Welcome to the Writing with Coach McCoach Podcast. I'm your host, Katie McCoach, book coach, confidant, and cheerleader. Since 2012, I've helped hundreds of writers become authors, gain confidence, and grow their best stories yet. Together, we'll untangle the vines of chaos and uncertainty surrounding how to be a writer so you can grow into the author you are meant to be. Let's dig in, writer!
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Writing with Coach McCoach Podcast. Today I want to talk about comp titles and places that you can go to figure out what a comp title is for your book.
Alright, so we're just going to dig in. I'm going to keep it short and sweet today.
So first of all, let's start with what even is a comp title? What am I talking about? The brief rundown is comp titles, or comps as you'll often hear, refer to comparable books to yours. So this often comes up when you are trying to pitch your book to agents and you'll see a lot of times that they'll ask for comps or any advice about query letters that you want to include a comp paragraph. This will look like something like, my book appeals to fans of this author and this author.
So you can use different things to compare your books. You can use authors, you can use specific books, you can use TV and movies, any form of media that is a really good comparable to say, hey, people who like this are going to like my book. And the reason that this is so important and asked for so much for agents especially is they want to know that you know how to sell your book, that your book fits in a certain genre and for a certain audience and is easily marketable. So if you've ever seen, I'm sure you see it all the time in book descriptions, especially on Amazon.
But you'll see the meat version of Pride and Prejudice meets Zombies. So sometimes it's putting two things together. So it's something meets something. It's Lord of the Rings meets Harry Potter in this epic retelling of something. So sometimes it'll be these popular pieces, it'll be the next Hunger Games. It'll be something so that readers immediately when they read that line, they go, oh, I know what I'm getting into, or this is totally for me. The huge layer of this is not just selling for marketability, right? Like the easier you can nail that quickly, oh, my book will appeal to these people or these readers. It's also going to help your ideal readers find you.
I am going to be recording an episode very soon about your ideal reader and utilizing the framework of what you hear a lot in business settings of discovering your ideal client avatar. A lot of people say the ICA, what is your ICA? And so I'm going to do an episode soon that uses that setup towards writers. How do you find your ideal reader? Who is it and why does it matter? This is one of those very easy ways to do this. And the reason you want to have this call out like, hey, this book is for this reader is so that when the reader sees it, they're like, oh, I'm going to like that book. That's for me. I want that book. That's what gets people to pick up your book. And when an agent sees it, they're like, thank you so much. You just made my work easier because they are sorting through hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of submissions. You want to make it as easy as possible for them to say, this book is for me. This is one that I want to work on. I want to represent.
And I know, and not only do I want to pitch it to acquisition editors at publishing houses, but I already have five editors in mind. Because when you make it so easy to say, it's for this person or it appeals to these readers or this similar vein of this book, the agents are going to say, oh, I know this editor and this editor and this editor are looking for books that have something like that in it. I already know this will be easier to sell than if you didn't have that in there for them. Not that they can't figure it out. I mean, that's part of their work. They're figuring out the best way to sell it. But remember, if you're coming into their slash pile, which means you're submitting your query in their inbox, this is one time when you really are in competition in a way, right? So you're going against hundreds of other stories. If you can make it a very easy, oh, I got this. I can pick that out and that is easy for me to say, okay, now I know how this book can easily be marketed or sold. Let's see if it lives up to what they say it compares to.Right?
So that is where you would go next is next. Then when you use comparable titles, make sure they are ones that fit the bill. There are some nuances to what you use as comps. First of all, the common advice is that you're going to want something that is maybe been published within the last three to five years. I would say even sooner at this point, because if you think about it, five years ago from this point was before 2020. And I don't know about you, but I feel like the world completely shifted that sometimes I see something that came out or existed before 2020 and I'm like, they don't get it now. It's so different or the frame is so different that how could that even compare? Right? Because it was such a society shift. Anytime I see podcast episodes and they came out before 2020, I'm like, I don't know if that counts, especially because I follow a lot of business stuff. Right?
