If what you’re looking for is a beta reader or critique partner who will tell you your book is wonderful no matter what, and spare your feelings — this isn’t that.
That is a unicorn. I suppose you could find one, if you looked really hard. But what would be the point? It certainly won’t advance your writing skills, let alone your writing career.
No. A sensitivity reader is a professional you hire who’s job is to read your manuscript with special emphasis on how you portray people from marginalized groups or key historical events that involved those groups. Marginalized groups includes women, people on the fringes of the economic scale, people with disabilities, people in the LGBT community, and of course people of color. Also, if any of your characters practice a faith, have weight issues, a non-traditional family arrangement, or are victims of sexual assault, they can be considered marginalized. Historical events that affect those groups might include the Holocaust, the Civil War, 9/11, and so forth.
We are in the midst of an unprecedented and far-reaching change in the books we read and write, and the books agents and publishers want. Books are becoming more diverse, and at the same time, people are more sensitive to the way groups they belong to are portrayed in literature. Negative stereotypes are no longer ignored. And that includes the stereotype that all characters in a book should be white, or all soldiers or superheros should be male, and so forth.
Which means, as you write your book, you will most likely be including people unlike yourself. And in so doing, you begin to write outside your comfort zone. Which is fine — you want to write outside your comfort zone. That’s how you grow as a writer. But if your book contains both men and women, people of difference races, and a gay person, chances are you aren’t 100% familiar with all of those cultures. And through no fault of your own, even despite extensive research, you may write something in your story that inaccurately portrays a marginalized person or puts them in a bad light. If for example one of your characters suggests that a person with mental illness is somehow weak, you are stigmatizing mental illness as a weakness, which is a negative and inaccurate stereotype mental health professionals have been trying to erase for decades.
A sensitivity reader will read your manuscript and point out places where you might want to revise to remove problems like this. But like any reader you pay to evaluate your manuscript, be prepared to make changes — even major changes — to your characters or story line. After all, you will have paid for their advice.
So where can you find a sensitivity reader? Here is a links to get you started:
Shop before you you buy. You will want to find a reader who specializes in your particular topic — woman’s issues, gay issues, mental illness, etc. At present sensitivity readers are not especially expensive. Typically $250-$300 per manuscript. Also be aware, these readers are looking for a rather narrow range of issues within your writing. Don’t expect a sensitivity reader to serve the same function as a professional editor.
Good luck, and keep writing.
Am I Doing This Right? 