This week! Books!

We’re easing into summer, typically a quieter time in publishing, but I found some links for you.

The Rise of Ragebait Lit – Maris Kreizman, Harper’s Bazaar – Are people talking about books again??

Gulliver’s Warning – Fintan O’Toole, The New York Review of Books – Happy three hundredth birthday to Jonathan Swift’s wildly inventive novel channeling his loathing of colonialism.

Think for Yourself – Dan Chiasson, The New York Review of Books – Another argument that there’s value in engaging with the kind of connective writing you may be tempted to brush past with A.I.

No, Artificial Intelligence Is Not Conscious – Ted Chiang, The Atlantic – Ted Chiang has long been one of the most astute writers on A.I., and he dismantles any notion that A.I. is–or could be–conscious.

How Lit Mags Are Dealing With AI-Slop Submissions – Jasmine Vojdani, Vulture – A look at the front lines of A.I. slop evaluation.

About those Dad Books – Kenneth Whyte, SHuSH – More on last week’s WSJ article on the supposed decline of “Dad Books.” Kenneth Whyte picks apart the less-than-convincing evidence the article relied upon to cite a trend.

Author Jon Klassen’s prestigious award win reflects a broader shift in children’s literature – Christophe Premat, The Conversation – A look at children’s book author and illustrator Jon Klassen, and what recent attention for his work says about perceptions of children’s literature.

This week in bestsellers

Here are the top five NY Times bestsellers in a few key categories. (All links are affiliate links):

Adult print and e-book fiction:

1. The Divorce by Freida McFadden
2. The Deal by Elle Kennedy
3. The Final Target by Nora Roberts
4. Theo of Golden by Allen Levi
5. Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke

Adult print and e-book nonfiction:

1. The Land and Its People by David Sedaris
2. Strangers by Belle Burden
3. The Hero Next Door by Martha Raddatz
4. All We Say by Ben Rhodes
5. Liar’s Kingdom by Andrew Weissmann

Young adult hardcover:

1. Behind Five Willows by June Hur
2. The Escape Game by Marissa Meyer and Tamara Moss
3. Release Me by Tahereh Mafi
4. Fake Skating by Lynn Painter
5. If Only I Had Told Her by Laura Nowlin

Middle grade hardcover:

1. Wonder by R.J. Palacio
2. Wombat Waiting by Katherine Applegate
3. KPop Demon Hunters by Jessica Yoon
4. Refugee by Alan Gratz
5. Unsettling Salad! by Aaron Reynolds

This week on the blog

In case you missed them, here are this week’s posts:

• How to come up with good comp titles for your book

And keep up with the discussion in all the places!

• Follow me on Bluesky and Threads

And finally:

If you’re a sports fan of a certain age, a heaping dose of addictive nostalgia dropped this week in the form of two very entertaining games: 82-0 for basketball and 7a0 for soccer. Poof goes your productivity!

Have a great weekend!

Need help with your book? I’m available for manuscript edits, query critiques, and coaching!

For my best advice, check out my online classes, my guide to writing a novel, and my guide to publishing a book.

And if you like this post: subscribe to my newsletter!

Photo: Pasadena, CA. Follow me on Instagram!

A good “comp title” can help put a literary agent or reader in the right mindset when you’re trying to pitch your book. A bad one may leave their eyes glazing over.

In the past, comp titles were broadly optional, but they’ve become more and more essential in a tighter marketplace. Above all, if you’re seeking publication, it behooves you to know the individual flavor of your book, where you fit in the market, and who your readers are.

So what are comp titles and how do you come up with good ones?

In this post I’ll cover:

• What are comp titles?
• Your goals for comp titles and what to watch out for
• How to come up with good comp titles (and why you shouldn’t fear them)
• Tools that can help you
• Two approaches for utilizing comp titles

Also, don’t miss my online classes on finding a literary agent, and if you need help, reach out for editing or book a consultation!

What are comp titles?

Comp titles are books (or occasionally TV shows/movies) that are in the same vein as yours. Pretty simple, right?

Not so much. There isn’t even a consensus within the industry on what the word “comp” is shorthand for, whether it’s “competitive titles” or “comparative titles” or “comparison titles.”

