply to be aware of that risk. Protect your work as much as you reasonably can. Keep records and dated drafts. Put agreements in place. Use whatever technical protections are available to you. Trust your instincts about the people you choose to work with.
But please don't let my experience frighten you away from beta readers altogether.
The feedback I've received from my beta readers has been invaluable, and the support many of them have shown me since this happened has been extraordinary. One person's actions shouldn't erase everything positive that beta readers bring to the writing and publishing process.
It's a very fine line between protecting something precious and allowing other people into it, and sadly, I don't have the answer for how to remove that risk completely. I'm not sure anybody does.
All you can do is make informed choices, take sensible precautions and understand that, however unlikely it may seem, it could happen."
Has this experience discouraged you from writing novels and publishing them — or has it only served to galvanise you further despite the struggle?
"For a very short time, yes.
When I first discovered what had happened, I was ready to give up. I genuinely thought, What's the point? I'd put so much of myself into writing this book, only for somebody to take it and put it out into the world before I had the chance to do that myself — but I'm not very good at staying down.
It takes quite a lot to stop me once I've decided I want to do something, and somewhere along the way the devastation turned into determination.
I absolutely will write more novels — in fact, I already am. I absolutely intend to publish again. Maybe I'll self-publish, maybe I'll pursue traditional publishing with the next one; who knows where all of this will lead?
What I do know is that this experience hasn't discouraged me from being an author. If anything, it's made me more determined to succeed.
There is admittedly a small, slightly petty part of me that wants whoever did this to eventually see The Second Thread succeeding with my name on the cover. I want them to see people reading it, reviewing it, recommending it and knowing exactly who wrote it — Because ultimately, they didn't win.
They changed the journey. They made it significantly harder than it ever needed to be, and they took something from my experience of publishing my first novel that I can never completely get back.
But they didn't take the book; They didn't take writing away from me; And they certainly haven't stopped me writing the next one."
And finally, can you provide us a general overview of your thoughts and feelings about the experience — and any additional advice or words of wisdom you would give to other aspiring authors?
"When I look back at the whole experience, the word that probably describes it best is: whirlwind.
I recruited beta readers because I wanted honest, impartial feedback on my first novel. I took precautions that, at the time, I thought were sensible. I selected people carefully, had a written agreement that explicitly covered confidentiality and the protection of my intellectual property, and sent the manuscript as a watermarked PDF.
And somebody still leaked it.
Finding my title, my cover and eventually my actual manuscript online under a false author name was devastating. For a brief period, I genuinely thought there was no point continuing. Then the panic kicked in. My husband and I were desperately trying to work out where it had come from, where it was being hosted, who we needed to contact and how we could stop it spreading any further.
Within hours of me contacting my beta readers, the Goodreads listing disappeared and shortly afterwards we could no longer find the leaked version through Google. I still don't know who removed it or why, and I can't say with certainty that copies don't exist somewhere online. That's something I've had to learn to live with.
The consequences went far beyond simply getting a listing removed.
Until that point, I had been pursuing traditional publication. Suddenly I was faced with an unpublished novel that had already appeared online without my permission, and the possibility that this could complicate future conversations with agents or publishers. I ultimately decided that the best way forward was to take control of the book myself and publish it under my own name.
That meant learning how to self-publish essentially from scratch — and very quickly.
I'm a mum of three boys, the youngest of whom is only eight months old, and all of this has happened during the school summer holidays. There hasn't exactly been an abundance of uninterrupted time in which to casually learn the publishing industry!
Most of the work has happened late at night after my children were asleep. There have been a lot of video tutorials. I've had to learn about page sizes, margins, manuscript formatting, formatting in Google Docs, print specifications, cover dimensions, designing covers in Canva, Kindle formatting, paperback and hardback requirements and all the other tiny details you don't necessarily realise exist until suddenly you're responsible for every single one of them.
It has been a whirlwind. And, if I'm completely honest, I'm exhausted, but one of the things I don't want to get lost in this story is how much good I have seen from people alongside the actions of one person.
My husband has been beside me through all of it, from the moment we discovered the leak to helping me work out what on earth to do next. My beta readers have been extraordinary. Many rallied around me immediately, offering advice and support, encouraging me to publish the book under my own name and becoming some of its biggest champions. The wider Bookstagram community has also overwhelmingly responded with kindness, anger on my behalf, and an incredible amount of support.
I don't want what happened to make authors frightened of beta readers or writing communities. One person betrayed my trust. Many, many more people reminded me why trusting others can be worthwhile.
If another author discovered tomorrow that their manuscript had been leaked, my first advice would be to act quickly. Document everything. Take screenshots. Contact the platform hosting or listing the work, explain that you are the original author and be prepared to provide evidence of your ownership. Keep every draft, e-mail and record that can establish the history of your work.
I would also tell them to be prepared to shout from the rooftops that this is your book.
Legal options may exist and authors should obviously seek appropriate professional advice for their own circumstances, but I learned very quickly that pursuing something legally can potentially be complicated, expensive and difficult. My immediate focus became limiting the exposure, establishing that the work was mine and taking back control of what happened to it.
I'd also encourage authors to learn some of the practical skills involved in self-publishing even if they have absolutely no intention of self-publishing their current book. Learn the basics of formatting. Familiarise yourself with the platforms. Understand how covers and print files work. You may never need that knowledge — I certainly never expected to need it either, and I wish I hadn't been forced to learn everything the way I did.
Most importantly though, don't let somebody else's actions decide whether your story gets told.
This wasn't the publishing journey I chose for The Second Thread. Parts of the experience I thought I would have with my debut have been taken from me, and I will always be sad about that.
But on September 8th, The Second Thread will be published properly... with my cover, with my name, and on my terms.
And after everything that's happened, I think that launch is going to mean more to me than I ever could have imagined."
Writing a book is an act of immense bravery. Sharing that book with the world requires trust. The story of A.E. Ward's experience shouldn't scare you into locking your manuscript away in a drawer forever or skipping the review and iteration process. Beta readers remain one of the most powerful tools in an indie author’s arsenal when the process is managed with professional boundaries and protective measures.
By taking the appropriate steps listed in our ultimate guide to beta readers, you protect your livelihood, your intellectual property, and your creative peace of mind. Treat your writing like the valuable business it is.
Over to you: How do you currently vet your beta readers? Have you ever encountered a red flag during the sharing process? What are your thoughts on this experience? Let us know in our Discord community and help keep writers and their work safe!
If you would like to show your support to A.E. Ward for being brave enough to share her story and call out the actions of one bad actor to raise awareness of the importance of protecting creative work, please consider ordering her debut novel The Second Thread: A Life Refracted - out now! You can also download the FREE prequel here!
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