What Makes Your Book Unique
Knowing what sets your book apart from the rest in your genre is a selling point
The publishing world is a competitive market — there’s no other way to spin it.
And sometimes, no matter how much research you put in to figure out —
What covers will work
What fonts and colors will work
What keywords you should use
What is trending in your genre and the market
— it will ultimately boil down to what sets your book apart from the others.
Discovering what this is can then be formed into a hook and a whole marketing platform for your book.
Back when I was still trying to figure out what my next book was going to be and how to publish it all via self-publishing, I was also trying to build my newsletter subscribers.
To draw them in and keep them, I began a few month-long story campaigns in which I would release the next finished portion of the story each week.
The story was called The Backup Superhero.
Now, I know already that the superhero market is very oversaturated with movies, TV shows, and more. And there is superhero fatigue as a result of it. However, I still really love superhero stories and I wanted to try my hand at it.
So, the question I asked myself was — what sets my story apart from the others?
Well, the main character Tanser Girl lives in a world where superheroes don’t have powers and they work hand in hand with the police in New York City. (Think of them as glorified vigilantes.) In addition to this, the superheroes are separated into a tiered system from Level A superheroes who get the glory for crime stopped, down to Level D superheroes, who do all the work but get none of the credit.
Tanser Girl is a Level D superhero.
And when another Level D superhero decides to take the credit, all mayhem breaks lose and the other superheroes feel the shift in balance.
This was what set me apart — a world with glorified vigilantes who were separated into categories.
Now after the story was finished and the last portion was sent out to my subscribers, I had not only gained subscribers, but I received lots of questions about the story.
Would it be published?
Would it be turned into a series?
What would the cover look like?
I was stunned that something I’d only done to draw people in had actually worked and now they were asking for more.
I would have never guessed that writing The Backup Superhero would cause readers to recognize me as a superhero author over all the other genres I write in.
Now, I’m aware that I previously said all that research wouldn’t matter without what sets you apart.
However, once you determine this factor, you need to search other books in your genre to see how you can further differentiate your book from others.
For example, here are what some readers said about The Backup Superhero:
Thankfully, once I figured out what set me apart from other superhero books in my genre, I made a great hook for myself and attracted the right readers.
My hook: If you had the chance to be a superhero, would you want to be? Even if you were a Level D superhero, doing all of the work but getting none of the credit?
Don’t be afraid to put your book out there.
Just be sure to discover what sets your book apart from the rest and help yourself show that to readers.
If you aren’t sure what elements are different, asking your alpha and beta readers to give their thoughts after they read it can also help you figure this out.
For more about how The Backup Superhero differentiated from other superhero content, see Breaking into the Superhero Genre.