Aspiring fiction authors like myself are frequently advised by people in the publishing industry (usually literary agents being approached with a request for representation) to submit comparable titles. A comparable title is a book (usually but not always in your chosen genre) which has fundamental similarities to your own book. Writers are generally told to select two comparables, but not more. They should be recent titles, preferably publshed in the last couple of years—certainly not earlier than the last five years. They should not be blockbuster publications whose success is unlikely to be duplicated.

Just saying what genre your book is, or describing it, is not considered a substitute for getting good comparables.

 There are good reasons for determining comparable titles: first, it helps to demonstrate your familiarity with the industry, your chosen genre, and your potential competitors. Second, it might provide rudimentary information about your book’s commercial viability in current markets.

I’ve spent a lot of time searching for my comparables. I’ve enjoyed and profited from the search. My understanding of the current literary landscape has broadened. 

I class my debut novel, The Death at Valken Court, as literary fiction. It has elements of other genres too (the elasticity of certain genres puzzles me sometimes)— historical fiction, family saga, and others. It is a revenge tale. It also fits into a category called “mythological retelings.” Leading writers in this group include people like Madeline Miller and Natalie Haynes.

My original comparable and source of inspiration was  the novel Doctor Faustus by the German writer Thomas Mann, published in 1947. The reimagined Faust legend becomes the plotline for the book’s protagonist, composer Adrian Leverkuhn. At the same time it is a metaphor for the history of Germany in the first half of the 20th century. Unfortunately, it is too old a book to demonstrate my currency in today’s market.  Far older is the work of Aeschylus, the Greek Tragedian, who wrote his Oresteia cycle for the Athenian stage

 More to come.