Comparable (or “competing”) titles are an important part of your book proposal, indicating that you understand who your reader is. A common mistake is to overstate your audience. If you tell your publisher that your book will be of interest to all readers, we will struggle to formulate a marketing plan, which by nature has to begin with specifics. Every publisher has certain readers in mind that we know how to reach, and every publisher has a subsequent list of books in mind that we will know how to sell well.
To pick good comparable titles:
- Start with your genre (fiction, poetry, nonfiction, academic)
- Specify with your subject and/or methodological approach
- Look for publications from the last five years
- Find books published by similarly sized or similarly oriented publishers (our acquisitions team loves to see comp titles from other university presses)
A really good comparable title will help a university press plan for your book. So think of a comparable book as an outcome you’d like your book to have, while thinking practically about the nature of its contribution and primary audience. Perhaps it won a big award, perhaps it sold well, perhaps it changed the paradigm in your field. A comparable title provides your publisher with a model and a target.
—Texas Tech University Press, December 2024