"How do I find comps?!"
A comprehensive guide to comparison titles
Hi, I’m Kate. Ask an Author is an advice column for authors at all stages of writing, publishing, and hand-wringing. Have a question? Fill out this form and I’ll answer it in a future response!
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Dear Kate,
Hello, for books to relate or compare my book to when pitching an agent - how do I find them!? Should I have read the books I’m referencing? I know they should be recent and popular but I usually don’t read the “next big thing” type of books.
- Anon
Dear Anon,
This is a great question to get into ALL ABOUT COMPS. *bells* *drums* *confetti* *a thousand authors sobbing all at once*
What are comps? Why do you need them? Where do you find them? How do you use them?
A comparison title, or comp, is perfectly defined in your question: It’s a book that relates to your manuscript and that you compare your work to when pitching your book to agents and editors.
We’ve talked on here about how genre tells an agent what section of the bookstore your manuscript would sit in. Fantasy? YA? Romance? Mystery? These are large and clumsy categories. But it’s nice to have some degree of organization, so when you’re scanning the shelves of “Book Club Fiction” (or whatever) you can browse what other books in that genre you might like.
Comp titles tell you not just the section of the bookstore your manuscript would go in, but what other books might sit next to it. These are books with similar content and a similar audience in mind. Imagine a bookseller making a display with your book and two or three others. “If you liked X, you’ll love Y!” “If you’ve just finished A, make B your next read!” A comp title tells your reader what other books your manuscript is in conversation with.
Notice I didn’t say “What books your manuscript is like.”
Your book doesn’t have to be exactly the same as something already published! Your story is unique, and if you’re trying to be *just* like a current bestseller…it probably won’t feel very fresh and original anyway. I think we as authors can get too hung up on feeling like we have to make the EXACT match and it must be PERFECT or we’ll NEVER BE PUBLISHED, but what if you take some of the pressure off and imagine you’re recommending a book to a friend. You might say: it’s like that pirates book you loved, but in space. It’s like that family saga you devoured, but sadder/funnier/darker/with a twist. One of my favorite books is History of Wolves, by Emily Fridlund. Aimee Bender blurbed it as a “sledgehammer of pain.” I now think of that type of book I love as “sledgehammer” books. Wreck me, please. :-) Not every book like that will be exactly the same, obviously, but there’s a FEELING to the books that resonates with me, and the feeling or sense that a book evokes can be another point of comparison and connection. You can make it all about vibes.
I actually think one of the missteps querying authors often make is thinking that comp titles have to be big, flashy, popular books that sold millions of copies and that everyone has heard of. This isn’t true!
If you don’t read “next big thing” books, or whatever is the current bestseller, then presumably your manuscript isn’t in conversation with those books and wouldn’t sit on the shelf with them — and so they wouldn’t make good comp titles anyway. Think about the books you read and love and that have most likely informed your own writing. Visualize what two or three books might sit with your book at a bookseller’s display. Imagine someone asking a librarian for book recommendations. What titles would be mentioned in the same breath as yours? People who love to read will read more than just the season’s shiny hit. It’s a great move to dig below the surface and choose books that you think are a good match, regardless of sales status.
In fact, agents often learn much more about your manuscript that way. If someone says “My sci fi book will appeal to fans of Star Wars,” that… doesn’t really tell us anything, right? At a certain point, a book/movie/TV show becomes SO popular that it no longer makes a good comp title because it kind of loses all meaning. “My YA dystopia will appeal to fans of THE HUNGER GAMES” isn’t a good comp because SO MANY people love that series series — it doesn’t really speak to what makes your manuscript a great read. Sure, we all want our books to sell well. But “millions of people will love my book” doesn’t feel super realistic for marketing purposes.
An agent gets zillions of submissions. Having a comp title that shows you’re well-versed in your genre and understand the market is much more informative than picking the same “it” book that everyone else is picking this season. What other YA dystopias connect with yours? Can you chose a historical romance besides the Bridgerton series? A twisted psychological thriller that’s not GONE GIRL? What else might someone who knows and loves your genre be excited to read more of?
This isn’t to say that you can’t pick a big seller. If you do, it helps to get a little more specific about why you’re choosing it, and/or cross it with another title to illuminate something more about your book and its place in the market. GONE GIRL in 1890s New York. BIG LITTLE LIES set amidst the rumor-mill of a small West Texas town. The lyricism of LUCY BY THE SEA, the heartache of LUSTER— I’m just making things up but my point is that I’m trying to add something about each of these titles that hopefully shows the agent why I’m making the comparison. Again, you don’t have to choose a big title. Your knowledge of your genre, and your excitement for your work, will come through in your choice of whatever feels genuinely resonant with your manuscript.
