How to come up with good comp titles for your book

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.

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Art: The Seventh Plague of Egypt by John Martin