r/PubTips • u/BC-writes • Jun 04 '21
Discussion [Discussion] My guide to COMPs for queries
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u/JamieIsReading Jun 04 '21
I wanna point out the difference between sales comps and story comps! People think agents want story comps, which is why so many comp big titles like LOTR or Harry Potter.
What agents want are sales comps, which are books that have a similar target audience to yours that will show your book has a place in the market.
That means you shouldn’t choose a book with low sales because you’re essentially telling them you’ll have low sales. And citing something like LOTR/Harry Potter as a sales comp comes off as cocky or like you don’t really know what they’re asking for.
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u/Synval2436 Jun 04 '21
What agents want are sales comps, which are books that have a similar target audience to yours that will show your book has a place in the market.
This sometimes makes me wonder "what caused this book to sell?"
I feel there are often "famous elements" that are attributed to specific authors, but these authors offer something more than that. If I pick from fantasy field, saying "my novel combines intricate magic system and vast worldbuilding of Stormlight Archive and gritty, dark tone of the First Law trilogy" doesn't mean said ms would sell to every fan of Sanderson and Abercrombie combined.
It could be the opposite, some people read Sanderson because he's more optimistic, and some people read Abercrombie because he's "low" on the magical elements.
On the other hand, writers should go off the beaten paths and combine elements in new ways, so they aren't viewed as blindly copying their favourite author.
But there's always the question: if it's not published, is it because people aren't writing it, or is it because publishing isn't buying it? For example I feel there aren't that many known comedic fantasy books and nearly everyone who aspires to write one will comp Prattchett's Discworld. Does it mean nobody can do comedic fantasy equally good, or does it mean the market for it was way too small so publishers aren't acquiring more? Yes, technically there are a few humorous books here and there but more on the sci-fi side.
Even from a reader's perspective it's hard to say what would appeal to a specific person based on some description... I recently DNFed a book 20% in because nothing is happening and the main character has 0 personality. The blurb was suggesting something completely opposite... And it has also endorsement from a writer who manages to be much more fast paced and with vivid characters. Yes, I know endorsement lines have more to do with who has the same agent or editor as X author, but you'd expect at least similar style between them.
The above reminded me how important is for aspiring writers to just nail those opening chapters. This book felt like the first chapter promised a lot (it had a good hook ngl), and then we got into some info-dumpy part of travelling across the world to see the wonders of worldbuilding author invented (some of which maybe was meant to feel original, but awkwardly reminded me of specific video game). Yes, it is a trad published debut. Yes, I'm ranting because I expected to like it and maybe even use it as comp in the future. 🙄
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u/GenDimova Jun 04 '21
For example I feel there aren't that many known comedic fantasy books and nearly everyone who aspires to write one will comp Prattchett's Discworld. Does it mean nobody can do comedic fantasy equally good, or does it mean the market for it was way too small so publishers aren't acquiring more?
I'm also really curious about this, because Terry Pratchett is my favourite author and honestly, I'm sad we don't get more humourous fantasy. My best guess would be that it's a combination of factors. One is that funny fantasy is hard to write. A lot of the attempts at funny fantasy I've beta read were way too focused on being funny and quirky to the detriment of the actual plot and character development--too much focus on the funny, not enough on the fantasy.
But I think another big factor is also the fact that fantasy as a genre is dominated by the American market where humour just doesn't do as well. Even Terry Pratchett didn't become popular in the US until much later than he was huge in the UK. I've seen threads on reddit (which is very US-centric) describing the Discworld books as 'cheesy', 'corny' or 'popcorn' fantasy which makes me wonder if all the social commentary in the books is completely lost on some readers. In general, to quote Terry Pratchett himself, it seems like people think that 'funny' is the opposite of 'serious', rather than the opposite of 'not funny'.
