DGLM's new blog and website!

by DGLM

Looking for the DGLM blog? We’ve moved on over to WordPress and merged our blog into our website for your one-stop shopping convenience, so please come join us over at http://www.dystel.com/!

Happy holidays and see you in 2011!

by Michael

All of us at DGLM wish you, our loyal blog readers, the happiest of holidays. We're stepping away from the office till the new year and the blog until January 10th, so it's going to be quiet around here until then. But we have some exciting things in store when we return, and I think it's safe to say that 2011 is going to be our best year of blogging yet. Thanks so much for all your comments, questions and support, and we'll see you again in the new year!

What do you want?

by Lauren

Thanks to everyone who joined Jim yesterday for our first DGLM blog chat! If you missed it, check out the entry from yesterday to replay it and read the answers to all the great questions he got. Lots of good query information in there, especially. We’re going to be doing more of these, so if you have any suggestions for topics, please let us know in the comments!

More excitement that’s coming your way, dear blog readers, is a revamp and relaunch of our blog and website. Primarily we’re going to be combining the two into a single site, but we’d love to add some interesting and helpful new features in the process. That’s where you fine folks come in. What would you like to see? We’ve gotten some fantastic tips from all of you in the past, and we’d love to hear what more we could do that you’d find useful. As much as possible, we’d love to work the things that you want into our design!

Once the blog is moved, we’re also going to look to better integrate our blog and Facebook page (Related: do you like us, but not yet “like” us? If so, follow us here!), so if anyone has any thoughts or tips on that, we’d love to hear them.

Part of the revamp means a move to WordPress, because we wanted to be able to host our website and blog as one. I know we had some readers who hoped we’d stay on Blogger when we first suggested it (and that’s why we didn’t move then just to get more bells & whistles) so I’m wondering what we can do to make the transition easy. I suspect most of you can just as easily follow us on WordPress, but I think the problem will come for Google devotees who don’t use a Google Reader. Have things changed on this front in the last year? Anyone know of a way we can keep things simple for the Blogger fans?

Let us know your thoughts below!

And on a final note, with Thanksgiving coming up next week, it’s a perfect time to say thanks to all of you for making our first year of blogging in earnest such a fun one! We’re so grateful for all the feedback we’ve gotten: from technical help, to reading suggestions, to your thoughts on the issues of the day. Thanks to you all for joining the conversation and for forming a little community for us to take part in! It’s not always easy to find time or a subject, but you do make it a pleasure!

Blog chat live!

by Jim

Next week, you’ll all have the opportunity to join the agency’s first live chat. Yours truly will be available for an hour from 3:00-4:00 Eastern on Thursday the 18th to answer any questions you might have about pretty much anything—how to write a query letter, the state of the marketplace, what we’re looking for, what makes us run away screaming, and pretty much anything you can come up with. The one thing it won’t be is a place to pitch your book—that’s what email’s for.

This is going to be a test run for the chat system. We’re not really sure how many of you will be able to make it, so we’re going to keep it general and see how it goes. If it’s a hit, we’ll be looking to do it regularly and maybe add more specifically themed chats in the future. (If you have requests for particular themed chats, please let us know below!) So be sure to stop by and make me feel popular!

The chat will be live right here, and if you want to sign up now for a reminder, you can do so in the box below!

Technical difficulties

by Lauren

Hello there, blog readers!  I've recently been alerted to a couple technological snafus related to our blog.   Fortunately, you guys have been super helpful in the past, so I'm coming back for more.  In the eternal tech conundrum, it's near impossible to troubleshoot a problem you can't replicate, so naturally both these things don't appear to be an issue on our end (and we haven't changed any settings recently, related or otherwise).

First DGLM client Joelle Anthony let us know that sometime in April or so, she stopped being able to comment on our blog.  Here's what she says:

"Just so you know, what happens is I click comment, the window opens, I type my comment, I choose my name and URL (I’ve also tried anonymous) and then when I hit post, instead of word verification coming up like it used to, everything just disappears and I’m back reading the comments that are already there."

She can comment on blogs where comments are formatted like this: http://anthonysundaysoup.blogspot.com/ but not on blogs where comments are formatted like ours: http://ramblingsofadevotedbookworm.blogspot.com/.


And second we heard via Facebook from reader Mark Janousek that lately our blog entries don't show up in his Facebook news feed.  I suspect Facebook's the culprit here, with their constant setting switches and such, but I don't see a way to change those settings. 


I still get the blog feed on my Facebook and have no problem commenting on our blog.

So for both questions: a) does anyone know why that happens?, b) does it happen to anyone else?, c) has anyone narrowed down the circumstances under which it happens to a narrower set?, and/or d) does anyone know what settings I need to tweak?


If you can't comment, please feel free to email me at labramo@dystel.com with any answers to the above!

Thanks in advance, guys, and thanks especially to Joelle and Mark for giving us the heads up!

Cash for pageviews

by Chasya

These days we often advise our clients to get out there and build a presence on the internet. We may sound all broken-recordish on this issue, but the free publicity an author can get simply by engaging in social media is becoming more and more necessary and invaluable! And, of course, we’ve been practicing what we preach right here on our blog and by spending time reading and boning up on social media ourselves. Which is why this great piece from The Awl caught my attention. Looks like the New York Observer is offering cash prizes for certain achievements made by their staff on the interwebs! Authors, take note, because the tips they offer to achieve these goals are fantastic and can be used to boost your own web presence. Check out their advice on how engaging readers in discussion and offering commentary on buzz-worthy topics can get your name out there.

