So...comp titles. This is a topic I have unpopular opinions about. Yes, publishers want to know there's an audience for your book by comparing it to other books that have sold well recently. But that's why all the books sound the same today and nobody is doing well. Ideally, every book should be unlike anything that's come before it. What the readers really want, I think, is something different. They just don't want to gamble on something they have to pay so much for without knowing whether they'll like it. Books are a singular product in that they're the only thing you purchase sight unseen, and in many cases can't get a refund for. Those unhauls on YouTube represent a lost fortune.
Worse yet is trying to figure out what to compare your book to. The book that inspired my current wip is Song of Achilles, and yes, I'm planning to use that as a comp title. But it's 14 years old now, and there really hasn't been a book like it since. Whenever I search for similar novels, all I get is a string of Greek myths that otherwise have nothing in common.
To my mind the main storyline was the romance. Romance can take place in any place or time period, though, so I'm not really interested in the ancient Greek setting. Mine takes place in the equivalent of Georgian/Regency England, but in a fictional country. That makes it a Ruritanian romance, right? Have there been any Ruritanian romances since The Prisoner of Zenda back in 1894? I suppose that gives me one more comp title.
And just this morning LitHub published a post about books with fictional settings. I'm wondering now if any of these could be comp titles...
Worse yet is trying to figure out what to compare your book to. The book that inspired my current wip is Song of Achilles, and yes, I'm planning to use that as a comp title. But it's 14 years old now, and there really hasn't been a book like it since. Whenever I search for similar novels, all I get is a string of Greek myths that otherwise have nothing in common.
To my mind the main storyline was the romance. Romance can take place in any place or time period, though, so I'm not really interested in the ancient Greek setting. Mine takes place in the equivalent of Georgian/Regency England, but in a fictional country. That makes it a Ruritanian romance, right? Have there been any Ruritanian romances since The Prisoner of Zenda back in 1894? I suppose that gives me one more comp title.
And just this morning LitHub published a post about books with fictional settings. I'm wondering now if any of these could be comp titles...
