Writing Tip #10: You’re Using Comp Titles Wrong

A writing tip a day for every day of 2025

Comparative titles (or comparison titles, depending on who you ask) are an important part of the pitching process. They can also help you focus your editing efforts and if you decide to self-publish, they can help you find your readers and market your work appropriately.

And most people are using them wrong.

Comp titles are meant to answer the question, “If your book goes home with a reader and lives on their bookshelf, what other books are already on that shelf?”

These should be recent titles, released in the last 2–3 years, in your genre and category. They should be selling well enough to demonstrate that, yes, people want to spend money on a book like yours, but not so well that it’s unrealistic to expect the same outcomes for your work. If you’re going through traditional publishing, they should be traditionally published titles, too.

Where a lot of people go wrong is they try to use plot elements.

“There just aren’t that many books about sisters roadtripping while one of them has cancer!”
“I think my book sounds like X author, but I’m writing about vampires in North Carolina instead of witches in Missouri.”
“The only metal-based fantasy system with a female protagonist I can find is by a huge bestseller.”
“I can’t find anyone writing about aspiring rock musicians dating insurance agents in the UK.”