So business landscape is shifting, but so is the publishing landscape, especially after COVID. But that is a story for another day. I say that because you really do want to see what are some books that came out more recently that have been successful that your book is similar to, or that readers of that book would like your book.
Here are a few other things to keep in mind. It doesn't have to be a book. You could do TV, film, since Netflix is, we're actually tending to repurpose a lot of books into mini series or something. I mean, obviously that's a good, a great example of you can reference the TV show or the book kind of in a way you're usually referencing both to be honest. But look at what is, especially like when you think about TV and movies, look at what's recently come out. Sometimes it's books from a little while ago, but it's hitting a perfect market now when it's turned into a movie. And if your book is like a really good comparable to a TV show out right now, that's doing well, that was a book, you're just like, those money signs are clicking on. Right? And the audience and editors, they're like, Oh, this has the potential to maybe turn into that. I'm in.
And not that that's always going to happen or always case, but it's not going to hurt, right? Unless you're using a title that does not compare to your book at all. So make sure when you are looking at these comparable books, these comps, what elements are similar to yours. Usually you want to find books that immediately you would just be like, Oh yeah, anyone who read Gone Girl is going to love this other book. Right? You immediately, even though Gone Girl is a little older, immediately when I said that you had a tone in your head, right? Girl on the Train. And you think that there were certain like, Oh, that's a vibe. That's a voice. That's a vibe. That's a whole thing. Right?
I don't know if that market's gone through its rotation already. Any of the Gone Girl, the sort of wave and the Fifty Shades of Grey wave and the Twilight wave. Like you can see how if your book fit something that is in a current wave, it might be the perfect time to pitch it. The only thing I'll say to that is markets tough, trends are tough. So it also might be too late. You never know. Right? Like things are always shifting. But if your book fits something that's doing really hot right now, pitch the thing right now. Like get it out there as soon as possible because that gives you a better chance of, okay, let's ride that wave. Right?
You might, this is why people say sometimes don't write to market or trends because they're always changing. And by the time you finish your book and pitch it, it's your, and then you want to age in and then it takes one to two years to get the book published. It might be done by then. Right? However, if you see a wave going up right now and your book already fits it, ride the wave, get on that wave. Right? Because this is like, this is when you get that feedback that's like, this is the perfect time for it. Or you could get the opposite, which has happened a lot where someone says, you know what? I'm not really taking on the books that have that right now. So for a while after twilight, there was a long time where people were still pitching books like that. And agents were like, I'm not taking that stuff anymore. That's why I say like, don't try to write to it. But if you happen to have something that is on a wave, get in there, take advantage of it.
Another caveat or thing to consider with comp titles, I would highly recommend against using titles that are really big. So like you're not the next Harry Potter, you're not the next Hunger Games, maybe, maybe magically you are the next you, but it's really hard to say this is the next Harry Potter. Right? So I highly recommend that you try to find books that are more aligned with current releases, current trends, and really captures who the audience would be. So if there is a book that you're like, oh, that audience is such a clear market. It's easy to imagine who's reading that book. And that's, those are the people who would read my book, then you've got a winner.
A few other things to consider. If you're struggling with it, it runs in the similar vein of this book in this book or has sometimes you can, you could try to pull out elements. So, you know, it has the voice of this author with the plot, the plot driven adventure of this other author. So you can kind of sometimes do that if you are kind of struggling. I think that agents it's, it's like they can tell if you're trying too hard to pull something out. So ideally you do want to just kind of see what you can capture right away that really hits that vibe that you're going for. And I want you to focus on when you're finding your comparables, really try hard to keep it in your genre and for your target audience. So don't use a middle grade book if you're writing adult, unless there's something about it that you're like, this is, this, this is when you would call it out. My book is the adult version of this middle grade series. So for, and, and you have to be clear, like, I mean, that you've got that right. And then the rest of your query is selling on why that would work, why that's a great idea.
