Continents for Your Comparable Title are Running Out

In the publishing world (and movies, music, theater, and elsewhere I would imagine), books are often pitched by referring to a popular title and then putting a spin on it. This helps prospective editors contextualize the book and, hopefully, convince them to offer a deal.

Coincidentally, I just noticed a trend that’s hit really quickly, in just recent days on book deals. So you’d better act fast!

The deals repository at Publishers Marketplace notes a number of books being sold as “Game of Thrones in Kentucky” or whatever. Here’s the rundown:

March 16, 2017: News posted of “Angus Maclean’s THE SEVEN KEYS, an epic fantasy adventure set in an alternative Far East, pitched as Game of Throne’ in Asia, opening with a woman married off to a Southron warlord for political advantage who has a dagger and silk rope hidden in her bridal gown” to Ace.

March 14, 2017: News posted for “Indian author Ashok Banker’s UPON A BURNING THRONE and THE BLIND KING’S WRATH, the first two books of an epic fantasy series (pitched as like an “Indian GAME OF THRONES”) about siblings battling for control of a vast empire while a powerful demonlord pits them against each other” to John Joseph Adams Books.

January 10, 2017: News posted for “Marlon James’s THE DARK STAR TRILOGY, three novels pitched as an African Game of Thrones that combine myth, fantasy and history to explore what happened to three mercenaries who were part of a band trying to find a missing child, to Riverhead.” James’s book A Brief History of Seven Killings was fabulous.

So if you’re planning on selling a book about Game of Thrones in Europe, South America, North America, or Antarctica, I guess you better get cracking.