what are your comps?
“Comp titles, or “comparison titles,” are published novels or other media you use to help describe your book’s place in the market.”
I didn’t exactly go into writing for the sake of writing. I do enjoy story telling, but I’m very much an engineer down to the core. I’m not well studied in literature: the only books I willingly finished reading for High School classes were Lord of the Flies, 1984, and Animal Farm, and only because I read them beforehand anyway. After High School, if it wasn’t Azimov, Bradbury, Windham, King or Koontz, I wasn’t going to be able to sit through it. When I wound up writing a book, and looking seriously into the publication process, the first question I had to grapple with was “What are your Comps?” and I did not have many answers. Telling everyone “have you seen the 1979 classic ‘Alien’?” in my queries just wouldn’t work. I have always been a fan of science fiction, but even so, my reading list has been sparse. So I approached this like an engineer with a formula, reviewing similar media and dissecting it for what I thought worked, what I thought didn’t, what I liked, and what I did not like at all, then applying it all as I went. And it made my work better. I enjoy the ability to critically examine the media I absorb (I just probably wasn’t going to be great at doing it for Wuthering Heights, Mr. M). So when it became time to build my author’s website, I wanted to add content, and in that content, I wanted to share with you all the media I studied in the pursuit of understanding the genre I was entering into with my written work. I cannot pretend to know the secrets of good story telling, or act like I have some highbrow knowledge of literature. I can do a better job of telling you why your rocket ship ran out of fuel so soon. But I want to share what I have learned and the below blog posts are my stream of consciousness as I review books I read in similar vein to what I found myself writing in: Queer Science Fiction/Fantasy/Horror. The opinions expressed are my own.
AZ ROZKILLIS 