Comp titles are one of the most hated parts of querying literary agents. I think they are worthy of a rant.🔥
✅ Chapters:
0:00 – Comp Titles Explained
0:20 – Why Agents Require Comp Titles
0:46 – The “Recent Debut” Rule (2–3 Years Only)
1:14 – Why Indie & Unique Books Get Ignored
1:32 – How Comp Titles Create a Publishing Echo Chamber
2:04 – For Readers Seeking Fresh, Original Books
“Students who read for fun on their own time fell from 27% to 14% in 2012 to 2023. Those who never or hardly ever read for fun on their own jumped from 22% to 31%.”
Here’s my AuthorTube take on the decline of literacy.
Here are some hard truths about earning income, and passive income, as a creative in today’s Western countries. I am generalizing for all the arts, but especially the niches where I come from.
Here’s my inside look at the male reading crisis, which I believe is very much engendered by the book industry. Reading should be for everyone.
00:00 Why the male reading crisis shouldn’t be dismissed.
01:19 What do men prefer in a good story? Here it is.
02:44 The big best-sellers of the last twenty years cater to teen and female audiences.
04:13 Why the book industry leans female: a feedback loop of risk avoidance driven by analytics. Also…
05:34 The tastemakers of the book industry are mostly underpaid, stressed out young women.
07:12 And big publishing avoids epic series, aka big and heroic tales.
07:59 Where do men go for stories? Videogames, manga, and underground niches such as web serials.
09:27 Some hope for male-oriented fiction going mainstream.
10:48 Men who read are sexy.
Related video on the decline of literacy
It’s not learning a skill when you just press a button, but the economic and social pressure to use it (and to rapidly iterate low effort content) is intense. Here’s my hot take on writers and other creatives using generative A.I. to package and promote their otherwise high effort human endeavors.
Here’s why extreme culture clashes make for such compelling storytelling, with epic heroes, crazy villains, and powerful action-based plots. The best sci-fi and fantasy books include conquest or extreme first contact situations. So does historical nonfiction, particularly the Age of Exploration and the Spanish Conquistadors.
Abby pays a lot of attention to the sci-fi & fantasy publishing industry, over 20+ years of taking writing seriously. Here’s her take on the latest controversy among indie authors who write progression fantasy, litRPG, isekai, superhero, wuxia, and web serials.
Our entire global economy is bent around people’s passion for becoming creators. Strip away the financial and tech bro jargon, and this is the truth laid bare, as Abby sees it.
00:00 The global economy is driven by creative content (producers and consumers).
02:30 Not just professionals, also hobbyists.
03:02 Creatives are motivated to become influencers.
03:58 Creatives buy expensive computers and graphics cards and software and digital ads.
04:23 Students, midlife crisis adults, retirees… people underestimate the vast numbers of dabblers.
06:02 And then there’s the self-help gurus and scammers incentivizing creatives. 06:31 Examples of how amateur creatives prop up the megacap companies.
07:32 Everybody wants to be a creator. Is this sustainable?
Abby dissects the motives behind the popular writing mantra: Write To Market, and speaks in defense of creativity and originality.
Book fans hate the show with good reason. The Wheel of Time TV show could have been SO MUCH BETTER.
