Why Your Comp Author Might Be Costing You Sales
A series that isn't selling often has the wrong comp author, not bad writing. When your narrative voice doesn't match the one your comp's readers expect, they look at your cover and blurb and walk. The fix isn't rewriting to sound like the bestseller. It's finding the readers who are already asking for the book you actually wrote, usually in a nearby category.
I had an opportunity to work with a past client the other week. She has this amazing series that was getting zero sales. So, when I reached out to her to let her know I’m opening my doors up again, she asked if I could help her see why her series wasn’t selling.
Holy cow! Yes! Please, can I?!
This type of project is the exact thing that my Heartweaving Mythmaker soul loves. It’s the meshing of everything that’s amazing in publishing. Well, outside of writing great stories.
Here’s what I found.
1. She Was Writing Like a Heartweaver… and Targeting a Wildscribe Market
The first thing you need to know about this author is that she’s amazing. She writes beautifully and she works very hard at it. This particular series was targeting the Dan Brown market, which is fast paced, male leads, light on emotion or character arcs, and high on the intrigue as the conspiracy or mystery unfolds.
Dan Brown writes like an intuitive Wildscribe. Great stories! I love his plots. I often don’t know where we’re headed because I can’t guess right away—which is unique for me. I can typically pick up a book and know how it ends and how we’re going to get there from Chapter 1.
Well, my author has a similar ability, except that she’s a Heartweaver. Like, there is no doubt in my mind whatsoever that she’s a Heartweaver because her characters are so rich and take center stage. Her books aren’t about a mystery. They’re about a young woman uncovering a mystery and it’s the experience of how unraveling it affects her.
So, when she was targeting “readers of Dan Brown,” she was getting some pushback. They took one look at her cover and her blurb and said, “That’s not Dan Brown or even Dan Brown adjacent.” And Dan Brown’s ideal reader left with a little frown furrowing his thick brow, wondering why any woman would want to challenge Dan Brown’s legacy.
Look, I have a lot of fun with reader profiles and having conversations with them in my head. Did he actually say and do that? Maybe not.
But probably.
I mean… shrug
2. We Stopped Trying to “Fix” Her Voice
My author was adamant that she needed to follow Dan Brown because he is a major author and he is wildly successful and her story was like his.
Yes. They do have similarities:
They both followed conspiracies related to the Church.
They both have very smart main characters – which is a challenge if your mc is smarter than you. Don’t do it. Just… don’t do it. My author didn’t have that issue, thankfully.
They have academic backgrounds.
They are both into history.
But where they diverge is in their voice. My author has a very rich, character centric narrative. Whereas Dan Brown has characters, but his narrative values the mystery over the character arc. My author finds value in all the characters of her story. Dan Brown finds value in his main male lead.
That’s a big difference. That’s the reason Dan Brown’s ideal reader said, “Nah. I’m not really into that,” when they picked up her books.
If she really wanted to compete with Dan Brown on his turf, she’d have to alter her narrative voice and storytelling approach to better match what Dan Brown’s reader wanted and enjoyed.
First of all, look, I’ve done that, and it sucks. You go in thinking this is the best solution and you start selling books, but then you get to Book 4 and you’re wondering why you’re even writing these books because they’re not fun. They cost way more energy than they’re worth, and you don’t even care about the $1,000/mo revenue they bring in.
Second of all, this is a lot of hard work, and she’d already done a lot of hard work by giving it a narrative upgrade from young adult to new adult. That was a lot, something I also understand because I’ve done something similar. Was it successful? Yes. Was it a pain? Also, yes. Did I want to tell her that she needed to rewrite this series yet again to fit the Dan Brown voice?
No. Absolutely not. So, I searched for the place her book could fit as she’d written it because this… guys, this is a very good book and when she relaunches it, I’m totally sharing all the “buy this now” information on her series.
3. We Used Reader Psychology Instead of Genre Labels
Finding this spot wasn’t easy, though because her series is so super niche and it falls between so many others that, frankly, just weren’t selling well. That wasn’t what I wanted for her. I want her to succeed. I want her selling tons of books. I want her writing full time because she’s a very good author and I love working with her. She’s amazing.
So, I said, “What would do if this was an electrical contractor who had clients not paying his invoices?”
I’d dig into the client profile to figure out what’s misaligned.
So, that’s what I did here. I looked at all the reviews of all the big sellers. The big authors in these waters are men, and the ideal reader here is also male.
Were there female readers?
Yes, there were, and their reviews were asking for books like what my author had written.
I was like, “Perfect! This is exactly what I need!”
So, I took the language they offered in their, “I just wish this book was more…” and I built my author’s ideal reader profile around that!
What I discovered was that her reader doesn’t primarily read here. She primarily reads in female-led fantasy thrillers.
Not the same books, but similar enough. We had the right narrative tone, the right character types, the right story arc types, and the right pacing versus character arc value placement in the structure of her books.
4. We Identified Her Natural Story Engine
My author writes like a Heartweaver:
Heartweavers build stories around:
theme → emotional arc → plot
NOT:
plot → puzzle → action
The story wasn’t a puzzle-first thriller. It was a theme-driven exploration of faith, truth, and identity with a mystery wrapped around it. And when my author writes to her natural strengths, her writing is beautiful and amazing! I was supposed to be reading her book to find issues and what was wrong, but I kept getting sucked into the story. It had just enough intrigue to keep my Mythmaker mind happy, and all the good gooey parts of the character arc to keep my Heartweaver focused on reading.