But otherwise really try to stick to your genre and market because well, that's what you're trying to showcase that you know who would read this book and the more work you can do on that end when you're pitching the better. It just makes everything after have an easier flow. It's going to be easier for everyone involved to be like, Oh yeah, I already know where this is going to go in the bookstore.
That is another tip is if you're struggling, then think about where, where in the bookstore would your book go? So if you're really struggling, I don't know what book, I don't know what to say for comps. Well, where would you put your book in the bookstore? What shelf would it be on? Who would it be between if for example, it wasn't in alphabetical order?
All right. So I went over some of that. I wanted you to have that information because it is important. I think it's a really great sales tool for anyone to have to think of your book in that way. So you can use authors, you can use titles and you could use a, this meets that sort of sometimes tropes. You can do it on that end. Now I did mention, try to pick something that's been, you know, fairly recent and you do want to pick something that's had success, right? Don't pick a book no one's heard of. That's not going to do any favor. So you do want to find comps that are doing well. So it shows, Oh, Hey, there's a, there are readers for this market. There's a reader for this type of book or this type of protagonist. And so this is, this is perfect timing. This is marketable. This is going to sell, right? So that is a big piece of this whole process.
With that being said, you know, although I said, you know, try to pick some earlier, more recent stuff. There could be something to say for if you pick something that's like a older story or age old story or something that really hasn't lost its sway or flavor or something, and then have another more recent title. So you could do a combo that that's how, like if you did TV and something else, and I would lean into that. But just keep in mind that if you're using something that's a little outdated, is it outdated or does it still have a lot of relevance or is there a reason that it's maybe coming back?
So, you know, for example, a lot of YA stuff, I'm noticing a trend for 90s and I don't know if anyone else is noticing it, but it's coming out a lot of Netflix and stuff. So I think that that's like a, Hey, if you have something, but then you're like, but it's based on the 90s. So adding a twist of something of timeframe or place setting, what is the twist to an element? It's not showing that your book is just a retelling of something, right?
Those are all my things I wanted you to know ahead of time as you think about comps. Now all that information is super great if you are really well read and look, I get it. Although the recommendation is always for writers that read a lot. It's hard, right? It's hard to read a lot. It's hard to be constantly consuming content. Sometimes if you're also writing stuff, I know that some writers don't like to read stuff similar to theirs because they don't want to get swayed. I know that sometimes we write what's in our heart and then we're trying to pitch it and then we're like, Oh yeah, I don't really have a huge reference of the other books in this genre and market.
I'm not going to throw shade at that because we've all got our reasons for things. All I will say is, you want to go into this prepared. So if you're someone who doesn't really have a huge awareness of the books in your genre market, then here I have some tips for you to try to find comp titles. Because a lot of times people do say, sure, I get it. I understand why they're important. I have no idea. Like that mine doesn't fit anywhere. It's not connected to something else. And this is when you're going to want to get creative.
And also you're going to want to do some homework because you can't bother to do the homework. Then an agent's going to be like, well, I can't guarantee you're going to work as hard. It's a partnership. So if you can't bother to do the homework, they can't do everything for you. Yes, they're going to do stuff for you if you get an agent, but this is partnership and use your opportunities to show that you are serious about this thing called being an author. Because if you're not serious, it's going to show. And an agent's going to say, sure, even if I love this, I can tell this person doesn't really care that much. So I'm not sure I want to hinge my career on their career. Right? So do your homework.
I hate research. I think it's the worst. But when I care about something and I really want something, I will research the crap out of it. So if you really want this, you got to do the work, especially if you're struggling to do the work. Right?
All right. So here are my, I think I've got like six things, six tips forwhat you can do if you're really struggling with figuring out your market, your genre, and really the comps. Especially if you are, you're struggling with like, but how do I even imagine who this is for? Who would read this? Then here are some six tips or places to go to get more information that will help you. All right.
