How to find comp titles for a book you haven't written yet
When it comes to a book proposal, what kind of company will your future book keep?
The Savanah Project section of my newsletter is a place for paid subscribers to watch me build a book proposal in real time with another writer. Montana-based horse trainer and social change entrepreneur Savanah McCarty’s efforts to write her own memoir were halted by a traumatic brain injury last year. Together, we’re resurrecting her project, and this is where I’ll be sharing behind-the-scenes glimpses into our journey. To learn more about our collaboration or to support us beyond a paid subscription (thank you!), please click this link.
Comp titles: The O.G. “compare and contrast” exercise writ large
A “comparative title” (which I’ll refer to as a “comp title” from here on out) is a successful, recently published book that shares enough DNA with your own book project to suggest that it will sell well, too. In query letters to agents, writers generally include 2-3 comp titles. When writing a book proposal for memoir or nonfiction, the comp title section is larger and more detailed, including somewhere between 5 and 12 comp titles, with substantial copy devoted to explaining why your book is in this company.
Comp titles aren’t meant to be carbon copies of your book. In fact, if you’re able to point to several books that closely resemble yours, that isn’t a good thing. It could suggest to the gatekeeper that 1) the market for your material is oversaturated and/or 2) your book isn’t original in scope or tone.
From reading client query letters and helping people with proposals, the mistake I see people making most frequently with comp titles is comparing plot for plot. Rather than breaking down their comp titles into complementary craft aspects (tone, structure, POV, genre, use of humor, pacing…), they cite books that have a similar plot to theirs, which can result in the aforementioned situation where the gatekeeper worries that your book is hitting the tail end of a trend.
A quick heads-up for readers: This article isn’t going to be a how-to on finding comp titles: if you want that information, please revisit an essay I wrote last summer on comp title finding 101.
What we’re going to do today is brainstorm comps for the book proposal I’m building with Savanah, “The People Left, the Horses Didn’t: Loving Hard and Forgiving Harder in the Wild West.” I haven’t started the book proposal yet, and I haven’t started writing the sample chapters. So why am I working on comp titles now? In my opinion, brainstorming comp titles before starting a book proposal is a clarifying exercise that helps you understand the book you want to write and why, while illuminating themes that readers will connect to.
I’m going to lay out a giant sheet of paper now with different category grids to sort out the kind of company this book will keep. Come along with us?
