We here at Ooligan primarily use Circana Bookscan to find comparative titles or “comp titles” which are books we use as reference points to inform our own marketing efforts and sales expectations. The books we use have to be very similar and it can be a laborious task if you don’t know what you’re doing. Fortunately I’m here to walk you through some more advanced features of Circana Bookscan to make finding the data you need easier.
One of the most important parts of the acquisitions process for a publisher is determining if a manuscript they are considering is likely to sell enough copies to make financial sense to publish. One of the ways publishers can determine audience interest is finding comparative titles, or comp titles. While a winning set of comp titles isn’t the secret to getting a book deal, understanding their function in publishing and having a few solid options will help any author seeking publication position their book effectively.
So, you wrote a killer query letter and we requested a proposal package, but what does that mean? Before you go and resubmit the same query letter and call it your proposal (as MANY have done) think again!