Number one, Amazon. Easy. Do a keyword search and the books category, right? There's so, so, so, so many books. It can be overwhelming. The thing is, Amazon, as we know, is it has its own algorithm and its own search engine. So use it to your advantage. Amazon is pushing books that are performing well. What a great way to figure out what's working well and what books and have pieces that are similar to yours in it or voice or readership or something. So first I would say do keyword searches, use different keywords that you might use in your book. So think about what is in your book or themes or tropes and do a search for that and see what comes up on some of the top lists and jot them down, make a list, consider like, okay, well, who are they reaching out to? Who is this appealing to? And then if you don't have time, at least read some reviews, read the book description and maybe read the first few pages so you get a sense of it. So that if you're going to use a book, honestly, if you're going to use a book in your comps, you're going to want to read that book so you know what you're talking about. So you're not accidentally self-sabotaging, right? But at least this will give you some guidance and clarity. So then you can take it a step further.
Number two, Amazon again. In this case, what I want you to do is go to the books tab and then there's usually the categories listed on the left and there's just this whole panel and there's subcategories under there. So these are usual, this is kind of like if you had your genres or your bookstore and you saw a shelf and it said women's fiction and you saw a shelf that said romance and fantasy and sci-fi. So you'll see a lot of that. What I want you to do is kind of just explore beyond that. Look past the top standard genre or categories and try to niche down or niche down into beyond that. So there are subcategories. So a lot of times, let's say you clicked on romance, it drops down and then it has all different types of romance. Romanticy, which is fairly popular right now. I mean, BookTok has made a Akatar super popular and that would be considered romanticy. We've got paranormal romance and cowboy romance, small-time romance. So you can get really specific. So although those are not necessarily the way you're saying this, sometimes you're not going to use some of this for genres, but it's nice to have a sense of what some of the markets are and maybe how popular some of them are, but also just what is similar to yours.
So you see where you would fit your book. Where would you put your book? Would it fit under cowboy romance, small-time romance, ranch? There might be some, I don't actually know if that's one. And Amazon is great because it can get like really, really specific. And that's kind of fun, especially later when you're on Amazon, you can play with that a lot. But look at those subcategories and then look at what's popular in those and try to find where your book might fit. So this can at least give you, again, some ideas of what to look into. And also as you go through this, consider different ways of filtering those searches. So right away, I don't know what it would show right away. It might be most popular stuff, right? So they might have the most reviewed or most popular. I would also look at, see if they have a filter for bestsellers, a filter for recent releases, things like that. So you can really get a sense of what's popular right now. And that'll help you as you come out with titles.
Here's a third tip, which is sort of a piling onto one and two. For the books that you found from Amazon searches that sound intriguing and are popular, I would want you to put them in a search in another bookstore, like Barnes & Noble, or even lists on other websites. Look to see if there are bestseller lists in the New York Times, or even just Google and see what comes up for it. Sometimes you'll see what other books are compared to it, right? So a lot of times in Google or these other search engines, if you like this, you'll like this. It's a great thing to search and to notice in Amazon too. When you scroll down, it has the people who bought this also bought. So that's a really good way to see what other titles. So maybe one's not right for yours, but you get a sense of what other ones are. And think about that, like that's kind of what your comps are doing. It's the way you're saying people who bought this also bought this. And that's kind of what you want to do. You want an agent to say, oh, easy then I got this.
Number four, go to the bookstore or library and ask the workers or librarians for recommendations. This is something I feel like a lot of people don't think about, but these people are such great resources. So you, it's like your reverse engineering this work, right? You're saying, okay, I'm seeking a novel that might include elements like X, Y, and Z. Or I'm looking for a book that has this type of character or is really great for these readers. So even if you maybe don't know the books, think about the things about your story that you would say, oh, I know that readers who love James Bond would love my book. So you might, it might be hard to figure that out right on your own. Ask people who read a lot. So you know this, you can use book blockers, book talk. I think there are booktubers, people on YouTube. Obviously they might be talking about books. So that helps. You can do a search on Google, but I would really even just go to a bookstore and or librarians and ask them because they are going to point you in the right direction.
