You Need to Use Better Comps

I received a question about how to categorize one’s novel when it feels like it’s in between categories or not easily categorizable, and I want to tackle that after spending a few hours going through my query inbox. (This week I am reading full manuscripts.) But I also think that finding your novel’s best comps can help in categorizing your novel, as the descriptions used in metadata for those books can lead you to better descriptions and categorizations for your own book.

First: what are comps?

Pulling from one of my original posts, “How to Write a Query Letter” (which you should read first if you’re just starting the querying process):

A “comparable/comparison title” is a book that is similar in some way to the book that you are querying. For the purposes of a query to an agent, you are demonstrating with your comp titles that you understand the publishing marketplace for your book’s category. Your comp needs to be published within the last 5-10 years (5 is ideal; the marketplace changes quickly.) It does not need to be a one-to-one similarity but should have something in common (tone, theme, setting, plot, details) so that if someone told you they enjoyed Comp Title 1, you could say, “you’d love my book because X reason.” One comp must be a book, but your second or third comps could be a movie or tv show.

There is a difference in how agents use comp titles to pitch a book to editors; I’m focusing here on how querying writers should use comp titles in their queries to literary agents.

When reading queries, agents are looking for comp titles that demonstrate that the author understands where their book will fit into the marketplace, both by distilling the major components and by shelving it alongside other contemporary successes.