To further confuse matters, there are two broad categories of comp titles that don’t always neatly overlap:

• Market comps: More narrowly focused on the current marketplace for your book’s category/genre, as in books/authors that have been successful within the last 5-10 years. Example: “My contemporary romance will appeal to readers of Beach Read by Emily Henry and Tangled Up In You by Christina Lauren.”
• Vibes comps: More focused on stylistic similarities, even if you’re drawing upon older books and movies/TV shows. Example: “Think Jurassic Park meets Fifty Shades of Grey“

On your publishing journey, you’ll find that both types of comp titles have their uses.

If you’re providing a comp title to a publishing professional like a literary agent or an editor at a publishing house, use market comps because competitive titles are crucial to how literary agents assess the viability of projects and how editors build their P&Ls when they’re preparing offers. The goal here is to give the agent/editor a sense of the current market for your book (as well as your familiarity with said market).

If you’re writing jacket copy or pitching your book casually, you might utilize vibes comps because your goal here is to place yourself alongside books and authors that are in the same ballpark as yours. As in, “If you liked that, you might like mine.”

Comps used to only be mandatory in nonfiction book proposals, but they’ve increasingly become crucial for fiction too. I used to advise novelists to only utilize comp titles in query letters if they had strong ones on hand, but now I advise everyone to include comp titles.

Your goals for comp titles and what to watch out for

While the overarching goal for both types of comp titles is the same (you want to inspire someone to read your book), there are nuances for what you’re trying to achieve with market comps and vibes comps. Here’s your mission:

• Market comps: You want to show a publishing professional there’s a current market for your book and that you are familiar with said market.
• Vibes comps: You want to inspire a high-concept sense of intrigue in the listener/reader by making familiar archetypes feel fresh with an unexpected but easily comprehensible combination.

For market comps in a query letter, your core focus should be on books that were successful* within the last 5-10 years. The more recent the better. While your list of three titles may include a movie or TV show, I would strenuously encourage you to list at least one book that was published by a major publisher within the last 5 years or a highly successful self-published novel with an established fandom.

Do you see the asterisk next to the word “successful?” That’s because while it’s good to include bestsellers, for market comps I’d steer clear of books that have become such mega-bestselling household names they are read by non-readers who maybe pick up one book a year (e.g. The Da Vinci Code, Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, etc.). The reason for this is twofold:

1. These books are unicorns whose trajectories are unrealistic to emulate.
2. Including them does not tip off an agent that you have a more nuanced grip on your knowledge of your market.

For vibes comps, you’re really just aiming for a sense of intrigue. You want to inspire the words “Huh, that sounds interesting,” and there aren’t really rules on how you get there. Heck, the LitRPG genre as a whole is basically a vibes-based comp of “fantasy novel meets Dungeons & Dragons.”

So how do you come up with these bad boys? Here are some tips.

How to come up with good comp titles (and why you shouldn’t fear them)

Here’s what you do: You sit down in front of a laptop. You brainstorm. You do some research. You stay sitting until you have a list of comp titles.

This isn’t magic, people. There’s no substitute for putting in the work.

There are tons of books out there, and it shouldn’t take you more than a couple of hours of good solid market research to find some comps in your zone.

If you’re struggling to find anything even remotely in the vein of your book, you may have written something truly idiosyncratic, which may require a gut check around whether you got too far out there for traditional publishing, or you may be thinking too narrowly. Particularly for market comps: Cast a wide net.

Remember: you’re just looking for what your potential readers are reading/watching in your genre/category. It doesn’t have to be an identical stylistic or subject matter match.

And don’t psych yourself out. Some authors make like ostriches with their heads in their sand because they’re terrified to see what else is out there, due to some combination of:

1. They’re afraid they’re going to find a book too similar to theirs that will kill their chances.
2. They’re daunted by the idea that they’re going to have to read a bunch of new books.
3. They’re worried about other voices getting inside their head.

Do not worry about these things. A similar book out there won’t hurt your chances (it might even help you). And trust that your own voice will keep shining through. Familiarizing yourself with the market can only help you.

