Blazing Reader,

So you want to be a beta reader for my forthcoming novel, COVID Disobedience? Well, maybe you don't. If not, stop reading now and move on to the next digital distraction clamouring for your attention. I won't take it personally.

But if you'd like to be among the first to read my latest creation, keep reading...

Stefanie Müller and David Yamamoto, last seen in Much Ado About Corona, are back. Well, not exactly back: this is the prequel, set three months before the events of Much Ado About Corona. It also leaps even farther back — 174 years to be exact — telling a parallel story about the 1846 arrest of Henry David Thoreau for refusing to pay his taxes.

My editor had this to say about the draft he reviewed:

Once the story gets rolling, you hit that page-turning readability characteristic of Much Ado About Corona with its great pacing, humour and character interaction. Your Thoreau chapters stand out as being particularly inspired, even muse-driven, and well written…

Here's how you can start turning those same pages (or, well, scrolling, since it's going to be digital):

On Friday, November 13, thirty selected beta readers will begin receiving a chapter a day by email. Each chapter averages about 2,000 words. You read it, then answer five short questions about it. That should take twenty to thirty minutes. It may be the most entertaining half-hour of your day. With about 39 chapters, that's roughly twenty hours of page-turning suspense with Stefanie, Yamamoto and Henry David Thoreau. Miss a day? Just read two chapters the next day. We'll wrap up around December 21.

As your reward, you get to:

1. Read the novel long before everybody else.
2. Help shape the final draft.
3. Have your name (and any web address you wish to share) listed in the acknowledgements.
4. Receive a free copy of the ebook and audiobook versions.
5. Enjoy a 50% discount on the paperback or hardcover editions.

If that interests you and you can make that kind of commitment, please complete the form below. I'll let you know if you're one of the thirty beta readers selected, and we'll get started on Friday the 13th. (I'm not superstitious.)

John C.A. Manley

P.S. If you missed it, you can still watch the video I released on Friday, with more details about the COVID Disobedience book launch.

John C. A. Manley is the author of Much Ado About Corona, All The Humans Are Sleeping and other works of philosophical fiction that are "so completely engaging that you find yourself alternately laughing, gasping, hanging on for dear life." Get free samples of his stories by becoming a Blazing Pine Cone email subscriber.