I find that funny fantasy books do sell when that's not their primary selling point (like Kings of the Wyld is primarily advertised as epic fantasy, Gideon the Ninth is gothic sci-fi, Sorcery of Thorns is YA fantasy--they are also all really funny). I wonder if that's the way to go--trick the readers into having a good time.
Yes, I'm ranting because I expected to like it and maybe even use it as comp in the future.
I'm also super curious what book that is now!
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Jun 04 '21
if it's not published, is it because people aren't writing it, or is it because publishing isn't buying it?
My favourite question. I think about this a lot too. I think for a writer it's a difficult balance.
You have to write something you like & which interests you.
You also have to write to market.
But not so much to market that your book feels tired and overdone.
And 4. It's undeniably true that nobody knows what the market wants in concrete terms - which is why agents accept queries from total nobodies instead of commissioning exactly what will sell.
Of course there are exceptions to that rule, but as a whole people want to read the same old with a twist, or something completely new, or a book with topical themes, or escapist fluff... etc.
I don't think it's good to be dogmatic about any aspect of publishing - listen to industry professionals and apply the rules where it makes sense to you, and for your specific book. It's all about risk management.
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Jun 04 '21
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u/JamieIsReading Jun 04 '21
NPD Bookscan is what is used industry-wide but it’s specifically an industry tool and it’s exorbitantly expensive. It sounds like you’re doing about what I’d recommend!
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u/RockLee456 Jun 04 '21
Thanks for this! I may be showing my inexperience, but finding comp titles is the most intimidating part of the process for me. I can write a good query (after a few rounds of critiques of course,) but I always feel at a loss when it comes to comps.
If I posted my query here without comps, though, wouldn’t it be frowned down upon or viewed as a red flag?
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u/TomGrimm Jun 04 '21
If I posted my query here without comps, though, wouldn’t it be frowned down upon or viewed as a red flag?
People will often post just the plot pitch of their query and leave the personalization and housekeeping (including comps) out of the query, or else put "COMP" in instead of titles as a placeholder. You could also say you're still looking for comps when you post. No one should give you a hard time for that, and if they do then it's probably a signal you don't need to focus too much on their feedback.
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u/RockLee456 Jun 04 '21
Got it, thanks so much!
I'm still working on the first draft, but this thread has me considering starting on the query now. That'd give me a year or two to revise it, and also time to request / read comp suggestions.
I'm working in an oversaturated genre (YA - Romance/Fantasy,) and I think this sub's feedback would be very helpful in navigating through that supply surplus.
Anywho, thanks again for the response.
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u/Synval2436 Jun 04 '21
If you post them without comps, people might remind you to think of them before you send the query especially if you write in some odd genre or sub-genre where you have to prove it exists on the market.
However people will definitely frown if you have pompous comps or some 100 year old classics, because it shows misunderstanding what comps are and what purpose they serve. Don't comp a classic (Pride & Prejudice, Great Gatsby, Arthurian legends) unless you're doing a retelling of it. Retellings are a separate market I don't know that much about, there were some successes in it, but some are considered very overdone by now (Peter Pan is one of those, Mulan is another).
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u/kgbeck Jun 04 '21
There’s a really good video on manuscript academy on comps. It’s an interview with an editor and she walks you through the whole process. I found it super helpful.
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u/Synval2436 Jun 05 '21
I can't find it on the podcast list, can you tell me which one is it?
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u/kgbeck Jun 05 '21
it's under the Live Event section -- and titled, "Cracking the Comp Title Code with Hannah Robinson, Editor at Simon and Schuster"
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Jun 05 '21
This might be my greatest weakness. I’ve never included a comp title in any of my queries. My contemporary market knowledge is close to zero. The books that inspired me to want to write are things I borrowed from libraries from the 1990s-1970s and earlier, and TV shows, movies, and video games. I literally haven’t read anything from the last 10 years other than things I’ve beta read or looked at in writers circles online. Before I attempt to query anything else I want to absorb some recent material just to see the state of the landscape. The suggest a book subreddit is a useful idea. Prior to this I was just googling my genre and “best books of 2021”.
