Finding Your Perfect Book: AKA, Librarians are the Best

I’m currently in the midst of putting together an application for a writing mentorship with an amazing literary agency that would include agent representation and input on revising my novel (AHH, fingers crossed). As part of that, I have to come up with three “comp titles,” or books that are comparable to my own novel.

At first I was thinking of books like, Outlander by Diana Gabaldon and Wicked by Gregory Maguire, but I quickly learned after researching a bit more that when a literary agent/publisher asks for comp titles, what they REALLY want, is a recent book (from the last 3-5 years) that is similar to yours in content. It’s also apparently not a good idea to use a breakout bestseller or phenomenon.

My knowledge of books published in the last 5 years is…not great, so I turned to my local library website to see if they had any resources that could help (since all the physical libraries are closed through at least June because of COVID-19). I was DELIGHTED to see that Fairfax County Public Library offers a service called “My Perfect Read,” through which library staff can recommend books based on your specific tastes. You can browse through the librarian profiles and find out who likes the same books you like.

If you’re lucky enough to be have a FCPL membership like me, you can totally access this resource here! I imagine that other libraries probably offer similar programs as well.

Through this program, I reached out to the readers’ advisors who specifically listed historical fiction books in their “genres of interest” and the New Book Gurus (Technical Operations Team), who specifically work with newly released and purchased books. I explained that I was looking for recent comp titles and summarized my book for them as best as I could.

Here’s essentially what I sent them:

My book “Most Horrible” is a 100,000 word historical fiction novel that’s a prequel to Hamlet set in early 1500s Denmark and Purgatory, with plentiful inspiration from real-life Scandinavian history and numerous historical figures interacting with the well-known Hamlet characters. It's in third-person POV told from a different character's point of view per chapter. It includes lots of battles and rebellions and violence and such, but I keep everything more or less PG-13 rated.

 In Most Horrible, King Hamlet wakes up in a Dante-inspired Purgatory in the boat of Charon, the ferryman of the dead, with no idea how he died. The incidents and motivations that led to his death are gradually revealed as Hamlet searches through the afterlife with the assistance of his old enemy Fortinbras, and his former jester Yorick. When he finds out the truth, will he tell his deeply depressed son about the murder, or can he leave his vengefulness in the past?

Back in the land of the living, Hamlet’s brilliant queen Gertrude and his devout, hard-working brother Claudius try to navigate the complicated Danish political and religious scene to ensure the safety of their family and their country. In the midst of everything, these decades-old friends, both mourning the loss of Hamlet, find themselves falling unexpectedly in love.

The full story of why Claudius killed the older brother he adored to save the country he loves unfolds in a series of flashbacks covering the collapse of the Kalmar Union (the historical union of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, with the Danish crown at the head), the deposition and later rebellion of the tyrannical King Christian II (Hamlet and Claudius’s father), and the violence of the Protestant Reformation.

Librarian Kylie Sparks got back to me first, suggested a few authors and titles, and also recommended I look through Novelist Plus, another resource offered by the library. I was SO excited to learn about this website, which categorizes books by appeal terms (e.g., fast-paced, sweeping, richly detailed), genre, time period, and subject. What’s especially helpful for my purposes is that you can limit your search results by publication date! This wonderful website sent me down many winding rabbit holes and helped me find about 20 more books I’d like to read ASAP.

Novelist Plus is available through this link to FCPL members! Just have your library card number handy to sign in! Again, I’m sure this is a resource offered through lots of other libraries, so check with your local branch for more info!

The New Book Gurus also got back to me with a few suggestions and mentioned that they had actually reached out to the entire Perfect Read group through an existing chat to help brainstorm suggestions for me! They went beyond the call of duty in helping me and I was really touched by all their efforts.

I’ve now come up with a few comp titles that should hopefully work for my purposes. /fingers crossed/ I’m just listening through my final five options via various audiobook apps now to determine which will be the best comp titles! This entire process has actually been much more fun and much less daunting than I thought it would be, thanks to all the Fairfax County Library resources out there. : ) I really just wanted to share this with the world ASAP so others can benefit from their wonderful help.

Useful Stuff: Waking Up with ADHD, Usable Soap from Tiny Pieces, and Cast Iron Pan Storage

I actually LIKE writing about little projects I do at home and little objects I’ve found that make life easier. I usually post about them on Facebook, but that’s so ephemeral and hard to find later, that I’m going to start doing a weekly roundup of these things as well. :)

• Waking Up with ADHD: So I’ve been having a LOT of trouble getting up in the morning for weeks/months now and only just realized it might be related to my #ADHD. This linked article helped me pinpoint the issue and the solution.

  So i’ve been putting my ADHD meds and some water by my bed for the last few nights and now take my pill (Concerta/methylphenidate) the moment i /first/ wake up. Then when i ACTUALLY want to wake up, i can! And it doesn’t feel like an impossible force is keeping me in bed! I feel so much more useful and adult-ish now! :)
  

• Usable Soap from Tiny Bits: You know those tiny little bits of bar soap you end up collecting that are super useless on their own but you feel guilty about throwing them out? Turns out it’s actually pretty easy to combine them all together to make usable soap again!

