How to Pick Comp Titles for Your Query Letter
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A query letter is a short document, but every sentence in it matters. As a book editor, I spend a lot of time reviewing and editing query letters for authors who are on the hunt for a literary agent. And one crucial element of the query letter I often see issues with are the comparable titles, or comp titles for short.
I often see query letter comp titles that aren't an appropriate fit. Or, sometimes the letter doesn’t provide comparable titles at all. Both of these scenarios can put you at a disadvantage, because having good comp titles in your query letter can help you stand out in an agent’s submissions inbox.
In this article, I'm going to give you a complete overview of what comparable titles are, why they're important, and how to pick comp titles for your book.
In regards to my background, I used to work at a literary agency, as well as at Random House in New York City. I now use that experience to give aspiring authors tips on how to strengthen their manuscripts and pursue traditional publishing. The tips in this article come straight from my time going through query inboxes at a literary agency, so you can have insider knowledge on the process as well.
With all of that in mind, let’s dive in.
What Is a Comparable Title?
Comparable titles are books you identify in your query letter that are similar to the story you are working on. These books can be similar in content, style, or audience. They are likely also in an adjacent or the same genre as your manuscript.
I recommend having two or three comparable titles in your query letter. Having one just isn't quite enough, and having more than three runs the risk of looking like you're not clear on your vision for your story.
Some writers will use comparable authors instead of comp titles, saying that their work is similar to the authors' overall style. However, I recommend narrowing in on specific book titles because writers can have multiple different styles and write in different genres over the course of their careers. Comparing yourself to an author isn't quite specific enough.
Why Are Good Query Letter Comp Titles Important?
There are many reasons why comparable titles are important. To begin with, they help give the agent a sense of the flavor of your book in a more specific way than the genre classification alone can give.
For example, Wolf Hall and A Gentleman in Moscow are both considered historical fiction. However, they have very different styles and appeal to very different audiences. Saying that your book is like Wolf Hall or A Gentleman in Moscow actually gives the agent a specific sense of what your novel is like.
Secondly, having some good comp titles in your query letter shows the agent that you have a sense of what the contemporary publishing landscape looks like and what types of books are being published today.
The last reason actually falls outside the query letter’s purview. Acquisition editors at publishing houses have to put together comp titles too, before making a book deal offer to a literary agent. Specifically, if an agent comes to them with a submission they want to make an offer for, that editor has to find recently published comparable titles.
They use those comp titles to create a profit and loss statement, which will calculate how much money they can offer your book based on those comp titles’ previous book sales. The profit and loss statement will calculate an estimated revenue from those comparable titles’ book sales and produce an advance amount the publisher can offer you if yours is expected to sell similarly.
So there is a business and financial underpinning to the comp titles that is important to understand. Including these comp titles at the very start of the traditional publishing process, in your query letter, is impressive to the agent and helps them sell your book that much easier.
How to Pick Comp Titles Effectively
When you're looking for query letter comp titles, what are the qualities you should be looking for? After all, there are millions of books out there. How do you pick comp titles that would make for a good comparison? This is important to nail because if you have bad comp titles, they can be a detriment to your query letter.
One quality to look out for is if the comp title is recently published. I would put the maximum at five years old because you want the comparable titles to reflect the current book market. It isn't relevant to reference something that's been published 20, 30, or even 10 years ago. These books are not necessarily reflective of what readers are gravitating toward today.
Secondly, you want the comparable titles to have successfully sold. Remember, you are saying that your book is going to appeal to the same readership as these books, which theoretically means there is an appetite for this type of book and it will sell.
This is tricky, as you want to avoid outlier bestsellers like Harry Potter and Gone Girl. While your book might be as good as those two, other random factors and luck contributed to their wild success. They aren’t realistic comp titles for anyone, and the agent knows that. They aren't going to knock you for not being the next Harry Potter. They just want to see that you are coming up with realistic comp titles.
You can get a sense of a book’s sales based on the number of Goodreads and Amazon reviews. I would look for books that have over a thousand reviews on either platform. That's a good indication they've sold pretty well.
The last element to consider here is choosing comparable titles that have been traditionally published, over being indie or self-published. While this is my recommendation, and not a firm rule, it is because your agent is going to try to sell your book to one of the Big Five publishing houses. Therefore, it makes the most sense to compare your book to a traditionally published book.
I would say one exception would be if the comp title is a breakout indie or self-published bestseller, and you are having trouble finding a similar traditionally published title.
But how do you determine if a book has been traditionally or self-published? These days, with the advent of online publishing, the lines are getting more blurred. If you’re on the Amazon book page, scroll down to the book details and see if the publisher listed is one of the Big Five publishing houses’ imprints. Alternatively, you can click on the “Look Inside” preview section and scroll to the copyright page.
Where to Find Comparable Titles
Finally, where do you look for query letter comp titles? I have a few suggestions here. The first is to browse Goodreads. The Goodreads website allows users to classify books under lists, where members of the community make lists of books that fit a certain category. For example, there is one called “Medicine and Literature.” If your book is about a doctor or has a medical element to it, then looking through that list can be helpful.
Secondly, Amazon is a great place to look because it is the biggest repository of books across all publishers. They also have a robust genre and sub-genre classification list, so again you can find your novel’s category and peruse what’s there. It’s pretty easy to tell if a book has sold well, as Amazon has its ranking system, so you can get a sense of a book's popularity that way.
Third, if you have enlisted beta readers or a professional editor, it doesn't hurt to ask them if the manuscript reminded them of any books they've read or heard about in the marketplace.
Lastly, I recommend doing your own reading in your genre. Not only will you gain actual knowledge on the comp title you’re reading, but it will help you improve the quality of your writing overall, as you are seeing what other published authors are doing. Take it on as a research project to read some of the most popular books in your given genre.
I hope this article helped you understand the importance of the comparable titles in your query letters, as well as gave you some practical tips on how to go about finding them and what to look for.
Thanks so much for reading and happy writing!