Look, you need to understand something. If you’re going to build a sustainable career from writing novels, it needs to be an engine, or something that runs on the waste it produces. That’s one of the reasons I create so much content in my author brand, F.J. Blooding. It’s not because I’m trying to prove something to anyone. It’s literally part of my engine. When I’m feeling like I don’t want to write, I produce something with low-energy input that gives me high-energy output so I can do the things I need to do. You want to know what that is?
Character profile deep dives that I’ve creatively called ParaFiles.
So, when I’m feeling like I don’t want to write, I just throw out a ParaFile entry that goes into a bigger “file” that eventually turns into a freebie I gift my loyal readers. And it gets me excited to write the books. Win-win-win. Book producing engine.
My author needs to write books that align with her because this is what she wants to do after she retires in a few years. She doesn’t want to drag a ball and chain called her author career with her into her next Amazing Era. She wants this to be fun—for her—while bringing in money. And that means that each of her stories has to be right for her in a niche that’s marketable.
5. We Fixed the Real Problem: Expectation Mismatch
Do I have any Mythmakers or Lorekeepers? You are the only ones who would find this next part interesting. And, uh, it was a lot of fun. Hehe.
I read a lot of frelling books that week. Like, okay. No. Don’t look at me like that. I skim read. Yes. Okay? Stop it. I skim read a lot of books that week. I was looking for specific things to reverse engineer the reading experience to properly set the reader expectations.
I was looking for writing quality and reading level.
A lot of high-selling fiction is written at a 4th grade reading level. I remember being pissed about that because I don’t know any stupid people—Shh. I do. I do.
You know who I do know? A lot of stressed out, how-am-I-going-to-buy-eggs-with-all-this-“cheap”-gas-I-can’t-afford people. And do you know what stress does to your brain?
It makes it harder to read. Actually, it makes it harder to comprehend, which, you know, is an active part of… reading.
However, my author’s reader enjoys reading at a slightly higher reading level, so I had to find popular books that were similar enough to her book and in the higher reading level she naturally writes in.
I was looking at concept.
This was a little harder because religious conspiracies are really wrangled by three big—okay, one big male author and two smallish-medium (who I would still love to be like when I grow up one day) male authors.
So, I had to widen my “concept” map a little and look at the attractions and values and experiences that these types of stories offer that can also be found elsewhere. By doing that, I was able to find stories that gave that same tingle of excitement as the story unfolded.
And guess what stories they were? LOL! Not religious conspiracies. Witch stories. Which, I mean, really, are religious conspiracies. I shouldn’t be that surprised.
I was specifically targeting high performing niches she could replicate because we’re trying to produce a money-making engine, not a hobby engine. This is what I offer in my Author Positioning Engine.
6. We Built a Strategy That Supports Sustainability (Not Just Sales)
With all of that, I used my Story Stamina insights teamed with my efficiency management experience from working in construction and my absolute love of books, reading, writing, and publishing to help my author to create an engine that should support and sustain her, helping her meet her goals. And they’re big goals! I want to see her achieve them.
I helped her:
Find a niche that’s making money and that she can write to without fighting.
Helped her reconstruct her reader profile so she can build an author career that has meaning and value to her while serving this reader.
And gave her the targeting she needed to so that when she relaunches the series, it starts bringing in sales.
Now, understand, it’s a little too early to know if this was a raving success. But I had a lot of fun with this and she felt really good reading the report I gave her.
So, when you’re building your author career, what should you even look at?
Everything. But before that gets overwhelming, sit down and have fun first.
Figure out who you are as a person, a writer, a producer—because you’re producing entertainment experiences, so you are a producer—and a social influencer.
Your stories infect the world around you. You influence society by being invited into your reader’s mind, heart, and soul. Your reader brings you to her safe place and lets you live in the span of one story. And then two. And then… however many others you have. What you do is important.
The next step is to figure out what you can repeatably produce that builds energy while it expends it.
The goal isn’t just one successful book launch.
It’s a sustainable author career that allows you to spend time with the people you love and take vacations and build a life worth living and gives you the time and energy to live it.
Want to know if you’re targeting the wrong reader? Take the free author personality quiz.
Questions Authors Ask Me About Comps
How do I know if I picked the wrong comp author?
Compare narrative priorities, not plot elements. Two books can share a setting, a smart protagonist, and a conspiracy, and still be different books — if one values the mystery and the other values the character arc, their readers want different things and won't cross over.
Should I rewrite my book to match a bestseller's style?
Rarely worth it. Writing against your natural voice works until about Book 4, when the books stop being fun, cost more energy than they return, and the revenue doesn't compensate. Find the market that wants your voice instead of retooling your voice for a market.
How do I find the right readers for a niche book?
Read the reviews of the big sellers in your category and look for the "I just wish this book was more…" comments. That language is your reader profile. Often they're women reading in an adjacent category who want exactly what you wrote and aren't finding it where you're advertising.
What if my subgenre is dominated by a few big authors?
Widen the concept map. Look for the feeling those books deliver rather than the label, then find where else readers get it. In one case, religious conspiracy readers turned out to overlap heavily with witch stories, which are arguably the same thing.
