Lee Reed
Illustration of a smiling book with arms around the icons for the Libby library download app and the read aloud symbol.

Writers! Meet Your New Best Friends: Libby and Samantha

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(A Few Tips for Writers on Researching Comparables and Proofreading Your Work)

The news is full of scary stories about technology such as artificial intelligence taking over the writing world. While unchecked AI is frightening to me, not all technology strikes fear in my heart. After all, unless you are writing your books, articles, screenplays, essays, and poems longhand with an ink pot and a feathered quill, you are using technology. And there are surprising ways that technology can help writers save time and money, including when researching book comparables and proofreading your work.

Libby—An Easier, Cheaper Way to Research Comparables

Any writer who wants to become a published book author will be asked this question: “What are the comparables (comps) for your book?” While it’s an easy question for some to answer, for most authors, it can be pretty challenging. Hopefully, you’ve put aside some research time to answer this question. But if an opportunity to pitch your work pops up and you need to find comps quickly, the work can feel daunting. 

To really know if you’ve found your comparable author(s), you have to read. You’ll get great ideas from booksellers, librarians, reviews, algorithm results, and friends, but there’s no other way to determine if another author’s voice, tone, style, or themes are akin to yours than to read.

When picking comparable titles or authors, make sure you aren’t comparing apples to oranges.

Once you find some authors that may be good comparables, it’s a good idea to read several of their books so that you can spot whether an element of their writing is consistent across all of their work. Why does that matter? You want to know if you want to reference the author in general or certain approaches they took with one book.

On top of that, you don’t want to pick the same book everyone else does (bestsellers or those that permeate pop culture). You also need to pick one that’s been published recently (within five years).

So, you’re in a pickle. You’re trying to answer the comparable question quickly, which means you need to read a lot of books in a hurry. Enter the audiobook to the rescue! And since you don’t want to break the bank downloading everything off a paid service like Audible, you turn to one of your new best friends, Libby.

The Libby app is free. It’s what most US public libraries use to allow their patrons to check out digital content. You can search your library’s catalog of audiobooks—which is usually pretty extensive—and check out several at a time that can be accessed immediately. Then, go on a listening binge. Often you can tell within a chapter or two if an author’s writing style feels similar to yours. Once you’re done listening to a book, you can return it immediately with a click, freeing up space in your account to get another.

What Makes a Good Book Comp?

When you are reading or listening to potential comparable books, ask yourself these questions:

  • Is the author’s voice or tone similar to mine?
  • Is there something else about the author’s style that is similar to mine?
  • Are the themes similar?
  • Are there similarities in character, key plot points, or setting?
  • Is there a reason my book would pop up in a “if you like this book, you’ll love _____” algorithm?

Remember, your book doesn’t have to perfectly mirror the other book for it to be a good comp. But, before you list it as a comp, think about what the book is known for. If the similarity between that book and yours isn’t related to an element of the book that will first come to mind when you mention the book’s name, use it sparingly, if at all. For example, that book may not be a good choice where you are prompted to list book comp titles and have no room to add notes. But in a query letter or a face-to-face pitch, you can make it work with phrases like:

  • “Think [comparable book title] except with [whatever is different about your book].”
  • “My book is like [comparable 1] meets [comparable 2].”
  • “My writing style is similar to [author], in that mine is also [specific aspect of style].”
  • “It’s like if [comparable book title] was written for [different age group or genre].”
  • “Mine has the [quality 1] of [comparable 1] and the [quality 2] of [comparable 2].”

A few resources on finding comparables:

Samantha—If You Can’t Afford a Proofreader, Try This

We all know that spell check is only step one when it comes to proofreading your work. As an editor by profession, of course, I wish everyone would go out and hire proper proofreaders before sending their written words out into the world. But I understand a lot of writers are working under tight, dare I say nonexistent, budgets. 

The first tip is to go old school and print out your work. You’ll see more errors on a physical page than you will on a screen. But even then, our eyes can play tricks on us. If you are reading something you’ve written, your brain still remembers what you intended to say, regardless of what actually made it on the page. Then, sometimes, your too-helpful brain overrides your eyes and you “read” what you meant to write, missing errors.

It’s not foolproof, but I’ve found using the read aloud function in my word processor helps force my brain to forget my intentions and focus on what is on the page. You can choose a few different voice options with these read aloud features—I’ve found Samantha, also known as RealSpeak American Samantha Voice—to be the least annoying, but take your pick! 

Regardless of the voice you choose, it will be a bit monotone and completely devoid of voice. And that’s what you need. You’re not reading to enjoy your story, you’re trying to focus on each word of each sentence to catch mistakes. When I do this, I read along on the screen as Samantha spews out my words. With that flat voice, I’m not getting caught up in my story, and suddenly I see all the homonyms that spell check missed, or the missing words gobbled up by the word processor. If Samantha doesn’t pause when I think she should, I check for a missing comma or end-of-sentence punctuation. 

Perfect? No. But it helps!

A few resources on proofreading your own work: