A few days ago I was able to go to the local bookstore. It's been a while cuz, you know, pandemic. I was pretty excited. I love books, but also I had given myself a special assignment: find books that might be similar to the one I'm currently writing.
Why am I doing that? Well, there's a whole bunch of work when you're trying to get published that doesn't involve actually writing a book. Weird, huh? One of the things that I'll need to do when I submit my book to an agent or publisher, is let them know what to expect before they start reading. The last thing you want is for someone reading your work to be confused about it, or to experience a jarring feeling because it's not what they anticipated.
There are, to my knowledge, a couple ways we can let an agent or publisher know about our piece of work. The first way is to use similar writing feeling and style (what I like to call your "author voice") in your writing synopsis. The second way, is apparently by straight up telling them what writers have a similar "feel".
So, there I was in the bookstore eagerly perusing the children's and YA sections for a book that sounded similar to mine: character-driven, serious, but with plenty of light-hearted moments to brighten the work. Also, you don't want to just pick a super-popular author because the agent or publisher is bound to think you're full of yourself and don't know your own worth (as a never-been-seen-before-author). Sigh.
The assignment turned out to be way more difficult than I anticipated, and it's not good enough to say something like, 'I have a unique writing style'. Again, they'll think I have a big ego or maybe that I just have no idea what my genre is or whether I'm writing to the proper audience. That's a big yikes for an agent or publisher to read, I'd imagine. Their time is valuable and they have to sort through piles of terrible, decent, and stellar writing samples.
I tried to look mostly for a series because those are my favorite to read, and is also what I'm currently writing. My book will probably be considered fantasy, yet without traditional magic. Do you know how hard it was to find anything like that?! You probably do. If you have, or know of, any books that are like that please let me know in the comments. I'm begging you. I found some books to read anyway for fun, but they won't be a good comparison for my current WIP (work-in-progress). It's definitely not really in the vein of Judy Blume, or Rick Riordan but more like Anne McCaffrey mixed with something else. This is harder than writing the story. For real. Anywho....thanks in advance for any book suggestions. You can also just suggest books you really like too, cuz I'll just add them to my reading list. :)
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