This is a great topic!

I look for a harem of betas, rather than one individual who can be IT for me. Partly this is because I hate to ask someone to beta things every week. It's a lot of work after all! But I also like to find betas who excel at just the type of story I'm trying for. They are wonderful at the character, mood, or genre I'm working on. I recently asked j_s_cavalcante to beta a piece because I suspected I needed to make it longer, and she always asks me to write more in her long and delectable feedbacks.

I love me a wordy, pushy, tough-love beta. My first beta, mackiedockie, taught me from scratch how to write dialog, suggested places where I could make the characterization sing, warned me away from song-fic, and even had the guts to tell me that an entire chapter I'd sent her didn't really work. I need to send that woman flowers sometime.