COMP LIT: Claiming Your Place on the Genre Shelf

By Damon Suede, @DamonSuede

Part of The How They Do It Series

One of the first thing any credible marketer will ask you is where your books fit. What are your comp titles and also-buys? As genre authors we write within a framework which we are constantly stretching and testing.

Even for authors working in the same genres and subgenres our books, our voices, and our fan bases often differ in wonderful (offtimes wacky) ways. Whatever their approach, all authors face the task of clarifying why their books are extraordinary. Attracting your unique readership starts with claiming your spot on the genre bookshelf: your niche.

Niche covers a wide spectrum of differentiators: subgenre, scale and setting, voice and vibe, heat/violence/suspense level, intensity, tropes, types, tone, and more. Some authors hunker down in a very narrow patch and never budge. Some folks wander the woods…peeing on trees all over the publishing forest, constantly marking out new turf for their fans. Essentially your niche is the stretch of the virtual bookshelf that your books fill perfectly and that your ideal audience and likely allies seek out instinctively.
Read more »Written by Janice Hardy. Fiction-University.com