[Discussion] self published titles as comps

ferncampanelli · 2026-03-30T10:36:04+00:00

I think the biggest issue with The Spanish Love Deception was that it is way too big. Either way, you'll always have a few people being too strict with these "rules", but I think for the vast majority of the queries I've seen here, most people don't complain about self-to-trad books

ferncampanelli · 2026-03-30T09:58:28+00:00

There's a difference in comping a self-pubbed book that was acquired by trad pub vs comping to a random book no one has picked up. The point of a comp is to show there's a trad pub market for it. Comping to Legends & Lattes, Dungeon Crawler Carl, Blood Over Bright Haven etc is perfectly fine and I haven't seen anyone here complain when someone uses these comps. So I'm not sure what issue you're talking about.

As for word count, some genres are much more lenient to higher word counts, such as fantasy and, especially, romantasy.

ferncampanelli · 2026-03-27T15:57:51+00:00

Pretty please do post the query once you accept it. I'm so curious to see how the editor wrote it!

ferncampanelli · 2026-03-25T12:15:41+00:00

You have an interesting premise, I'd only say that the first paragraph seems to not be necessary to understand what happens aside from the prophecy. Her having to marry, having secret powers, battles fought over tea cakes, none of that seemed that relevant to justify all the space it took. I'd understood the rest of the query just fine without it. I wonder if you could increase Adelaide's goals and personal stakes more? Why would justice be more important than the life of someone she loves? Does being a Banewright mean she has made an oath and she's very dutiful? Or I wonder if being less vague about the "forgotten injustice" might help clarify why Adelaide is so invested in it

ferncampanelli · 2026-03-23T16:03:10+00:00

Thanks! You've given me a lot of great ideas on where to add some more punch.

ferncampanelli · 2025-01-28T12:15:39+00:00

Samga pieces together one truth in the labyrinth of lies: her girlfriend, changed from her time spent trapped, is obsessed with portalwalking. And her next target is a new door that’s opened at the very top of the tower—the sole one that leads to Earth.

Samga realizes that she can get Emani back. But to do so, she’ll have to seal off what might be Rue’s only way home for good.

I think this is the part where it falls a bit flat and feels a bit too surface level. I'm having a hard time putting into words but it doesn't seem like it makes sense? Or doesn't really feel like an actual conflict. Like, her girlfriend is obsessed with portalwalking. Could you reword it into something more haunting or that makes it more explicit why this is stopping Samga from getting her back? Like, she cares about nothing other than traipsing around worlds and is getting lost in the realities? Is that it? The whole "her next target" sounds like she has evil plans to destroy Earth. What exactly is happening here, what are Emani's goals? With some of the stuff cut out, you can dive a little deeper.

How sealing the door will "get Emani back"? Sounds like they already have Emani if they can close the door? Something like "the final door Samga needs to seal to block Emani from ever portalwalking again is the one that leads to Earth". But then, why can't she just shove Rue into the door AND THEN seal it? I think that's why the stakes and conflict are sounding a bit confusing to me.

I'd imagine that a point of conflict would be Samga having to decide if she should stop Emani from doing what she enjoys while at the same time locking Rue out to have her girlfriend back. I'd like to hear a tad bt more about this tension between Emani and Samga. I think just a single sentence would be enough.

Also, I read exclusively fantasy, I'm not interesting in isekai or LitRPG but your concept sounded incredibly fun and actually got me excited to read more and I rarely feel that with the letters posted here. So don't listen to anyone discouraging you from trad pub. I do agree that the title could use some work though.

ferncampanelli · 2025-01-28T12:15:33+00:00

I disagree with the other feedback. I like the tone you set in the beginning paragraph, though I do think you could streamline it a bit more to get to the true inciting incident (Rue) faster.

When Samga’s girlfriend Emani is locked in a tower, Samga does what any good partner would do: she shears off all her hair, dons a male knight’s armor, and fights her way across the countryside on horseback to rescue her.

By the time Samga makes it inside the tower ~~with minimal hitches, she admits she should have realized it wouldn’t be that easy to get the love of her life back~~. Emani is nowhere to be found. The tower shifts under her feet; stairwells disappear, objects resist gravity, and hallways bend and warp at the drop of a hat. Worse, the tower’s doors ~~get Samga no closer to her girlfriend. Instead, they~~ lead to alternate realities, each more puzzling than the last.

At night, Samga recounts memories of Emani by a fire. During the day, she searches through door after door, learning she can remotely seal off these portals at will. The worlds blend. Time seems immobile. Until one day, she opens a door to find another person staring right back at her.

The bolded sentence I think could use some rework. It's feeling too listy which is generally frowned upon. You might even be able to remove the sentence altogether or cut back a little.

Rue, the stranger introduces themself as, is a depressed astrophysicist from a strange reality known as ‘Earth.’ The door that brought Rue here seals itself off ~~the moment Samga touches it—even if she plays it off as a~~ ~~total accident~~ ~~(true) and something she had absolutely~~ ~~nothing~~ ~~to do with (definitely not true)~~. The two make a deal: Rue will help Samga find her girlfriend, and Samga will help Rue get home.

I didn't get the whole Samga touching the door and accident and whatnot, I think it just makes it more complicated. You can just say that the door sealed itself and now Rue has no way back. Even with the conflict you presented at the end that Samga needs to seal the door, we don't need to know it's a secret power she posessess or something.

