I wrote a query letter! I have a title and a blurb! Next up: researching and choosing my “comp titles.”
Comparative titles, or “comp titles” are the books that we compare our own projects to in promotional and marketing materials, and notably, in agent query letters.
— Courtney Maum
I LOVED this part of the process, largely because I got to spend so much time in bookstores. In doing my research, I wasn’t looking for exact replicas of my book. I was looking for titles that I could use to compare and contrast with my themes, style, voice, etc. Think: It’s X meets Y with a sprinkling of Z.
Here are some of the books on my long list:
The Most of Nora Ephron - The patron saint of fun, indulgent, guilty feminist writing. I love love love her. But I can’t use her as a comparison. Comparing yourself to Nora Ephron is like saying “My book is going to be the next Eat Pray Love.” You just can’t do it.
Happy Go Lucky (and others) by David Sedaris - Distinctive voice, humorous storytelling. But also, he’s really great at setting: rural America + living abroad.
You Could Make This Place Beautiful by Maggie Smith - I love the structure and flow (short chapters, sometimes only 1-2 lines). I love her lyrical style and how she breaks the fourth wall. Plus, similar themes: family and writing/creative process.
What Kind of Woman by Kate Baer - I love the brevity and pace. We share similar themes of motherhood and womanhood.
Everything I Know About Love by Dolly Alderton - My themes are totally different from hers, but I like this title as a market/audience contrast: My book is to mothers-of-a-certain-age what Dolly’s book is to 20-somethings.
When Women Were Birds: 54 Variations on Voice by Terry Tempest Williams - What does it mean to have a voice? Also themes of motherhood and womanhood.
Bomb Shelter: Love, Time and Other Explosives by Mary Laura Philpott - “Tackles big issues with humour and hope.”
Plus a handful of memoirs in essays: Notes to Self by Emily Pine, The Crane Wife by CJ Hauser, Heating and Cooling by Beth Ann Fennelly, More Than a Woman by Caitlin Moran and 100 Essays I Don’t Have Time to Write by Sarah Ruhl.
The titles I chose for my query letter
As I mentioned in a previous post, the query letter is fairly standard and formulaic. So even though all these titles (and more) were inspirational in some way, I had to distil the long list into a short paragraph. Here it is, (for now):
PATHOLOGICALLY GRATEFUL is to mothers of a certain age what Everything I Know About Love is to 20-somethings. It blends the lyrical structure of You Could Make This Place Beautiful, the themes of What Kind of Woman and the humorous storytelling of David Sedaris. When PATHOLOGICALLY GRATEFUL gets turned into a TV Show, it will share an audience with FX’s Better Things - smart, escapist and funny - but also a little heartbreaking.
What do you think of my choices?
Does it paint a clear-ish picture? As I’m writing this, I wonder if You Could Make This Place Beautiful and What Kind of Woman are too similar. Maybe I just need one of them. Does the TV show reference throw you? In any case, this is a work in progress! Curious to hear your thoughts.
xo, L