When I started querying agents, a question that came up again and again was one of comparison titles. What book is your book like? If someone liked your book, what other book would they like?
I hated this.
I never knew what to say and, honestly, I always found this pretty offensive. MY work is not DERIVATIVE actually, it is in fact very SPECIAL and UNIQUE. Yeah yeah, catch yourself on, Lucy. This is a bad attitude! We live in a society, and we read in a community, and we all know damn well that if I love Game of Thrones I will respond much less enthusiastically to “this book is like, hard to define. I haven’t really read anything like it before. No, it’s not fantasy. I mean, it’s not NOT fantasy…” than I will to “it’s like Game of Thrones but feminist. No, yeah, still lots of tits, don’t worry.”
Simply put, comparison titles help readers find you. The whole point of genre in its entirety, and of designing book covers, and all of marketing actually, is to help readers find you. It IS to do with marketing, yes. It is different to write a book and to sell a book, yes. But also… are you really saying you want to write a book that no one is excited to read, or to recommend to their friends? We want eyes on pages here, and there’s nothing dishonourable about giving readers an easy way to find new work that they’ll love.
What’s important to note here is that we’re really not looking for exactly the same book - we’re looking for something that a reader of your book would love. In general this will be more obvious with titles with more specific genres - “fantasy with dragons in it” and “feminist sci fi” are nicely defined categories. It’s obvious which books go in. If my book is a queer murder mystery set in WW2 then I’m going to want to read In Memoriam and The Paying Guests and Jacqueline Winspear and The House on Half Moon Street. With literary fiction, however, you may be looking for more of a theme or a texture or a way of approaching. If my book is a retelling of The Little Mermaid set in post-brexit Hull with a refugee protagonist, then I want to be looking at titles that deal with regional identity, that deal with the refugee experience and also that look at language acquisition. Sounds impossible, right? No! All of these are addressed in Drift by Caryl Lewis (though it’s set in Wales, not Yorkshire). I might open out to consider Wandering Souls by Cecile Pin and Black Butterflies by Priscilla Morris.
If you really can’t think of anyone, I have a truth bomb for you. It’s probably not the case that your work is absolutely unique. You probably just haven’t read enough. Go back to a bookshop. Flick around online. There will be other books that share a kinship with your idea - you just might have to take a slightly diagonal approach to find them.
So find some. Six, preferably. Here are some guidelines -
Comparison title Rules
1. A comparison title should be in the same genre as your work. We’re looking for a book that feels similar to READERS here, so considerations like setting, theme and motif should be secondary to considerations of genre. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe and All The Light We Cannot See are both set in WW2 but that does not mean that the readerships are the same.
2. A comparison title should be published within the last 20 years. We all love Jane Austen, but unless you are a time traveller, it’s not actually possible to go back and write your debut in the 19th century. You are writing this book now, so the reference points must also be (approximately) now.
3. The more recent a comparison title, the better. See above. The market changes fast. Ten years ago, romantasy didn’t exist and we were all pretending we didn’t like smut. There are some evergreen approaches, of course, but in general if a book was published this year, it is a better comparison title than if it were published in 2014.
4. The more successful a comparison title, the better. We’re not trying to impress boys with our musical tastes here - you get no extra points for obscurity. A good comparison title is one that you’re absolutely sure an agent has read, or at least heard of. That doesn’t mean every title needs to be a smash hit bestseller, but it does mean that if you’re writing women’s commercial fiction, there’s nothing to be gained by shying away from Marian Keyes because it’s “obvious”.
5. You are allowed one exception to the above rules. Just one! But sometimes a title will peek irresistibly across the genres (it could even be a film) or really it IS just like Agatha Christie or or or… One exception is allowed.
Very well. I sense I have some degree of buy in from you. But how do we find them?
1. Real life booksellers. The original and best. If you truly have no idea where to start, go into a big bookshop (on a weekday if at all possible) and ask if they have any ideas of a book that might come close to fitting your description. If they find you one, go to the section of the shop they found it in and have a good snoop. Buy at least one book on your way out, for politeness.
2. Amazon breadcrumb trail. Work the algorithm in your favour. If you have one comparison title and you need more, amazon will do the hard work for you by suggesting a load of similar books. Click around, follow trails of recommendations, see what turns up.
3. Finding favourite publishers. When you have a few titles, make a note of who’s publishing this stuff. Different imprints have their own distinct characteristics. Is this a publisher who puts out a lot of vampire noir? Let’s see!
4. Social media and influencers. Another great way to find books (in general and specifically) is through influencers. Have a loo around insta and tiktok and see if you can find a few people who read voraciously and seem to share your taste. Search the hashtags. What book stacks are your existing comparison titles turning up in? Is there anything else there that strikes you as interesting? What new releases are they excited about? For bonus points, start your own booktok and get free advance copies of books in exchange for feedback and exposure. If you’re really serious about a particular genre and you want to read EVERYTHING that’s new in it, this s a great way to save money, keep accountable and potentially make a few connections.
As ever, if you have any questions about any of this then let me know! What are your WIP’s comparison titles?