  Basically, gather all the tiny bits together in a pot you don’t care that much about. I have one i got for cheap at Target a while back that’s specifically designated for craft projects and sterilization type activities; things you don’t want to do in the pots you cook food in, ya know? Add some water (I filled the pot about half full, which was honestly probably too much) and then turn it on high heat. The goal isn’t to have the mixture boil, but to melt the soap in it. Because of the soap surfactant molecules, you have to keep a close eye on the pot for bubbles and foam building up, but I found that just taking the pot off the heat briefly calmed down the bubbles enough that I could get it back together.

Tiny soap bits in my crafting pot!

The not very pretty mixture cooling n a greased bowl.

The final result in a little soap dish! (Yes, I use mini souvenir plates as soap dishes - this one commemorates the Queen Mother’s 80th birthday). #Anglophile :D

Once the soap is all melted, pour it over a sink into a strainer, and then dump it in a pre-greased small bowl or container of some sort. Once it cools, voila! Usable soap! It’s not the prettiest (although I’m sure someone with more patience could probably form the soap into a more regular shape while it was still slightly warm), but it works perfectly for non-guest bathrooms like the one I prepare the cats’ food in (I mix in salmon oil and probiotics, as i mentioned in this post, and use the door to keep them from hassling me while I’m doing it).

Buy on Amazon

• Cast Iron Pan Storage: We have a ton of cast iron and steel pans that John requested on our wedding registry without thinking about where we’d store them in our tiny kitchen. They’ve either been living on the stove or piled up in a corner, making a huge visual clutter and generally driving me crazy, ever since. I was inspired though, by the spic and span kitchen of one of my rover clients, to get our own act together, and bought a shelf designed to hold heavy cast iron pans. And LOOK, it’s so much prettier now and it’s so much easier to take them out and put them away.

My First Book Club Meeting! (Mostly Dead Things, By Kristen Arnett)

Mostly Dead Things

By Kristen Arnett

My sister’s family visited DC from Texas not too long ago. After a very hot morning wandering around Mount Vernon (the historical site, not the neighborhood), John and I took them to Virtue Grain and Feed in Old Town Alexandria for lunch. My sister suggested we check out the bookstore right next to it afterward, and I am SO glad she did!

I discovered three things on that visit. 1. Old Town Books is cute and fun. 2. They have book clubs! Which I decided immediately to join. and 3. They’e hosting an Emerging Writer’s Festival in August (that I knew I HAD to be part of).

I’ve actually been meaning to read more fiction for a while now. I generally gravitate toward nonfiction books, usually history or self help. If I DO read a fiction book, it’s probably a Tamora Pierce novel or historical fiction set around the English Renaissance (Tudor Times are MY JAM), or maybe Jane Austen. I also regularly act in Shakespeare plays, although I’m not sure how much that counts towards reading. But since I’m writing fiction now, I clearly need to read more of it. I wasn’t sure where to start though, which is why I was so happy to learn about Old Town Books’ book club! I figured this was a perfect way to discover new fiction and make new literary friends while also overanalyzing stories (which is one of my favorite things).

My first meeting was this last Saturday! This is the first book club I can actively remember going to, honestly. And it was delightful! We discussed “Mostly Dead Things,” by Kristen Arnett. It’s a wonderfully wacky book about how a family moves on after their paternal figure’s suicide. He was a taxidermist, as is the narrator Jessa-Lyn, and the book explores this craft in a really fascinating, realistic, and occasionally gory way. The narrator’s mother starts to work through her grief by making art in the form of sexually explicit taxidermy scenes, which leads to her meeting an art gallery owner and creating her own full art exhibit. The narrator ends up in a twisty relationship with the gallery owner, Lucinda, and shenanigans continue from there. It’s also a beautiful exploration of the nature of grief and family. It’s a tough read at times, just because it’s so emotional and raw, but I really enjoyed it and I greatly enjoyed talking to other book fans about it. My friend Arielle came along with me and we had a good time!

Also there was a dog. A DOG. All bookstores need dogs.

The author Kristen Arnett joined the meeting after a bit and we got to ask her some questions! She had some really thoughtful answers. She also talked about how she fit her writing into her life with her full-time job as a librarian - basically, she committed to writing 1,000 words every day Monday-Friday. She didn’t have to write on the weekend, but if she did, that was cool too. I’ve found this mindset really inspiring and have made a similar commitment in my own life (using the Momentum habit tracking app).*

Afterward, Kristen signed books for everyone. She had the coolest way of doing so too - she put hearts into various portions of the title on the title page! I really appreciated the extra effort she put into making the autograph experience more unique and it gives me ideas for the future. :)

I can’t wait for next month’s meeting! I haven’t figured out what the book is yet, but I keep checking their website obsessively and someday I’ll know!

*I previously used the Habitbull habit tracking app, but I switched to Momentum to save money. It’s a very similar set up and only cost $5-6 instead of the $20 per year for Habitbull.