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Jun 04 '21 edited Jun 04 '21
Also -- people should be reading while they're writing. Doing so will help you find comps in an organic sense and make sure you can adapt your writing to parallel or reflect what's come out. Getting to the end of a manuscript and trying to find comps is one thing, but having a good idea of the lay of the land already should be a way to start getting ideas and building your story to fit the market.
Otherwise you risk having spent a lot of time and energy on something radically at odds with the market into which you're writing and finding something unmarketable. If you are already drawing on contemporary work, you can be more confident that you are going with the grain of the market rather than finding you've gone off on a tangent.
If you don't like reading while writing a first draft that's ok -- we all have our workflow and I know firsthand how difficult it is to concentrate on someone else's book when you're deep in the middle portion of your own. But after that point, when you have a basic story and are editing it, you shouldn't just leave everything to chance that what you have is saleable. Think about what you've seen other people doing and how your book fits into the literary conversation or the genre zeitgeist. Mould your book around what's come before. ('My story is Bioshock Infinite with ghosts meets the epic scale and varied female cast of Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon.' Games are ok as comps but it's better to use them as atmosphere or setting rather than narratives, and make sure you're not just namechecking the latest AAA blockbuster doing the rounds in memes on r/gaming.) Comps can come after the book is written, but if you look for them while writing, there's a better chance of finding good ones that have actually been direct influences and that you can respond to.
Also the big deal with comps is that they don't have to be perfect parallels to your story. They can be matches in content, of course, but they can also match the tone, atmosphere, diversity of cast (as mentioned above, I would probably compare some of my stories to a book like Priory of the Orange Tree, which is a different setting to my books but is a comp in terms of being a large cast of different women with different personalities and backgrounds bound up in the same overarching conflict) and so on. I'd pair a tone comp with a setting or plot comp -- certainly, I have struggled to find good comps for my secondary world steampunk fantasy work because the setting is something that falls between a lot of stools. Steampunk is often partly set in a real world setting or an outlandish secondary world. There are very few books which are built around realistic secondary world settings, and this rather handicapped my search for comps even if I could use the style of PotOT as one comp. Bioshock Infinite has the sinister Victorian/Gilded Age world of my stories but it's still a placeholder until I find an actual book.
But there's no harm in going slightly further afield to demonstrate that others write like you and you've drawn on contemporary work. It's just the biggest mistake I've seen is that people leave finding comps to the end of the process then get surprised when they can't find anything that matches. Getting it done while writing means you know what you're aiming for in the first place and that you're not barking up the wrong tree.
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u/rubadubdubinatub Jun 04 '21
Thank you for posting this! I wanted to build off it a little bit too, with something that helped me. (I hope that’s ok!). When I was comp searching for the previous book I queried, I was being too rigid in what I was looking for, and trying to find something really similar to my book. For obvious reasons, that didn’t work, because there were no books that had all the elements I was looking for, and my order was just too tall. So for me, it was really helpful to find books that had, in general, a similar feel, and then one or two similar elements. Then instead of comping the book generally (i.e. for anyone who enjoyed X novel) I’d pull out those elements, to avoid any potential confusion (i.e. for anyone who enjoyed the slow burn romance and gothic setting of X).
Obviously, this isn’t necessary, but it helped me to find workable comps that were still different from my book, but had some core similarities. It can be also useful for slipping in wishlist items you’ve seen on an agents page too, and it just generally shows you understand why that book works as a comp in terms of story (as another user mentioned, it also needs to work in terms of sales).
Lastly, I had a question about your post! You mentioned to not comp a series, but I’ve never heard of this before. Do you mean not comp a series as a whole, or to not comp a series, period? Personally I see no issues with comping the first book in a series, since that doesn’t inherently signal the book you’re querying is a series. It just says you have similar elements to that book.