Now, I highly recommend that you read at least part of a book you’re including as a comp title, just to gut check whether it’s truly a fit for yours. And it’s advantageous to read widely in your genre.

But am I going to send you to jail if you don’t read the entirety of a book you include as a comp title? I will not. And no one else will either. Just go to a bookstore and read the opening, or utilize previews on Amazon, and utilize your time as best you can.

Tools for finding comp titles

You, my friend, have access to comp title jetpacks that authors of yore could have only dreamed about. It’s easier than ever to find comp titles thanks to Google, recommendation algorithms, and artificial intelligence.

First, particularly for market comps, it’s crucial to know your genre. From there, just Google by subject matter and genre, or go browse a bookstore to come up with an initial list of books that are broadly, even tangentially, in your zone. Don’t worry about how accurate they are just yet.

From here, go to those book pages on Amazon, Goodreads, and/or StoryGraph and see what else their algorithms recommend or which other books are on users’ bookshelves. Expand your list. Go to those book pages too. Your net will swiftly grow, and you can start narrowing down which books are the best fits.

You can also search Publishers Marketplace and see which books have sold recently in your genre/category, which is helpful because they distill books to pithy pitches.

Or? I’m not going to lie, this is an area where A.I. can be extremely helpful. If you input your plot/subject and ask for similar books published by major publishers in the last 5 years, A.I. chatbots like Claude, Gemini, and/or ChatGPT can give you a solid starting place very quickly. Just make sure to double-check that the books they’re recommending are real.

Two approaches for utilizing comp titles

There are two main approaches for formulating your comp titles for public consumption:

• Vibes comps: The classic “[BLANK] meets [BLANK].” Example: Conversations With Friends meets Alien (someone please write this). I also drew upon a variation of this approach when I pitched Jacob Wonderbar as being like “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy for kids.”
• Market comps: Simply list the titles in the form of “[MY BOOK TITLE] will appeal to readers of…” List both titles and authors. It’s not necessary to “prove” why you’re including these comp titles, such as listing the themes associated with each comp title, though you can nod to stylistic similarites/differences.

When you’re writing a nonfiction book proposal, a section of the proposal is typically devoted to competing titles in a bit more of a detailed way, with some basic analysis of how your proposed work compares. Note that this should be a bit more of a thoroughly researched evaluation of previously published books that compare to yours, and should include:

1. A super brief description of the comp title
2. How well the comp title sold (if you know it)
3. How your book is different

Try to be concise with these and spend no more than a paragraph on each one.

Go comp and prosper

We live in a very noisy world, and comp titles have become a crucial shorthand for how and where your book is going to stand out.

If you’re seeking publication, it pays to do this research, to read widely in your genre/category, and to avoid ostrich syndrome by staying abreast of the market.

Be accurate and honest, don’t overthink comps by getting too narrow, and remember that at the end of the day: it’s your story that really matters.

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED APRIL 18, 2018. UPDATED AUGUST 9, 2021.

Need help with your book? I’m available for manuscript edits, query critiques, and coaching!

For my best advice, check out my online classes, my guide to writing a novel, and my guide to publishing a book.

And if you like this post: subscribe to my newsletter!

Art: The Seventh Plague of Egypt by John Martin

This week! Books!

Dad Books Are a Dying Breed – Pamela Paul and Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg, Wall Street Journal / Are hardback books things of ‘great beauty’ or a dying art? – Jasmine Ketibuah-Foley and David Smith, The BBC – As I like to say, the sky has been falling in publishing every year for the last twenty years. In this week’s alarmist headlines, the WSJ extrapolates from a decline in nonfiction sales over the last few years to declare “dad books” dead. The slide is being accelerated by a 19% decline in politics and current events books (I have some theories…), but industry veterans worry podcasts are eating into sales. Meanwhile, a columnist in the UK declared the end of hardcover books because they’re too expensive, which the BBC then dove into.

Writing & Publishing Awards Have Difficult Decisions to Make Regarding AI – Jane Friedman – In the wake of the Granta A.I. controversy, industry expert Jane Friedman has a common-sense reckoning with the responsibility writing awards have to police A.I. usage, and ends up in a similar place as me. While decision-makers should educate themselves on what A.I.-generated writing typically looks like, good luck “proving” A.I. usage, and perhaps we should instead simply focus on the output, not the process.