Number five, this is a tip that a lot of people don't know about it. So if you go on publishersmarketplace.com, they put deals out. Now there are two things here. I'm going to say this because I don't know how valid, how up to date the information is. There is an email list that I've been on for years from Publishers Marketplace. It's free. And what I get is called the Publishers Lunch. And I believe part of Publishers Lunch is that I get weekly deals. So it's usually called Lunch Weekly. And what they do is they send a snapshot out and via email of some deals that have recently landed. This is not all the deals, but it's, you know, maybe a handful. So you can kind of see, Oh, what are some of the things that have been published and picked up lately? This is for deals that agents have sold to Publishing House or rights that have been sold or movie rights or something. So it's not for getting an agent. It's for the books that are actually getting the publishing deals and making money and being put out there. This is a really good resource if you're like, well, what is being picked up right now? What books are getting deals? Who's getting deals? How are they being pitched? Why do we think like this is a great way to dissect too, you know, why does that one sound great? Of course, that one got picked up. Of course, because we saw a really quick line of it and that's an easy sell. So if you, I believe you could still find a way to access this for free. You can try to go to publishersmarketplace.com and then I believe they have a deals index.
The other option is I believe if you spend 25 bucks a month and you could cancel anytime, pretty sure that you will actually get all of the deals. So you could get an update on every single deal that's made, not just that snapshot. It might totally be worth it for a little while to be like, Ooh, let me see what's being published. Now this is not necessarily getting great, maybe not getting great comps, but it at least can really, I mean it can help you with comps. I would say what it can really help you do is figure out how things are being sold, what's being sold, what sort of trending so that you have a better sense of how to present your work.
And then my last tip, well I said six tips because I have six, but I guess, you know what, there's seven. So let me do an extra run right now.
So number six is what I would say is ask your freaking friends. If you're writing, I know you know people who read, you hang out on the internet with people who write or read. So ask people. This is a great way to get stuff from the masses, right? If you've beta readers, ask your beta readers, ask your critique partners, ask your editors. They might know. This is going to help you so much if you're just like, hey, you read my book. What do you think another book, like if you were to pick a book that is like it, what would you say? Or how would you talk about the book? And even that can help you get clarity on what are those elements that stand out to someone else? Because sometimes we're too close, it's hard to tell, or it's hard to see these things. So ask your friends. Ask your beta readers, ask your writing groups, anyone who has familiarity with your book, ask them, especially if they are avid readers. Or do what I said back at the bookstore or library and say, hey, I know you read a lot. Do you have any books that have XYZ in them? I'd love a list. And then do your own research and read those books and see how they land. Are they a good comp?
Okay, so number seven, last tip is go to Goodreads. If you haven't used Goodreads, I know that people have feelings about Goodreads, but here's the thing about it. It's a great tool for seeing like comparable books. So it's, yes, it's not great for review sometimes. It's not super fabulous for authors. There are things about it that are not the best in the world. I'm not going to say much beyond that. All I can say is in this case, I want you to check it out just if you're struggling more. Goodreads has a thing called the list feature. So you can go to goodreads.com slash list and on there, people in the community have curated lists of books. So it'll be books with, you know, it could be as vague as books, well, as vague as, but in parentheses or quotation marks, I mean, as books with strong heroines or books that include drugs or books that the narrator's high or I don't know why I'm thinking that or books that it's the chosen one trope, you know, like Harry Potter. So you can find other books that if your book has chosen one trope, but you know, Harry Potter's too big to compare it to, then are there other books that have done fairly well? That would be a good comparable. So these are user generated and there's something really awesome about that because you can see what people are putting loop linking together. That's a great place. Use the keyword tip again, or just kind of scan the lists. It might still be called Listopia or just lists and get a sense there. See what other books might be similar or ones that have similar elements to yours, what books are listed.
