Writer Wednesday: Comp Titles

​Every time, and I mean every time, I submit to my publisher and/or an agent, they ask for comp titles. Don't get caught flat-footed. Do the research before you get ready to submit. Know where your book fits into the literary marketplace. When a publisher sees the comp titles, they start to figure out where to market your book.

If you're struggling to find comps, ask one of your critique partners or BETA readers as they may have a more objective view of your story. Or, do the research:

So, how do you do that? Well, reading voraciously helps. I sometimes offer comp title suggestions to my students, and I can do that because I have read a wide-variety of books and I notice similarities. Note that comps work when the similar work is well-known. If you give a comp that's obscure, you're giving the impression that there's no market for your book. Eek, that's not what you want to do!

• Check with booksellers and librarians. They read more than you do, almost universally. When I worked at the library, I averaged reading 30 books a month. I knew titles and book covers and genre. We had guest speakers and emails and time to focus on the book marketplace because (gasp) that was our job. Libraries and librarians are underutilized.
• Check Goodreads. I can't even remember back a few years ago when we didn't have the online reading forum. Okay, maybe an exaggeration, but you get the point... For readers, Goodreads is the best place to discover new titles. NOTE: There's a "Recommended for You" tab under Browse / Recommendations. Also consider lists, like the top 100 YA books in 2019.
• Check Amazon. Yes, the evil empire has a purpose. To sell your books. :) And they have searches comparable to Goodreads (the difference is in the algorithm, and Amazon focuses on $$ not reads). When you look up a book in your genre, you can get a sense of other books because Amazon has an "also bought" section. In addition, you can go straight to the lists. Find a book in your genre. Now, scroll down to product details. If you look at the final element, it lists the Amazon bestsellers rank. If you click on one of the blue hyperlinks (such as the link for young adult or science fiction), it will take you to the top 100 for that genre/subgenre.

But what if I still can't find a title? Well, do the mashup exercise. X meets Y, where X and Y are famous movies or books (no, it's not really math). For instance, one of my favorite mash-up movies was Abe Lincoln, Vampire Hunter (see trailer below). It started life as a book, and then became the movie. What I liked was the combination of history and paranormal fiction. Obviously an editor/agent liked it as well. Another, more literary mashup is Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Come on, of course that's an intriguing mash-up!
 
In the end, comparable-titles are a way to demonstrate your knowledge of your genre and the literary marketplace. They're also shorthand for a longer discussion on market, niches, etc. If you have to do the research, and for reasons beyond me you don't ask a librarian, at least have fun with it!

​Post your comp titles in the comments below.

Happy writing!