How an Idea Becomes a Book, Part 8: Consider the Competition
This is the eighth part in a series. You can catch up by reading the other parts here: Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, Part Six, Part Seven.
Books are not written in a vacuum. If you are interested enough in a topic to want to write about it, chances are that you have read other books that explore the same idea — and those books have probably inspired you, taught you, angered you, helped you hone your thoughts — or all of the above. They are, in other words, in your head even as your idea takes shape and comes to life.
At a certain point, you need to take a hard look at the entire landscape of the marketplace so that you can be clear about where your book fits. I believe the best time to consider the competition is once you know your point and the specific shape of the book and your reader’s transformation journey. At this stage, your idea is strong enough to hold its own but there is still time to re-think and re-frame and re-jig it if you learn anything you didn’t know about the market. I think of an idea at this point like wet clay as opposed to hardened cement.
The Point of Market Research
Agents use competitive title information to determine if a book is marketable — in other words, to determine approximately how many books they think they can sell. It does them no good for a writer to say, “There has never been another book like mine.” They want some assurance that there is a market for your book, and other books that are like yours can give them that assurance.
If you are not planning to seek out an agent and a traditional publishing deal, you still want to consider the marketplace because you are going to be doing the work of getting that book into the reader’s hands and will want to know what else that reader is buying — and why. This will help you hone your idea to an even finer point.
A Philosophy of Competitive Title Research
I teach my book coaching students at Author Accelerator that comp title research isn’t actually about putting books in opposition to each other. It’s not really a competition. Someone who buys a book on, say, breast cancer, is likely going to buy several books on breast cancer. The same is true of learning how to invest, learning how to get into college, learning how to garden, and learning how to write. (Think of your own bookshelf. You probably have so many books on writing. I am glancing at my shelf and I probably have 50 just within sight…)
So the way to think about comp title research is to think of books as being in conversation with each other.
Imagine the books sitting on a bookshelf having a conversation. One is saying, “I believe X” and another is saying, “Yes, and….” and another is saying, “No, but….”
Where does your book fit in the mix?
So if, for example, you were writing a book about procrastination in writers, you would want to understand what all the big books on habits (Tiny Habits, Atomic Habits) were already saying about procrastination, and how your idea was saying something new. Because if it wasn’t, why would anyone want it? You would also want to know what the classic books about creativity (The Creative Habit, The War of Art) are saying about procrastination, and the innovative new books (Why Bother?, Burnout), and to know how your book might add to the conversation.
If you were writing a book about nutrition during pregnancy, your book would probably be read after What to Expect When You’re Expecting, because you know that almost every pregnant woman gets that book the second she finds out she’s pregnant. You would be adding more depth and nuance to an idea that they perhaps spent six pages on (I’m guessing on that page count — haven’t read that book in about 25 years…). That is one conversation. Another conversation might be the one your book has with a general book on nutrition for women or with a popular diet book that everyone is reading that you believe could be risky for a pregnant woman.
If you were writing about business leadership, what would your book say to Dare to Lead? Would it say, “No one in the bond trading business actually talks about being vulnerable — that’s ridiculous. We think of daring in a totally different way.” Or would it say, “Such great ideas — so how do you actually implement them if you run a business in the world of higher education?” Or would it say, “Vulnerability is only half the story. The other half is ___________.”
Knowing what your book is saying to the other books out there will help you hone and refine your point and your purpose so that you can serve your reader even better than you already are.
What if You Find Out Someone Has Already Written the Book You Want to Write?
You may think that someone has already written the book you want to write, but it’s not possible. No one can write your book because no one is you. No one’s brain is looking at things the same way or drawing on the same experiences that you are.
Figure out what you are saying that they are not, what you are offering that they are not, and how you can serve your reader in a way they are not.
How to Search
1. Go to Amazon and start with the best-selling books in your topic area. (You can search “bestsellers” in almost any category.) Read the book jackets and read at least 10 reader reviews for each book. Get a sense of how regular readers talk about the book, what they feel about it, what it means to them, and what bothers them.
You can add more books to your list by using the feature entitled, “Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought…” Circle around 5 or 6 books that are the ones that have the most to say in the conversation with your book.
2. Go to Google and read the professional reviews for the five books that seem the most like yours. Is there anything in the praise or the criticism that helps you refine what you want to write — or what you don’t want to write?
3. Consider books outside of the topic that speak directly to a segment of your target audience. Let’s say, for example, that you have written a book about how to launch a start-up business. You might want to look at memoirs by famous start-up founders because all the ideal readers will have read the memoir and have it on their shelf. Is there anything that helps you have a better sense of your own book?
The author of The Coaching Habit, Michael Bungay Stanier, said he often compares his book to artist Austin Kleon’s Steal Like an Artist. On the surface, a book about coaching in the workplace might not have anything to do with a book about making art, but Stanier drew the line between the structure and accessibility of Kleon’s book and his own, and it makes perfect sense.
Then What?
Now go back to your TOC and your jacket copy, your point, and even your title, and put it all to the test. Is your book doing what you want it to do? Is it doing it in the best possible way it can, in relation to the market? Revise it until you are confident that you have something clear and compelling to add to the conversation.
Next week I’ll talk about writing forward and that will be the end of this series!
