What if the best beta-reader was another writer?

Authors need beta readers. Professional ones are expensive, around 3 cents a word, which comes to roughly $2,400 for an average-length manuscript. And asking friends, husbands, wives, lovers, besties, or whoever your version of that is, rarely gets you the kind of critique a draft actually needs. (I've rewritten that sentence about a hundred times. Fill in the blank with whatever applies best.) So I built Subhead to let authors swap manuscripts with each other, and save the friends, husbands, wives, lovers, and besties for other things.

It's a private, invite-only network that's also just a community of writers. Nothing gets uploaded to our servers. Subhead is really a commitment tracker and a place to talk. You share your work directly with the other author through a link to whatever cloud storage you already use, and we hold onto that link in encrypted form. That's it.

Here's what it does:

• Keeps track of the terms of each swap: who's reading what, how deep the critique goes, and when it's due. The structure is there if you want it, but you set your own terms.
• Makes it easy to stay in touch and keep feedback organized. Google Drive, Dropbox etc. handle the file-sharing part.
• Costs nothing. It's strictly invite-only because I'd rather grow a small, supportive group of serious writers than a noisy one.
• Has separate spaces for full manuscripts, chapters, excerpts, and submission packages (query letters, synopses, pitches).
• Lets you create your own private writing groups. Meaning, if someone is not invited, they can't see the comments or the material.
• Comes with a few extras because why not: a write-a-thon and a query and agent tracker.
• Requires everyone to agree not to use AI on other people's work, or feed it into Claude, ChatGPT, or anything like that. I've been burned by this with paid readers on Fiverr and Upwork, so it's non-negotiable. No cuts, no buts, no coconuts.
• Tackles the workshop angst. Writing groups form and fall apart within weeks, and you lose touch with the people you actually liked working with. Subhead gives you a way to keep going with the writers you've come to trust.

If you want in, or just want to know more, get in touch. I'm sending the first round of invites, and everyone who joins will be able to invite others.