Critique Sources

At a recent LWC meeting, member Mary Ann Weakley mentioned that she was going to speak to a local book club about her memoir and they were going to read her book and review it. This led to a brief discussion about how good it would be to get feedback from non-critique group members.
     Most writers have a few much-appreciated "first readers", who read their finished works or parts of their work-in-progress and offer valuable feedback. These readers are often close friends or family, people who can be counted on to give honest, helpful opinions and suggestions.
    Fellow writers and critique group members offer the same assistance, but from the view of being writers. Most have some expertise in various aspects of writing and this makes their input very different from comments given by first readers. 
    Editors, whose opinions are highly regarded, have to look at everything from a marketing standpoint. No matter how much they love - or hate - a book or story, their perspective will always be colored by how saleable it is and how large an audience it would draw.
   A group of random readers such as book club members would be different from other writers, first readers and editors. They may not have the knowledge about writing and grammar that critique groups do. They don't know the writer or the writer's work the way first readers do. They don't have the industry inside information that editors have. Not having all this can  make them in some ways more useful.
     What book club readers do have is a love of books. Not necessarily books like yours, but like most readers, they probably love stories of all kinds. Some of them may not have knowledge about style or use of language, but they recognize it and appreciate it when it's done well.
     Editors and fellow writers do see the whole picture, but they focus on details and what works and what doesn't.  Many random readers won't necessarily dissect your book or story and specify which elements could or should be done better. But they will know what they liked or didn't like, and may even be able to express why - from the perspective of a reader, and only that of a reader.
    What makes readers like this most valuable is that they are your target audience. You want as many people to read your book as possible. Whatever type your book is, you want to attract both fans of that genre and as many other readers as you can. Therefore, knowing how your book is received by the general reading population can be very helpful.

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