Writer's Digest

NOTES FROM THE MARGINS

Last issue, we talked about why many people, myself included, have a love/hate relationship with comp titles. But, because I knew they’re important—and required—I needed to find a way to make looking for them more enjoyable as I worked on book pitches. So, I started to think of my search for the perfect comp titles as a scavenger hunt. I put myself in the shoes of the book’s perfect reader and asked, what are they reading and what do they want to read but can’t find? From there, it became a black hole of internet searches.

As an example, my most recent searches for comp titles were for Writer’s Digest Books that I was going to pitch to

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