What Makes a Good Book Comp

Ever been asked what are comp titles for your book? If you're working on a book, this is a good thing to know. If you're trying to land an agent or write a book proposal, it's something you must know. So if you're wondering what the heck that means or how you figure it out, well, good news. This video is for you. Hey there. I'm Julie the Book Broad, founder of Book Launchers. Now admittedly, comps and comp titles are more of a subject for traditional book proposals than self publishing authors writing their book. But it is still a wise thing to know because knowing what books are going to be considered comparable titles to the book you're writing or marketing is useful whether you're looking for a book deal or you're the one that will be deal in the books. What is a comp title? Well, a comp title is a book that's, well, comparable to yours. This means it's similar to yours in a hopefully fairly obvious way without being the same. So I don't know. You could say this is the Rich Dad, Poor dad of Fitness, or the Jen Sincero Financial Advice meets Vanessa Van Edwards Body Reading to make the ultimate guide for being a savvy single woman. It tells you the personality of what you're writing, gives some clarity around where it sits, and most importantly will hopefully get somebody interested in what you're writing or what you've written. They do this in Hollywood all the time. Imagine I'm pitching my new movie, Arctic Aces. I could say Arctic Aces merges Top Gun with a survival adventure. This movie would follow a fighter jet pilot who crashes in a remote Arctic region. He must survive the harsh environment while evading enemy forces in a high stakes game of cat and mouse. Okay, I am not a fiction writer so my fiction friends please don't cringe too much. But I am a huge Top Gun fan so so we'll go with that. But your comp titles need to really give the person reading or that you're telling about your book the vibe or the feeling that you're giving with the tone and advice inside of your book. Think of how you might tell a friend about the book that you've just read when they know nothing about it. You would probably relate it to a book they definitely know and say it's like that. But now if you are using this to pitch to an agent rather than figure out how to market and sell your book or figure out who to compare your book to in order to look at category selection and style of marketing well, you really do have to have comps and those comps have to be really well known or that, you know, sold really well because that implies that your book will be in demand too, which is what agents and publishers are going to care about. Now, for self publishing authors, you really do need to pay attention to comps because you do want to be like books that are high in demand, but you don't want to be up against hundreds upon hundreds of books that are high in demand. Leadership books. Yeah. If you are in the leadership book category, well, the saturation is real and you better put a good old spin on it. And even then I hope you have a really good plan for what you are going to use the book for because leadership books just aren't an easy sell because, well look, Dale Carnegie, Simon Sinek, Brene Brown, John C. Maxwell. Oh my. Keep scrolling. And you keep seeing seeing big names that have been on this list forever. So you better go niche and solve a real clear problem for a real clear audience if you're writing a leadership book. Or you better have a good plan for how it's going to benefit you, even if it's not topping the Amazon charts or the bookstore charts for that matter. If you have too many pretty good selling comps, well, you see the problem. But also having no other books to compare to is also a problem because that would tell me, or at least make me ask, does anybody want a book like that? So how do you figure all this out? Well, besides using Amazon and looking at the categories where you think you'd find your book and then scrolling through the bestseller titles in there, think about how you would describe this book to a client or a friend using other books or media as points of reference. For our purposes as a self publishing services company at Book Launchers, we need to know your category and comp titles for book cover creation, book positioning, for marketing strategy, and of course for helping making sure that we're helping you hit the right tone and mark with your book entirely. If you don't give us some sense of that, we'll have to do some research with tools like publisher rocket, browse the pages of Barnes and Noble, the library shelves, Amazon and look at books that are a fit. Our writers and coaches sometimes will even read books that you recommend or suggest are going to be like the book you want to create so they know what you're really trying to go for or will buy a book to look at how it's styled and set up. Because being like a book someone just enjoyed is really, really powerful. Ultimately, the big thing if you're submitting a book proposal or looking for an agent is being able to convey in one line what your book is like and how it will be positioned for interest and demand in the market for self publishing. Well, that's helpful as well. But even more important is knowing the category and making sure you have the positioning in that category right so you can stand out and take the top place in the shelves and most importantly, the minds of your reader. Okay, now that you got this piece mastered, the next thing you need to know is this thing that YouTube recommends right here. And if you've got that mastered, well, how about these cover design tips right here? Both are fabulous. Head on over, say hi when you get there.