Find Out Where Your Readers Stopped.

Six Readers, One Version

The usual way is to email a Word file to six people, then spend a month reconciling six files, one of which comes back as a photo of a printout. With Shiro you make a link under Publish, and the book lives in one place. If you revise the opening, you send a new version and readers see it.

A beta read is for readers you invite by name. Paste one per line, with an email address if you want Shiro to send them their own link, or copy each link and send it yourself. You can also close the shared link, so only personal ones open. A review link is simpler: chosen chapters, open to anyone who has it.

Either can carry a password and an end date. You can also ask readers to accept terms before the first page, like a short NDA, signing with their name. That’s a starting point in plain words and not legal advice. Readers see your pen name and never your account’s name or email.

Chapters on Your Schedule

You can give them the whole book, everything up to a chapter you pick, chapters you tick, or the book in parts. In parts, you release more by hand or on a date, and readers with an address get an email when you do. Unreleased chapters never reach the reader’s browser, so nobody can skip to the ending by being clever.

Questions, and Ways to Answer Them

You can put a question under the last paragraph of any chapter: “Did you see the twist coming?” is the sort of thing. Answers arrive as comments.

Readers can also select a passage and react with loved it, funny, moving, confusing or slow, or write a note and file it under typo, unclear, pacing, character, plot or continuity. Someone who would never write you three pages of feedback will happily press “slow”.

How Far They Got

Beside each reader you see where they are: invited and not opened, up to a named chapter, caught up, finished, or stopped, with when they last read. Across readers, a chart shows how far people got and how many stopped at each point. When four out of six stop in the same place, that’s information about the chapter.

You’ll also learn that your brother-in-law stopped at chapter 6. He will still tell you at Christmas that he loved it. Since this is a kind of watching, it’s polite to tell readers you can see their progress.

Where the Comments Go

Comments and answers come back into the panel in Shiro, on the passage the reader saw. Across readers, you can see what they flagged and what they loved, then turn the flagged spots into tasks on the Worklist for your next revision pass. If you use the AI, you can ask Shiro to read the round and quote the passages several readers found slow. If you don’t, nothing changes.

What to Know First

The chapters you share are stored on Shiro Cloud to serve the reading page, even if the project itself is local on your disk, and they aren’t encrypted end to end. Nor can a link stop a reader copying what’s on their screen. One link holds about two novels of text and up to 200 invited readers.

Making links takes a paid plan. For people who’ll be writing in the book with you, you want co-authors instead.

The Questions People Ask

Do beta readers need an account?

No. They open a link in a browser. They give a name to comment, and invited readers already have one attached to their own link.

Can readers get the book on a Kindle?

A beta link is read in the browser. If you want readers to have a file, the copy-to-keep kind of link offers an EPUB and a PDF to download or send to a Kindle, and an EPUB taken through a reader’s own link carries their name on the copyright page.

Can I stop someone reading?

Yes. You can remove one reader or turn off the whole link at any time, and a link can have a password and an end date from the start.

Does it work with a local project?

Yes, with a paid plan and a signed-in account. Only the chapters you share are copied to Shiro Cloud, and the rest of the project stays on your disk.