Hey, literary agent! Are you looking for a knockoff or something original?

 Years ago at Canyon House, a long forgotten marketing company, Norman had a sharp eye for products we could knock off, products that were already proven winners. Knockoffs were low risk and they made money, not as much as the originals, but enough to keep things profitable.

Marketing a new and truly original product is risky. Most don't make it. They're dropped before too much money is lost. The big money goes to push the winners. When you just go for knockoffs you eliminate losses from those hopeless products that would never make it. Because your product is a knockoff of a product that's already proven to be winner, you can be relatively certain the it too will make money.

Marketing knockoffs is boring.

In submitting queries to literary agents (I'm still looking!) a common request is to name "comparable books." I laughed when one agent's wish list mentioned that he/she/they/them wanted submissions that "defied categorizations altogether" -- and then asked for comparable titles.

It's understandable. There are hundreds -- maybe thousands -- of agents out there trying to make a living, and it isn't easy for them. Wouldn't it be easier for an agent to make a deal with a publisher by offering a book that is "like" a current best seller? Norman wouldn't hesitate.

So "original" is going to be harder to sell; riskier. "Original" is not for every agent out there. It takes someone special.

Original stories do get published. Out there among the agenting universe there are players who do recognize these special books and champion them and bring them to the market.

But it's risky.

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