The value and limitations of “comp” titles in publishing
How to use comp titles and meeting the Pequad’s crew
COMPS
What is a “comp” in publishing?
In publishing a popular shorthand for describing a book someone else hasn’t read is comparing it to other books: this book is x meets y, or sometimes a more sporting this book is x meets y with a dash of z (from there you can add a “twist” or a “sprinkle” or any number of other cooking verbs you see fit). Welcome to the world of comparative titles, also known as “comps.” Lots of people hate this convention, both on the inside and the outside of the publishing industry. For many, it’s the greatest reminder that the book business is a business and not a creative pursuit for the pure love of art.
Coming from an economics background, when I first heard the term “comp”, it evoked the word “competitive” not “comparison”. Competitive analysis in finance and investing is a form of valuing companies based on their peers/competitors. E.g., if there are two similar sized canned fish companies, it might be a useful exercise to see how efficient they are compared to each other, or, more typically, that if one company is valued at three times its sales then another similar company should be valued roughly the same way. This is not a foolproof method, obviously, but it captures the essential truth that the future prospects for any given the canned fish company will likely rise and fall together depending on how the overall canned fish market does.
In the book world both competitive and comparative are apt extrapolations of the word “comp.” Competitive titles can work like they do in finance, as a sales and valuation tool, articulating to booksellers what a new book might sell based on other books that are like it from the past. The rom com space is currently red hot in the book industry, and even though mega bestsellers lead this pack, in publishing the use of comps can, at times, truly be a high tide lifts all boats situation. Rom coms have a better chance of selling to readers and so at the publisher level it means we’ll pay more to writers who write in this category, seeing that the market and potential is bigger. This is the positive spin to how market forces can play out. Of course the opposite is also true. A few novels that take place in Nebraska could be published and flounder and the very unscientific industry wisdom could spring up that books about Nebraska “don’t work.” Of course, this kind of analysis is a reductive way to look at a fundamentally unique, artistic product. All books that take place in Nebraska will be different from one another, in quality, in genre, etc. and the past novels might have just failed for a number of reasons having nothing to do with where they were set. Many editors don’t like the comp system either, as it can lead publishers to publish the same types of books from the same type of people in hopes that past results predict future success.
All of these books are yellow, and they are all very different books. And shades of yellow, as it turns out.
A comparative title can also be used in an editorial, rather than market-based sense. Referencing a book by citing another book can orient the listener. One big reason that publishers exist is that books are very hard to understand as a product without having consumed them first, and yet readers are asked to buy before reading. This is the same for booksellers: they have to carry hundreds or thousands of books, making it nearly impossible for them to have read every book they are selling. What comparative titles do in this age of information overload is more quickly explain what a book is without the need for a bookseller or reader to devote several hours of reading to each book to understand if someone else or they would like it. Comparative titles in the world of books act as an adjective with the power of a noun, a normalized adjective if you will. When you read a pitch that says this is Infinite Jest meets The Sopranos, you know that you are about to witness a writer swinging for the fences and most likely striking out. But when someone says it’s Agatha Christie meets Star Trek, you know you might just get a clever whodunit set on a spaceship.
This whole concept of comps is why I’ll be exploring modern classics, as these archetypes are still used to communicate to readers today and for editors to acquire and market books. But comparisons are also a genuine source of inspiration for writers artistically. Like many artists of other forms, writers stand in the footprints of giants, reinventing, adapting, riffing, reconstituting, and breaking apart what has come before. When used as comps, the modern classics—which sit atop the pyramid of comps—tell us exactly what an editor or author is aiming for. When used thoughtfully and generously, comps can tell readers what they might like and allow writers to set their own bar for the type of story they want to tell.
A Page at a Time: Moby-Dick by Herman Melville, or The Reading of a Daunting Classic
Progress: Days 28, Pages 140
Introductions
Something quite pleasant about the structure of Moby-Dick is that Melville will just take whole chapters and dedicate them to a theme. This is quite different from most modern novels, which, maybe in part due to the influence of film and television, are written far more often in scenes or episodes, mixing setting, character development, action and incident all together. A few weeks ago, we talked about this in regard to Melville’s quite epic whole chapter on the town of Nantucket. Now that we’re really and truly finally out to sea in the novel, Ismael doesn’t tell us where we’re going, he doesn’t tell us about the journey; no, instead we stop for several chapters in a row to get digressions on each of the crew members. There’s a reason some of these characters have become archetypes, as the characterizations even at a few pages long are pretty memorable. Here’s the crew:
Ahab: “[his] overbearing grimness was owing to the barbaric white leg upon which he partly stood. It had previously come to me that this ivory leg had at seas been fashioned from the polished bone of the sperm whale’s jaw… Upon each side of the Pequad’s quarter deck, and pretty close to the mizen shrouds. There was an auger hole, bored about half an inch or so into the plank. His bone leg steadied in that hole.” (pg. 135).
Starbuck: “Starbuck seemed prepared to endure for long ages to come, and to endure always, as now; for be it Polar snow or torrid sun, like a patent chronometer, his inner vitality was warranted to do well in all climates…For, thought Starbuck, I am here in this critical ocean to kill whales for my living, and not to be killed by them for thiers.” (pg. 124-125)
Stubb: “Long usage had, for this Stubb, converted the jaws of death into an easy chair…What helped to bring about that almost impious good-humor of his; that thing must have been his pipe…For, when Stubb dressed, instead of first putting his legs into his trousers, he put his pipe into his mouth.” (pg.128-129)
Flask: “In his poor opinion, the wonderous whale was but a species of magnified mouse, or at least water-rat, requiring only a little circumvention and some small application of time and trouble in order to kill and boil…As a carpenter’s nails are divided into wrought nails and cut nails; so mankind may be similarly divided. Little Flask was one of the wrought ones.” (pg. 129)
Ahab remains largely mysterious but I just love the image of him anchoring himself into the ship for lookout with his whale-bone, new-pool-stick polished leg that he keeps numerous spares of (a very subtle way of saying “this guy has killed a lot of whales” without saying “this guy has killed a lot of whales”).
Moby-Dick at the Whitney
This week artist Wu Tsang has a queer adaptation of Moby-Dick as a multi-media silent film playing at the Whitney. I’d argue this is a 21st century queer adaptation, as Moby-Dick is already queer if you read between the lines.
Thursday Writing Advice: How to Use Comps
If you want to compare your work to something else, it’s a fine line, but the best way to do it if you’re a writer or an editor is to use recognizable books, but be more honest and specific about what in those works that is emulated. You can say something along the lines of “like Gone Girl, this is a psychological thriller with sharp commentary about marriage.” That way A) you don’t set the expectations too high and B) you don’t have people roll their eyes at you and say “yes I’ve heard that one before.” Often comps are used again and again, so it’s important to contextualize them. (Also, hopefully the book you’re talking about isn’t a copycat or a mimic.) Pull the listener in with what they know; once you have them, tell them something they’ve never heard before.