Piper Nuelle

The writing world is full of technical mumbo jumbo that for an outsider or newbie to the written world is hard to understand or translate into normal, everyday technical terms. There are quite often occasions when I come across a word or phrase and I’m left having to ‘Google‘ the term or ask around my friends or other authors to see what the meaning of it is. Because of that, I have decided to be your friend when you are in need, I will let you know what certain terms and terminology means when I come across them here on my blog, that way they will be easy for you to find but we can also find out what things mean together. It means you don’t have to feel silly, or dumb for not knowing the answer to something or not understanding what something means. My blog is to help me learn new things by researching and help me grow as an author, but also to help you with my research so you don’t have to, we can learn and grow together into the clever, smart and totally awesome authors we deserve to be.

So todays terminology is – ‘Comp Title’… And it is something that agents or publishers may ask for when you are pitching your book idea to them.

The Comp meaning in this sense is ‘Comparison’, and the title meaning in this sense is ‘Another book or a book title’, but they marry together by becoming ‘Comparison Title’. But, it basically means a book which is comparable to your own, whether it be the title, the cover, the theme, the genre, the style etc and so on. Basically you could place them side by side and they would be similar and easily comparable.

But why are they important?

If you are pitching your book to an Agent, Publisher, Television series producer etc, it is used to help those people understand your book, your readership, your audience and whether or not it has potential to make them money as well as you. The stronger the ‘Comp’ the more it can demonstrate that your novel idea has a market to be sold in.

Should you only use Traditionally Published books as potential ‘Comp titles’?

Yes and No. Experts in the field will prefer you to compare to ‘Traditionally Published’ books because they are in effect Solicited work, (Work which has basically been okayed and approved by an industry expert and official such as an agent or publisher and is already on shelves in bookshops making money) Which in turn means the book has been risk factored and seen to have potential to make money. Because of this if you compare your book to a traditionally published one, they are more likely to have heard of the title, know where it would sit on a book shelf and can see where you book may fit on their books to make them money. You can try and use Self Published titles too, but the rule of thumb is to go for one that has been successful, that people know about and maybe even ended up traditionally published because it done so well.

The whole idea is to ‘Sell’ your book to the agent or publisher, by saying ‘Look at these books that are similar to mine, they sold well and made money and so will mine‘.

How many ‘Comp Titles’ do I need?

The ideal number of ‘Comp Titles’ you may need when pitching your book idea is two or three. One would be too little, it wouldn’t show enough data, or the broadness of where your book can sit, but anymore than three and it’s overkill and you may end up making yours look like it may fall into the void or that the market for that book is too over saturated.

How to choose ‘Comp Titles’?

Best way is to read, the more you read the more you know which books fall into your genre and are similar to yours and take notes as you read them. Also visit bookshops and have a nosey at the shelves and see which titles jump out at you and where they sit, take photo’s and again take notes. You can also use online tools and or look online to see which books fall into your category. You can even visit your local library and speak to the librarian and see what they recommend.

Hope this has helped you today to understand some more writer come author terminology. And if there is anything you think I should add to this or for other terms and words then please give us a shout.

Take care, xo Piper xo