So, how to find these perfect comps?
One thing is to just keep reading as much as you can. If you’re reading in your genre, you can continue to find books however you usually do. Online? Book reviews? Word of mouth? Bookseller recommendations at your local bookstore? Ask a librarian? Talk to friends? All of these are valid, fruitful avenues. There are also tools and searches that can help you get more specific.
This Substack came out of a talk I gave called “Ask an Agented Author,” which was part of a grant I received from the Bronx Council on the Arts. In that talk, I shared some additional resources that I’ll repeat here:
Readers Advisory tools: Readers advisory connects books to readers and readers to books. Google your local library system + “readers advisory,” check out your local library system’s databases, or speak with a librarian and they’ll help connect you with a database that can show you book recommendations. Here are some that I like:
Goodreads: This is full of lists of books based on theme, content, subgenre, etc. Look up a book and then scroll to see what lists it’s a part of, and what other books readers have read that are similar. Look for the following categories:
“Readers Also Enjoyed”
Amazon: I’m not recommending you get all your book recs from an algorithm, but as with Goodreads, you can search for a book you like and then see what else is similar. Check out these categories:
“Also Viewed”
“Sponsored Products”
“Frequently Bought Together”
Do some research:
Book reviews
Trade reviews in your genre
Backmatter material —> when you finish a book, publishers will often include “You might like” sections and similar titles by the same author and/or publisher.
Choose key terms: Take a book you like. Maybe it’s one of your comp titles. Maybe it could be a comp title but it’s too popular, it’s 10 years old, it’s not quite popular enough, whatever. See what key terms are used to categorize the novel. Then you can search for books that have those same terms. This can also help give you a sense of your genre/subgenre. I swear that for the longest time I thought I was writing a literary thriller, because my previous manuscripts have been literary thrillers. Then I looked at the metadata describing my comp titles and realized… I’m writing psychological fiction. It’s not a thriller! Which is why, when I was reading psychological thrillers to find more recent comp titles, I kept feeling like nothing was a match. Check out:
The copyright page
Amazon/Goodreads/an online bookstore that will list its categories
As far as whether you have to read your comps… I mean… kinda?
It can feel like choosing comps is just ticking off some random box that agents want to see, but I promise they aren’t asking for this piece of metadata just to be difficult. It does illuminate something about your manuscript, and it can really help situate your work, excite the agent, and make your query stand out.
I’d start by accumulating a list of possible titles, following the suggestions I’ve outlined above, and then you can read/skim the beginnings and see if you’re intrigued enough to keep going. Amazon often has a free sample available to download or read online, and you can see what your local library has available (and you can request that your library order books, too!). I’m not saying you have to go out and buy a hundred books to read cover to cover. Ideally you already have some familiarity with your genre and enjoy reading new books coming out that are somewhat similar to yours, and can start to narrow it down from there.
Side note: Comp titles are different from the books you might want to use to personalize your query letter. Those are books an agent worked on, so you might start off your query saying “I loved X novel you represented and hope you might be interested in my take on Y.” For that, again, yeah it helps to have actually read the novel so you know you’re not completely making up a connection that doesn’t exist. And it might not be a good fit if it turns out you don’t actually like the books that agent represents! But of course it takes a lot of time to personalize each query, especially if you’re also reading a book or two for each agent. For that I do think you can read the blurb, check out some reviews, skim the beginning, and see if you can pull together a sentence or two making the connection to your own work. Agents have just as strong a bullshit-o-meter as the rest of us and will be able to see through false attempts to force a connection. But we’re all doing the best that we can with the time that we have.
Some agents say you don’t need to have comp titles to query them. Some say it’s absolutely essential. I think a comp title or two can help you summarize your novel and get across a great deal in a limited amount of space. If you can come up with a title or two, I really do think it helps. If it is the absolute sticking point and you cannot come up with anything, you can always leave it off and see if you get any nibbles without it. These are, as always, guidelines — not hard and fast rules.
When you get an agent and prepare a package to go on submission to publishers, you’ll again need to have comp titles to send to editors. It’s a cycle that never ends, so it helps to get used to these conversations now and to be on the lookout for possible leads. I hope this helps, and good luck!
Kate
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