Nonfiction Book Publishers Aren’t Remotely Ready for AI – Charlotte Klein, New York Magazine – And speaking of, in the wake of the controversy surrounding Steven Rosenbaum’s The Future of Truth: How AI Reshapes Reality including A.I.-hallucinated quotes, Charlotte Klein argues that when nonfiction publishers don’t even fact-check their books, they’re not remotely prepared for the A.I. wave.

What’s Missing from Belle Burden’s “Strangers” – Jessica Winter, The New Yorker – Did Belle Burden misrepresent the extent of her financial hardship in her divorce memoir? Jessica Winter argues her bestseller Strangers wasn’t transparent about her generational wealth. Social media backlash argued she referenced her privilege, then backlash to the backlash wondered why people instinctually carry water for the rich. And so the discourse turns…

Why Michael Crichton’s Best Novel Failed as a Movie – Ian Mackenzie, Lit Hub – For elder millennials like me, Michael Crichton’s Sphere was the apotheosis of the adult novels we were reading as impressionable teenagers. Ian Mackenzie looks back at the novel and its film adaptation.

The Rise of the Sensitivity Reader – Kyle Paoletta, The Nation – A review of a new book on the rise of sensitivity readers and what it says about the contradictions within a disproportionately rich, white industry assuming moral authority over what gets published, a responsibility that then gets shunted onto sensitivity readers. Though what’s the real harm in ensuring a book doesn’t unintentionally offend groups it’s going to be marketed to?

Why Is TikTok in This Book From 2006? – Angelina Mazza, New York Times – The publishing industry has quietly been revising reprints with updated cultural references for decades, a somewhat bewildering practice that has become newly controversial when someone noticed a reference to TikTok in a reprint of Pretty Little Liars, which was published in 2006. It’s particularly common in middle grade, as publishers argue confusing references might stop young readers in their tracks. What say you?

This week in bestsellers

Here are the top five NY Times bestsellers in a few key categories. (All links are affiliate links):

Adult print and e-book fiction:

1. The Ballad of Falling Dragons by Sarah A. Parker
2. Ironwood by Michael Connelly
3. The Deal by Elle Kennedy
4. Theo of Golden by Allen Levi
5. Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke

Adult print and e-book nonfiction:

1. Liar’s Kingdom by Andrew Weissmann
2. Strangers by Belle Burden
3. Suicidal Empathy by Gad Saad
4. This Is Me by Hayden Panettiere
5. How to Rule the World by Theo Baker

Young adult hardcover:

1. Release Me by Tahereh Mafi
2. The Escape Game by Marissa Meyer and Tamara Moss
3. Fake Skating by Lynn Painter
4. Us Dark Few by Alexis Patton
5. The Thorn Queen by Sasha Peyton Smith

Middle grade hardcover:

1. Wonder by R.J. Palacio
2. Wombat Waiting by Katherine Applegate
3. KPop Demon Hunters by Jessica Yoon
4. Unsettling Salad! by Aaron Reynolds
5. Growing Home by Beth Ferry

This week on the blog

In case you missed them, here are this week’s posts:

• How to research a literary agent
• Bransforums are closing. What’s next?

And keep up with the discussion in all the places!

• Follow me on Bluesky and Threads
• Check out the Bransforums

And finally:

Why Is It So Hard to Be Ordinary? – Joshua Rothman, The New Yorker – Anyone writing books and then seeking publishing has probably wondered why simply having fun writing doesn’t feel like enough. Joshua Rothman grapples with the universal pressure to be extraordinary.

Have a great weekend!

Need help with your book? I’m available for manuscript edits, query critiques, and coaching!

For my best advice, check out my online classes, my guide to writing a novel, and my guide to publishing a book.

And if you like this post: subscribe to my newsletter!

Photo: Newcastle, England. Follow me on Instagram!

I’ve decided to shutter the discussion forums at forums.nathanbransford.com, which I launched way back in 2009. Quite a lot has changed on the ole Internet during that time, and it’s been a herculean effort through time to beat back incessant waves of spam (shout out to John Shea for his tireless help here).

