I went to the library for the first time in ages the other night. Either because of the time or the amount of my fine, my library card had actually expired, which meant I had to go to a person (egad!) instead of the self-checkout as I prefer. But I paid off the horrendous fine at the machine before it told me my card was expired and the woman who helped me in the real line didn’t say anything about it, so score! Social interaction kept to a minimum. 😉
Why did I go to the library after so long a hiatus? I’m looking for comp titles for my book.
Comp titles or comparable titles are books published within the past 2-3 years you reference so the publishing industry will understand something about the content of your work and the audience you are targeting. “My book should appeal to the readers of Such and Such and This and That.” Since I am woefully under-read in my genre over the past few years, plus Dakotashi being somewhat cross-(sub)genre, this is proving quite difficult for me.
All is not lost! Two of the books I checked out (I’ve read about half of one and few chapters of the other) are looking promising. I don’t think the third will work as a comp, but I enjoyed the couple of chapters I read already. More on the fourth below. Here are the books:
Sorcerer to the Crown by Zen Cho. I’m about half-way through. Really enjoying it.
A Darker Shade of Magic by V. E. Schwab. Enjoyed the first few chapters. Will read more.
The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman. Enjoyed the first few chapters, but probably can’t use as a comp. Will read more.- I wasn’t sure about the fourth when I checked it out and I was right. It won’t work at all. I chose it because I’m desperately looking for something from a male first-person POV that is somehow similar to Dakotashi. This particular book featured a character like Dakotashi could have turned out, if he had given into all the darkness in his heart rather than fighting it. However, it’s too dark to be a comp and more importantly not to my taste. So I’m not going to finish reading it. Which is why I’m not going to say what it was. If I wasn’t in such a hurry to find appropriate books, I’d probably read more just to see what it was like (and if I started liking it better as it went on), but I don’t have the luxury of doing that right now.
I’ve found some others that might work as comps as well. You can see my Goodreads To Read list, but unfortunately most of these are not from a 1st person, male POV.
I also have a WIP-Comp title list, which as I refine will hopefully give me some possible recommendations for other choices. I’m always looking for more options.
Is my massive reading list enough to keep me from binging on hours and hours of TV? Especially with the new seasons of EVERYTHING coming up? Stay tuned.