And then I guess my last and final end note to this whole thing is that again, you do want to do your research. If you're at the point where you're pitching your book and it's really important and you really want an agent and you really want a publishing deal, then you really want to put the work in and comps are totally worth having, whether you use them or not all the time, having them, knowing that you can easily, if someone asks what's your book about, or you can easily say, Oh, it's, you know, anyone who loves this author would love my book because it's got similar voice and tropes as this author or something. So having that can really help you too as you are trying to talk about your book more, pitch your book and saying, okay, this is much easier because I know that the readers of that book would freaking die over my book. So market it that way, right? And if you are self-publishing, this is all super great information too, because really sure you can use comps in your book description on Amazon. So people who search for the other author, they might say, Oh, this book comes up as something that, you know, Oh, this book is similar to that. Ooh, I might have to check it out. Now you need to look up the Amazon, like description rules and all that stuff, but I'm pretty sure this is an option.
And then of course, don't lie about any of this. Don't put something up that you're not familiar with because you might be misleading the people on the other end, the agents, and don't try and just put something on there because you think, Oh, well, this is going to be a good sell and it'll hook them. No, if you piss someone off because you misled them, it's going to look, it's going to turn out much worse for you, you know? So you don't want to do that. Really try and lead them in the right direction.
And also you want to showcase why your book is different. What makes yours unique? Why is yours worthy of being read or picked up or sold? If there are books that are similar to it, why is yours also going to be awesome? There's a lot of information at once.
I know I kind of ran through it fast, but I feel like this is information that is asked a lot. And so I wanted you to have it. I will definitely be going through some more stuff in the future on things like on pitching and stuff. We can definitely talk about that more, query letters. And also, of course, like I said earlier, I'm going to do an episode soon on your ideal reader and how to figure that out. So that's, I think, really key, especially as you're writing your book at this time. This is really great if you've already written your book and you're going to pitch.
If you're like, what in the hell is Katie talking about? What is even a query letter? Don't worry. These are things you can learn. The beautiful thing about writing and publishing is that there's endless information out there. There's always a path forward. There are ways you can learn. And there's not only one path to get published. But again, that's an episode for another day, because I believe strongly that there is not only one path to becoming an author in the world of content creation. There's so many paths to reaching your goals. But again, another topic, another day.
For today, if you're struggling with your query letter or comps, I do have a query letter template that you can download from my website. If you go on my website and you just go to katiemccoach.com, the freebie that pops up right now, as I say this, is who knows when you're listening, but is currently a self-dialed ebook. When you sign up for my list, though, what will happen is I'm going to send you a note that says, hey, here are the other awesome free things that you can download from me. One of them is a query letter template. This template is a really good starting point if you're just like, I have no idea how to pitch my book. It is not fully fleshed out. It's not like a full fill in the blank, but it really gets you started. And it also gives you the clarity of how you would sort of pitch your book and mention those comp titles too. So if you need a little work on that, you can go katiemccoach.com and grab that.
And of course, if you need some help with this, go to katiemccoach.com, reach out, book a free call with me because I love helping authors with reaching their dreams, reaching their goals. I've read so many query letters. Oh my word. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of query letters through not just the work I do one on one with clients, but also I have been part of contests and I was co-founder of RevPit, which is a contest in which editors would read through at least a hundred query letters each year. So within like a week I would read through a hundred query letters. So I've seen a lot of versions of queries and I know right off the bat what works and what doesn't. We'll have, we'll talk about queries and future episodes for sure. I have a workshop on the topic.
And so if you sign up for my newsletter, you will find out whenever that workshop's available again. In the meantime, if you're looking for additional one on one support, you know where to find me. And I'll see you in the next video until next time, writer keep growing.