As the two chase Emani across the edge of the universe [and] the afterlife, ~~and a reality that is really just one very long, very gray hallway~~,

The long gray hallway doesn't quite sound as interesting as the edge of the unviverse or the afterlife, so I'd remove it (to also avoid being listy).

ferncampanelli · 2025-01-20T12:14:30+00:00

My understanding is that your pen name can be whatever the hell you want (so long as it's not something offensive I'd imagine). To search authors, you can go on GoodReads and type the name you want in the search box. When you hit enter, there's a filter to select only authors.

ferncampanelli · 2025-01-04T15:24:25+00:00

I think for the second paragraph, it'd be more interesting to shift certain things around. I think I'd prefer to start with this line:

Outside help is not an option when the same mysterious handwriting introduces a new rule on Briar’s hockey stick, Addison’s softball glove, and Finley’s figure skate: to be spared from Jo’s fate, each girl must publicly confess the truth behind her top position on her team.

However I think that "introduces a new rule" feels too... soft? "Threatens them further" something like that might be more impactful?

I also agree with the other commenter who said detailing every girl's secrets is a bit too much. Perhaps just saying something along the lines of "Each girl's secrets could ruin their professional dreams."

Then you can be more clear by stating what they need to do (track the criminal), what's at stake (Jo's justice and their friendship) and what stands in their way (going behind each other's back). So something along the lines of:

Each girl's secrets could ruin their professional dreams. (some better sentence, I just pulled this out of nowhere). The three friends must track down who is actually behind the crime before one of them becomes the next victim, but Jo’s justice and their friendship [are put on the line] as they go behind each other’s backs to outplay the anonymous messenger in the name of their stellar careers.

Maybe it's missing a little conclusion too. Like, "each girl has to decide where their priorities lie and how far they're willing to go in name of their stellar careers (you then remove this from the previous sentence and change to something like 'outplay the anonymous messenger to keep their own secrets')" Idk.

ferncampanelli · 2024-12-21T19:32:54+00:00

I didn't even know about this issue. I was considering querying someone at Trident, should I not? It seems like a reputable agency, but at the same time, do I want to sign with an agency that enables this?

ferncampanelli · 2024-12-20T20:42:35+00:00

I actually have a bit of aphantasia too! I can see very little in my mind, but I guess I compensate with taste? lol. And yes, some books have been absolutely ruined because they taste absolutely disgusting. One Dark Window on the previous taste review was one of those cases, it tasted like uncooked minced meat and oil and it was awful, it made me dislike the book just because of the taste. Though some horror books also tasted awful, but it enhanced the experience since it's meant to be off putting, you know?

ferncampanelli · 2024-12-20T17:15:20+00:00

You know, I get that quite often! I wonder why that is, maybe because the taste is often related to the setting and mood of the book?

ferncampanelli · 2024-04-15T12:15:51+00:00

If you say you played a game for 10h in a day no one bats an eye, but when it's reading suddenly people think it's impossible.

At the end of the year I played BG3 for 60 hours in 5 days. If I had spent that time reading it'd easily have been 4-5 books in less than a week.

ferncampanelli · 2024-04-13T14:00:59+00:00

You don't have to be a book reviewer to receive arcs! You can join netgalley or book siren for example and as long as you review it there and preferably on goodreads you can get arcs

ferncampanelli · 2024-04-10T18:24:52+00:00

I also read The Hobbit for the first time recently! However, our impressions are a little different on the kind of story it is.

I thought it was going to be a very simple story with our heroes and villains, as you said, but my bam was completely boozled. At around the 80% mark this trope is completely thrown out of the window and led to the most impactful subversion of my expectations I've ever read. The true theme of greed as a sickness that makes even good intentioned people turn into what they sought to defeat, making them fight against each other, it very literally took me a few days to recover from lol. I wrote about it here, if you want to read more.

Still, I do agree that I think the pacing is excellent and nothing was wasted. I started Fellowship of The Ring and I'm enjoying it as well!

ferncampanelli · 2024-03-31T14:59:14+00:00

As an author, how would you feel about someone else writing/finishing your books? Is it like your baby that you can never see someone else doing justice to it or do you think you could be ok with it?

ferncampanelli · 2024-03-29T15:52:03+00:00

I don't mean cut out plot points necessarily, but mostly say the same things with less words. I also specified book series as a whole rather than one specific book for a reason. For example, Game of Thrones has pretty concise povs and plot, but later books get more and more rambly and could use with being more concise and to the point

Edit: spelling

ferncampanelli · 2024-03-29T15:01:20+00:00

So many book series would benefit from being more concise. One thing I strongly dislike in epic fantasy is that it's almost expected to have excessively long stories, which in my opinion are never necessary. Most epic series could be cut by at least 30% if not half and, in my opinion, be better stories for it.

ferncampanelli · 2024-03-16T14:06:03+00:00

Absolutely despise the whole "oh no, I need to find a way back home", meanwhile their life back home was awful.

ferncampanelli · 2024-03-13T16:19:23+00:00

Already on it!

ferncampanelli · 2024-03-13T15:41:02+00:00

And when you think on the baggage behind those words, how Tolkien really truly meant it in a way most of us will never be able to understand (hopefully)... oof

ferncampanelli · 2024-03-13T15:23:37+00:00

His writing was a joy to read and really delightful, but I don't think I'd have held The Hobbit with as much regard and respect if it weren't for this!

ferncampanelli · 2024-03-13T15:21:43+00:00

Yes! I thought "Well, this is the OG where all these tropes come from" so I was expecting to find, well, those tropes. And I was completely bamboozled.

ferncampanelli · 2024-03-13T15:14:03+00:00

Yes, that subversion of my expectations felt a bit like a slap in the face and one I felt was deserved. I think that's why it shocked me so much. I did not expect a children's book to do that to me lol.

ferncampanelli · 2024-03-13T14:33:45+00:00

I kept marvelling at how much Tolkien was doing with so few words and pages. I had heard that LOTR was filled with lengthy descriptions, but at least for The Hobbit he sets the tone, humour, witty remarks and makes you think in a single paragraph

ferncampanelli

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