The forums will go dark on or around June 10, so please download anything you want to save before that time.

And… what’s next? Do you have any ideas on what you’d like to see? Should we rev up the Facebook group, start a Discord, or [insert your idea here]?

So. You have a finished and polished manuscript for fiction, or a finished and polished book proposal for nonfiction. You want a book deal. You need a literary agent.

Now what?

It’s tough out there for an author. There are literally hundreds of agents. Some are incredibly powerful and can transform your destiny with a few emails. Some are scam artists (knowingly or unknowingly) who are worse than having no agent at all.

How can you tell the difference? How do you figure out who you can trust?

Here is how to go about researching agents and compiling a target list for querying. I also offer online classes with exclusive resources on finding and working with agents that you can take at your leisure.

And if you need personalized help, I can help edit your query letter or you can book a consultation to ask questions.

Before you start searching for literary agents

Before you start the search, make sure you know the goals of your research:

• You need to create a list of reputable agents who represent your genre.
• You need to know their submission guidelines so you can then query them.
• You need to personalize your query, so keep track of tidbits you can use in your query.
  • (Think: “I chose to query you because I’m a huge fan of [Author agent has represented]” or “Anyone who has trained their goldfish to do tricks is fine by me.”)
• You need to develop “vibes” about agents to start determining who you might like to work with.

You might find researching literary agents to be a tedious task that will take you a while. However, you’re essentially looking for a future business partner. I do not recommend outsourcing your agent research, no matter how busy you are.

Look beyond the databases and check out newsletters and interviews.

And I have a present for you! Here’s a Google Docs spreadsheet that you can copy and use as you go about your research.

Please do not ask me for permission to edit the Google Doc. Go to the File Menu and select “Make a copy” if you want to use your own. To download the spreadsheet, go through the File menu within the doc to download it as a .xlsx file:

Now then. On to the search!

Know (and be honest about) your genre

Agents specialize. While they have some flexibility and autonomy around what they represent, they almost all have certain genres they do and don’t represent.

Why do they specialize? The advantages include:

• It allows agents to focus their networking on the editors and publishers that acquire certain genres.
• It’s hard to keep track of genre conventions, trends, and personnel for every single genre out there.
• Agents tend to have a better “eye” for certain genres than others. For instance, when I was an agent, I had a really hard time spotting good picture books so I didn’t represent them.
• It’s more enjoyable to specialize in genres you like.

You should know the genre of your work before you begin.

“BUT BUT BUT…” some of you are sputtering. “How can I POSSIBLY classify my unicorn paranormal science fiction novel that has a fantasy story arc with magic and the characters go back in time to the Civil War for a while AND THERE’S ROMANCE TOO. Also dinosaurs.”

Sure, your book may touch on a couple of different genres. But there really is only one question you need to answer when figuring out your genre: On which shelf would your book sit in a bookstore?

If you can’t answer that, you may have bigger problems than finding an agent. You must know your genre.

Start in the obvious places

Okay. So. You have your genre and you’re ready to start.

There are two places to look first:

1. Who represents your favorite authors in your genre? You can use the ol’ Google for this one, otherwise a good place to look is in the acknowledgments sections of books. The only exception to this is that you may want to avoid agents who represent something *too* similar to your work. Same genre? Cool. Eerily similar plot line? Might want to steer clear.
2. Who do people in your network recommend? Ask the people you know who have agents or who are connected to the business for recommendations (and by “people you know” I mean “people you actually know in real life who are familiar with your work”).

See if you can compile an initial list of names.

Supplement your literary agent research with online resources

The agents who represent the books you love and who you’ve been recommended may well comprise your initial “top tier” of agents. But you want to do more research than that.

