What Comps Are (And How To Find Them)
If you’re interested in trying to get your book published, you might have heard of “comps”—short for comparisons—as one element of a query letter. And you also might have heard a lot of authors complaining about having to find comps—which, let’s get real, makes sense. It’s difficult! The perfect comp can be elusive, but when you find one, it can really make your query letter or pitch shine.
It can be tricky to understand why we need comps, and even trickier to find the perfect ones. Don’t worry though—this post can help!
When it comes to the comps that literary agents often (but not always) want to see in query letters, there are usually five key components. You want to look for books that are:
Similar to your manuscript in some way (more on this below)
Recent (usually the mark is less than 5 years old, but that depends on the age range and genre - for example, YA moves faster than PB as a genre in terms of trends, so you want to comp to a newer YA.)
Written by a debut author, if possible
Selling well, but not a mega-hit
Published by a traditional publisher (as in, not a self-published work)
Before we delve into how to find a comp that meets as many of these criteria as you can manage, it might be useful to understand why some agents want comps in the first place. There are a few reasons why well-thought-out comps can be useful to agents looking through queries:
When comps are similar to your manuscript, they let the agent know what to expect. Think about it like this: if you have a book that you’ve just read and loved, you might want to find a book that has the same feel, tone, general plot, setting, etc. Sometimes on book covers or in bookstores, you see “perfect for fans of XYZ”—meaning that fans of another book will find something similar to love in this book. This can be useful to an agent because it tells them that if they’re fans of one (existing) book, they will probably be fans of your (queried) book.
Comps show that you know the market you’re writing in. It’s rare (perhaps exceedingly so) that we get a book that’s unlike anything that’s ever been seen before. More typically, books fit into the existing market in one way or another. Because traditional publishing is a business, it pays to think about your book as a business proposition—what existing fan base would appreciate your book? Who would a publisher want to market to? Does your book hook into market expectations for a specific age range and genre? (For example, if you’re writing a rom-com, does it feature a happily ever after?) Comps can signal that you’re aware of market expectations, have read in your genre and kept up to date with what’s being released, and are able to compare your manuscript to recent releases.
When an agent sends a book out on submission (on “sub”), the agent will likely need to include comps in the pitch, because publishing houses make decisions, in part, on estimates of how many copies a manuscript might sell. One way this estimate is sometimes made is via benchmarking off of the sales of comps. If you’ve identified comps in your query letter, you make the job easier for your eventual agent!
Knowing why comps are useful will hopefully help motivate you to undergo the search for the perfect comps. Here are a few pieces of advice to help you on your way:
You can comp to a book on many different levels.
A book can be a comp because of the plot--that’s probably the most obvious way in which a book is similar to your manuscript. (For example, you might have written a book about a pirate teaming up with a mermaid, and you comp it to a book about a pirate teaming up with a siren.) Writers sometimes worry when they see books with similar plot points or about similar topics, but this is actually useful when querying. No two books are written the same way and I guarantee they’ll be different enough, so keep a collection of any similar books you happen upon as you draft, because this will help you when you write your query letter.
But a comp can also be based on other aspects too. Look for books that are similar in:
Narrative voice (the way the characters speak)
The author’s voice (the way they write)
An aspect of craft (books that use footnotes for color, books that are written in interlocking stories)
Themes of the book (identity, belonging, etc.)
The book’s atmosphere/vibe/tone
While these elements might not seem obvious as things to make a comparison based on, they absolutely play a role in reader interest—and that makes them valid things to comp to in a query letter!
It’s worth spending (some) time finding the right comp.
If you’re lucky enough to have the time and resources, read widely in your genre. Comps are telling agents that you know the market, and you know where your book will belong in that market. Part of how you come to know the market is by studying it through reading. And plus, reading helps you to improve your craft!
But, if you don’t have the time to read (which is ok!), you can still find comps. Here are a few tips:
Make sure you stay up to date on new releases via book bloggers, twitter, e-newsletters like Publisher’s Marketplace Publisher’s Lunch, Goodreads reviews, etc. Even just reading the short summaries that books get when they debut can be useful for determining if something is a good comp. Also, a lot of times, if you find one comp that you feel is solid, looking up the authors who blurbed it can lead you to other authors who write similar stuff.
A really handy way to find comps is to search Goodreads or Storygraph (or just the plain internet) for lists of books that share some features with your own: “YA books about sisters,” “adult books featuring Greek mythology,” “picture books with animal protagonists.” I do this on Amazon and Barnes and Noble too, and see what pops up. Same with end-of-year roundups, genre-specific awards lists, etc.—anywhere books are grouped and curated by topic, genre, etc., you could find your perfect comp.
If you’re able, take a trip to your local library and/or bookstore, because sometimes an hour of wandering the aisles can be more valuable than hours of googling (bonus tip: ask booksellers or librarians to give you some recommendations!)
You can use non-book media as comps.
With my editing clients, I sometimes include a non-book property as a comp. This works too! I like to intermingle non-book comps with book comps, but using movies, video games, plays, songs, etc. can be an effective tool for conveying content, tone, and vibes. I find that this is most effective when it’s a very widely known piece of media, like the game Animal Crossing or the new Taylor Swift album or the movie Titanic.
But try to stay away from using only mega-popular books as comps.
Stick with books that sold well (which you can tell if they made lists, won awards, and most importantly, got later books in their series published)—not books that flopped—but also not books that hit mega-big and got made into movies and TV shows. Using one of these can be effective, but try your best to mix it with a solid mid-list choice. This shows you know the market beyond the best-known books in the genre.
One big caveat to this is that “doing well” is, in huge part, due to marketing dollars from the publisher. Marketing dollars don't go as much to books by BIPOC/queer/marginalized authors. It is 100% harder to find comps for these stories, even though it shouldn’t be. If you need to comp to a hit book because the industry has sidelined stories from your perspective, you definitely should. It’s much harder to find comps for marginalized stories, so marginalized authors should especially keep in mind that:
At the end of the day, comps are subjective.
Try to find a comp as new as possible—and a debut novel would be great. Try to find a book that did well, but not mega-well. But these are not hard and fast rules, only guidelines. Better a good comp that you’re happy with than sticking to these suggestions.
Comps are subjective! Some agents don’t find comps useful at all! Remember, it’s not likely that an agent will reject you on comps alone, and they’re just one tool for agents to evaluate your manuscript, that’s all. Keep this in mind, and don’t sweat it (or delay querying) if you can’t find “perfect” comps.
Be aware that twitter pitch contest comps are very different.
If you’re on writing twitter, you’ve seen pitch contests with big, splashy comp titles (SONG OF ACHILLES X HUNGER GAMES, or HANDMAID’S TALE X SHADOW&BONE). This is completely separate, and don’t mistake this for what you should be doing in a query letter. Twitter pitch comps are meant to get attention, while query comps are meant to show something a bit different. You can use separate comps in your twitter pitches and your query letter!
And that’s it! Hopefully this guide helps you find the perfect comp. Good luck searching!