This is exactly it. I think authors like me think that what hooks an agent is the premise and pitch. But we’ve first got to convince an agent that there’s a market for the book before we dazzle them with a premise. And that depends on showing that our book is similar to others that have been published recently—not so wildly different that the agent can’t visualize an audience. Because then an agent won’t be able to convince an editor of the same, which is the biggest part of their job. Thanks for this helpful advice!
This is so helpful, especially your explanation of what exactly comp titles are meant to communicate! I have a question about choosing among the potential comps I come up with. I recently saw a debut deal announcement for a book that has many similarities to mine. On a deeper level they seem pretty different, but the deal mentioned the same two comp titles I was planning to use when I query. Do you think it would be a good idea to go with different ones so my book stands out more, or is it just a sign that I did well pinning down my potential market? Am I just overthinking this??
Unfortunately, my genre is just breaking out in the mainstream (LitRPG), and there are only a few authors published while the vast majority are self-published. Would adding comp titles from self-published authors and providing statistics from Amazon, Goodreads, Audible, and Barnes & Noble showing reader base work here?
This exercise asks for five titles that could serve as comps. So, I'm guessing I would need to read at least 15 books all under 5 years old, traditionally published, that are successful, but not too successful, to find five titles that will work as comps for my manuscript.
Last year I read 40 books, ~35 in my genre. One would work as a comp. The reading-to-writing time ratio doesn't math for me. I could either find comps or write novels.
I browse a ton of titles on Amazon in my genre. I've never actually used an unread book as a comp, but I'm tempted.
This is where AI is useful and allowed. Ask Gemini, Grok, ChatGPT or Claude to read your manuscript, and propose recent comps. Then read a few of them, it'll be a big time saver.
You trust AI with your whole manuscript? You do realize publishers use AI detection on your manuscript to determine if it was human-authored. If your work has been fed to AI, it could well be detected as AI-authored. I'm not opposed to using AI for some things, but I'm not training it with my whole manuscript.
I just re-read your comment, but my thoughts haven't changed. Not sure what you think I misunderstood. If you think letting Claude, ChatGPT, et al "read" your whole unpublished maniscript to obtain a couple comps for a query letter is a good idea, go for it. I'd rather read book summaries/reviews and find my own.
Apologies but you wrote "you do realize publishers use AI detection on your manuscript to determine if it was human-authored," when my comment had nothing to do with using AI to write a manuscript, or training AI with it. It was a helpful reply to your stated problem: employ AI to STEER YOU IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION when searching for comps.
Very helpful! I've curated a list of novels to study, based on the descriptions and excerpts. Some of them look like they're going to be a lot of fun to read, and it's been inspiring to find stories in the same vein as my novel-in-progress. It means there are people out there hungry for more!
Perhaps your book covers this or you've talked about it elsewhere, but how can you figure out what to write in time to get it to an agent so that it will be marketable, considering the amount of time it takes to go from querying to published, and changes in trends in the market?
I actually don't recommend writing "for the market" — and most agents and publishing professionals feel the same! Traditional publishing moves too slowly to try to capitalize on any specific genre trends. So writing what you feel called to is always the better strategy.
I appreciate this insight! In my younger years, I tried the writing to market approach and quickly achieved burnout. Now I write what I feel led to write, and it's been infinitely better. Both for me, and for readers.
This is exactly it. I think authors like me think that what hooks an agent is the premise and pitch. But we’ve first got to convince an agent that there’s a market for the book before we dazzle them with a premise. And that depends on showing that our book is similar to others that have been published recently—not so wildly different that the agent can’t visualize an audience. Because then an agent won’t be able to convince an editor of the same, which is the biggest part of their job. Thanks for this helpful advice!
Exactly! An agent has to be able to make that same case to an editor because if they can't see the audience, they can't sell it.
This is so helpful, especially your explanation of what exactly comp titles are meant to communicate! I have a question about choosing among the potential comps I come up with. I recently saw a debut deal announcement for a book that has many similarities to mine. On a deeper level they seem pretty different, but the deal mentioned the same two comp titles I was planning to use when I query. Do you think it would be a good idea to go with different ones so my book stands out more, or is it just a sign that I did well pinning down my potential market? Am I just overthinking this??
Note to self, don’t mention Brando Sando, but keep Madeleine Roux?
Exactly!
Unfortunately, my genre is just breaking out in the mainstream (LitRPG), and there are only a few authors published while the vast majority are self-published. Would adding comp titles from self-published authors and providing statistics from Amazon, Goodreads, Audible, and Barnes & Noble showing reader base work here?
This exercise asks for five titles that could serve as comps. So, I'm guessing I would need to read at least 15 books all under 5 years old, traditionally published, that are successful, but not too successful, to find five titles that will work as comps for my manuscript.
Last year I read 40 books, ~35 in my genre. One would work as a comp. The reading-to-writing time ratio doesn't math for me. I could either find comps or write novels.
I browse a ton of titles on Amazon in my genre. I've never actually used an unread book as a comp, but I'm tempted.
This is where AI is useful and allowed. Ask Gemini, Grok, ChatGPT or Claude to read your manuscript, and propose recent comps. Then read a few of them, it'll be a big time saver.
You trust AI with your whole manuscript? You do realize publishers use AI detection on your manuscript to determine if it was human-authored. If your work has been fed to AI, it could well be detected as AI-authored. I'm not opposed to using AI for some things, but I'm not training it with my whole manuscript.
Not at all. Respectfully, re-read what I wrote.
I just re-read your comment, but my thoughts haven't changed. Not sure what you think I misunderstood. If you think letting Claude, ChatGPT, et al "read" your whole unpublished maniscript to obtain a couple comps for a query letter is a good idea, go for it. I'd rather read book summaries/reviews and find my own.
Apologies but you wrote "you do realize publishers use AI detection on your manuscript to determine if it was human-authored," when my comment had nothing to do with using AI to write a manuscript, or training AI with it. It was a helpful reply to your stated problem: employ AI to STEER YOU IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION when searching for comps.
Very helpful! I've curated a list of novels to study, based on the descriptions and excerpts. Some of them look like they're going to be a lot of fun to read, and it's been inspiring to find stories in the same vein as my novel-in-progress. It means there are people out there hungry for more!
Perhaps your book covers this or you've talked about it elsewhere, but how can you figure out what to write in time to get it to an agent so that it will be marketable, considering the amount of time it takes to go from querying to published, and changes in trends in the market?
I actually don't recommend writing "for the market" — and most agents and publishing professionals feel the same! Traditional publishing moves too slowly to try to capitalize on any specific genre trends. So writing what you feel called to is always the better strategy.
I appreciate this insight! In my younger years, I tried the writing to market approach and quickly achieved burnout. Now I write what I feel led to write, and it's been infinitely better. Both for me, and for readers.