There are a few services and online databases out there that can help. All of them allow you to filter by genre:

• Artificial Intelligence (like Gemini, Claude, or ChatGPT) – If you’re willing to input your query or plot into an AI, the robots can likely give you some agents who are in your zone. But do not rely on any results without double-checking them. The A.I.s can hallucinate and/or rely on outdated information.
• Publishers Marketplace – This is an invaluable database to find out who agents represent and what they sold to publishers. Note that the database isn’t completely exhaustive as it depends on agents self-reporting deals and agents may have reasons for not reporting some, but it’s as extensive as you’re going to find. Many agents have created their own pages with lots of good information. If you’re in the query trenches, it’s worth it to pony up for a subscription.
• The AALA Database – The Association of American Literary Agents (formerly the Association of Author Representatives) is a good place to look for reputable agents. All the agents abide by a canon of ethics, and have to meet certain criteria for membership. Not all ethical agents are members of the AALA so don’t necessarily write someone off if they’re not in the organization, but the agents in the AALA should be real.
• Manuscript Wish List – Some agents list their (sometimes overly specific) wishlists for book projects here.
• QueryTracker and Agent Query – These sites will allow you to cast a wider net, but you’ll definitely want to supplement your research to make sure the people you’re finding are reputable. QueryTracker also integrates with QueryManager, the portal that many agents now utilize for submissions.

Combing through these should give you a long list of people to query. Next you want to start winnowing your list down.

Confirm an agent’s bona fides

So. You now have a list of 100 or more agents you could potentially query. How do you know they’re real? Better yet, how do you know if they’re right for you and your unique book?

First off, make sure you know your rights as an author. Learn to spot major red flags and familiarize yourself with common scams.

There are two main buckets of agents you are looking to query:

1. Established agents who have a substantial track record of selling books to the five major publishers. Those five publishers are Penguin Random House, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, and Macmillan. These publishers have about five million imprints (e.g. Knopf is a part of Penguin Random House), so it can be just a tad confusing to figure out the agent’s track record by what’s on the spine of a book alone, but this infographic should help you if you’re in doubt. Don’t be fooled by a fancy agency website. If you can’t document sales to Big 5 publishers, it’s a red flag.
2. Young agents at reputable agencies who have put in a few years apprenticing for established agents. Everyone has to start somewhere, and sometimes young agents can be a good fit because they’re hungry and actively looking to build their list. But you want to make sure a young agent has learned the ropes from someone who really knows what they’re doing and didn’t just hang out a shingle. For instance, by the time I started taking on clients I had worked at Curtis Brown Ltd. for over two years, had sold audio and other subsidiary rights for bestselling authors, and had already worked with some of the biggest names in the business.

Another good place to look if you’re in doubt is the invaluable scam watchdog site Writer Beware, which tracks the latest schemes preying on authors.

Follow the literary agent’s submission requirements

Aside from making sure someone is reputable, make sure you know how the agent likes to receive their queries. You may be submitting to them via QueryManager, their work email, a different dedicated submissions email, or good old fashioned snail mail, though thankfully this has largely gone out of fashion.

Follow. The. Procedure. If the agent put the info out there they did it for a reason.

Can’t find any procedure? Email the agent the query directly (though don’t expect that you’ll necessarily hear back — they may not be actively looking for clients).

Also, take note of whether the agent is currently open for queries (some agents only accept queries in limited windows throughout the year), and if they have a “no response means no” policy. The industry has slowed down significantly in recent years, and many agents don’t send formal rejections. If you don’t hear back in their stated window (usually 4 to 12 weeks), consider it a pass.

Prioritize and PERSONALIZE

How should you rank your top prospective agents, the people you will query first? Go with your gut.

Get a feel for the books an agent represents. Follow them on social media, read their newsletters and/or interviews, and get a sense of their personality.

Rank your list, and plan to have your query out to about seven agents at a time, which gives you some wiggle room to freshen up your submission materials if you aren’t getting the request rate you want with your initial query.

You can’t know in advance who the perfect agent will be, and don’t get your heart set on any one agent, but you can get in the ballpark by getting a sense of whether you think you’d enjoy working with them.

As you’re doing this, TAKE NOTES. You can use those to personalize your query letter. Whew. Are you ready to start querying? Time to write that bad boy: How to write a query letter.

And let me know your favorite research tips in the comments!

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: June 5, 2017

Need help with your book? I’m available for manuscript edits, query critiques, and coaching!

For my best advice, check out my online classes, my guide to writing a novel, and my guide to publishing a book.

And if you like this post: subscribe to my newsletter!

Art: Haystacks by Vincent van Gogh