Writing Blog Number 2

20240709 Comparison Economy

Comparison Economy

A question many publishers and agents are asking of potential authors more and more is one I have always struggled with:

What other books is your book like?

They need this information for a number of reasons:
1) so they know which slush reader to send your manuscript to;
2) to get an idea of the sort of books you read, so the sort of authors you read, and so the sort of work you might subconsciously emulate;
3) if they might not even bother reading your book;
4) for future potential marketing;
5) to see if it's true or not, so you didn't just search Goodreads for a title that might look the same;
6) to see if you are merely chasing trends; &/or
7) to see how current your work might be.

Yes, some of them are contradictory.

The reason I find it so difficult is that I try to write a story I want to read that I cannot find anywhere else. Also, I tend to read older books a lot of the time, so my reading is rarely current (except for the bad book club).

This can be an issue. So, what can you do if you find this question difficult to answer?

Here's what I have done:
A) asked my beta readers. So for the book my daughter recently finished beta reading, she told me two works it might be like. Patch of Green I used older books (Day of the Triffids, specifically);
B) asked one of the librarians I have come to know. Better than Goodreads because they are actual people; &
C) I have even done the Goodreads method, but I have then found the book at the library and done a quick read. I don't trust the reviewers or blurbs.

This is a relatively recent thing. When i started submitting seriously at the start of the 2000s, we were never asked this; since about 2010, it has become more and more frequently seen.

In my last university degree, one of the lecturers put it like this: "Publishers don't care what your book is like at the moment. they care what book your book is like. Or, more often, what film is your book like."

Note that, and I have seen it once this year. The question was: What book or film is your book like? This is because more and more - and this was the case in the 1990s as well, I will hasten to add; it is not new - agents and publishers have one eye to a movie/TV show based on what they publish/ represent. In the 1999s it was because the cost of making films dropped with the cheapening of technology. Now it's because there is an absolute glut of studios and streaming services that need to fill their quotas.

What does this mean for those looking to be traditionally published?

That you need to keep an eye on the market. Just something else to add a complication.