So, you want to be a successful author? Here’s a tip for you. I have no idea whether it will work; I’m just now trying it out for myself. When an agent who has read your query requests the full manuscript, let me know how it’s working for you.

One of the really tricky hills you’ll have to climb, as you’re revving up to start querying agents about your manuscript, is coming up with a list of comp (comparable) titles. Agents like to see this list for a couple of reasons. First, they would like to see that you understand the needs of the market. Second, if they take you on as a client they can use the list of comp titles to pitch the novel to publishers. You’ve done a bit of their homework for them.

I’ve had trouble coming up with comp titles for any of my recent fiction. The things I’ve written don’t seem to fit well into the mass marketing machinery of publishing. And that’s a problem. It’s not just a surface-level problem, as in “keep looking for comps”; it’s basic.

A comp title needs to have several key characteristics. It needs to be recently published — certainly within the past five years, and preferably within the past three, because publishing trends change. It needs to have sold well. Since you won’t have access to the actual number of copies sold, the fact that the book has shown up on a couple of best-seller lists will suffice. It pretty much has to have been published by one of the Big Five; indie press publication won’t impress anybody, and self-publishing is not worth a nickel, no matter how strenuously the author insists that their work is a best seller. And needless to say, the book has to resemble your own novel in some significant respects. Your work will inevitably be different, but it shouldn’t be too different. If it’s too different, you’re not looking at a comp.

Here’s the tip. If you want to land a Big Five contract and launch a successful career, start by finding the comps. Do that before you even start writing your novel. Identify a trend in the industry that is a natural fit for your talents and interests, maybe come up with a basic concept for the book(s) you’d like to write, and then make a list of the comp titles.

Next, read the comps. Read them critically, not for pleasure. Take chapter-by-chapter notes! Notice every characteristic that you’re aware is an ingredient in fiction writing. The tone. The opening hook. The pacing. The character of the protagonist. The nature of the conflict(s) and the Big Plot Problem. The handling of dialog and flashbacks. The structure of the rising action. The way chapters begin and end. The way secondary characters are woven into the action. The word count.

Yes, the word count. It’s easy. Find a page of average density, count the words, and multiply by the number of active pages.

When you’ve gone through five or six books this way, you’ll be ready to start developing your own commercially viable book. Whether you’ll succeed in placing it with an agent will still depend on your skill as a writer, but at least you won’t be starting the foot race with a ball and chain welded to your ankle.

I’ve never done this. I’ve always written what I wanted to write. That strategy was maybe okay in the 1980s, but that was then. This is now. So I’m giving it a try. At worst, I’ll end up with another book that agents aren’t interested in — and along the way I’ll have a bit of a confidence boost, because I’ll know that I have a plan.