Any other helpful tips you’ve come across in your own quest for internet domination?

We'd like to thank the academy....

by DGLM

Thank you very much to Chuck Sambuchino at the Guide to Literary Agents Editor's Blog for naming the DGLM blog one of the five Best Agent Blogs for 2010! Now, with more than half of 2010 still ahead of us, we're going to have to figure out how to live up to it!

Is blogging killing writing?

by Miriam

Being the chatty bunch we are here at DGLM, we spend almost as much time talking about whether we should be blogging as we spend actually blogging. For us, the issue is the time it takes to come up with a blog topic on our allotted blogging day each week, the time it takes to find an interesting story to comment on, the time it takes to write our post, the time it takes to read the ensuing comments and respond, if appropriate or necessary…. In short, all of us are conflicted about how much time away from our always reproducing piles of work blogging demands. And, yet, we do it because you can’t be a forward thinking outfit in this day and age without a blog presence (secretly, some of us even enjoy the interaction with our readers and followers).

This piece in the Daily Beast is interesting in that it raises another topic. Is blogging making writers less able to write anything with more substance than a People magazine article? Is it imperiling long, satisfying narratives, replacing them with the literary equivalent of gossipy chit chat?

Obviously a lot of people are worried about the fate of the publishing business. But what about the fate of literary works and the actual craft of writing?

Checking in

by Lauren

So how's it going DGLM blog readers? We wanted to take the opportunity now that we’ve had time to settle in to find out how you feel about the changes we made here.

We've all been thrilled with the feedback we're getting and how active you guys are. Finding time to work on this without taking time away from our clients has been a challenge--I'm writing this on the subway en route to the office, for example--but we're having fun being part of the discussion with you.

So how do you feel about the redesign? We're blogging much more than we used to, but are there areas we're still not covering (or covering enough) that you'd like us to consider? What are you liking most? Least? The title contest and Slush Week were both a lot of fun for us, and we'd love to do more contests and series--what do you think? Is there a helpful button or widget you wish you could find in our sidebar? We've gotten great suggestions from you guys, like Slush Week and the I Wish I Saw More... sidebar, so please keep 'em coming. (In the comments below, but also in the comments at any time! We're always interested to hear what you think.)

You can see the blogs that we're reading to the right--we'd love more suggestions! In particular, I'd love to read a blog by someone who works in sub rights. Anyone know of one?

Speaking of which, who are you? Unpublished authors, published authors, editors, agents, publishing professionals, tax attorneys who simply love our sparkling wit? Let us know below, anonymously or otherwise.

Some housekeeping as well. We stopped doing questions corner because we weren't really getting many questions emailed, but we're reading the questions you ask in the comments and try to cover the bigger ones in separate blog posts. If you're missing that feature, try clicking the advice tag in the cloud at bottom.

Speaking of the tag cloud, I may have gotten a little overambitious early on with the tagging and created a ton of tags that aren't very useful, so I'll be cleaning that up a bit.

And for our fellow Blogger bloggers, are there any handy widgets or tricks we should know about? You guys were very helpful in resolving our color issues some time back. If anyone has any tips on embedding video in particular, that'd be great. We've had sizing issues, fought with the HTML forever, and then given up when it was still not quite right.

Most of all, thanks to everyone reading! Thanks to the linkers and retweeters and Facebook sharers who've helped us find others. Thanks for actively participating in the discussions, letting us know what you think, and helping us improve. Thanks also to those of you who read but don't comment--we hope to hear from you, too! It's a genuine pleasure talking with all of you.

And now the train's pulling into 14th Street, so it's time for me to go!

What Stacey Glick wants

by Stacey

As some of you might know, I had identical twin girls 10 months ago, and have 2 "older" girls at home (3 and 4 1/2). So, while I have continued to work throughout my entire pregnancies and maternity leaves, my life has had a lot to do with topics like dirty diapers, play dates, and nursery schools lately. Listening to some of the respondents from Lauren's earlier post, I wanted to give a little insight into what I'm looking for right now. For obvious reasons, I'd like to see more smart, unique, well-told parenting titles. The category is really overcrowded, so it's important that the authors have a strong platform, a fresh message, and a voice that resonates with today's overstressed, exhausted parents. It doesn't have to be practical either. There are some great narrative books out there that aren't in the parenting category per se, but appeal to that market, books like the one I just recommended on our site, One and the Same by Abigail Pogrebin. I'm also always looking for more narrative nonfiction, like a project I represent, The Widow Clicquot, which tells the little known story of the dynamic French woman who created the champagne brand. Another category I'm very fond of both personally and professionally is memoir. Also overcrowded but when it works, it's so satisfying , like Come Back by Claire and Mia Fontaine, which I've blogged about before, and which I sold after sending the proposal to 54 publishers before finding the right one! It helps for memoir to have a platform already in place, like Shreve Stockton's The Daily Coyote, based on her very popular blog. In the practical area, I am always interested in working with how-to authors on craft books and cookbooks. And finally, I've had some good success recently with young adult fiction, and I'd love to see more smart, quality work in that area. I hope to hear from you soon with new submissions!

(Now seems a good time to point your attention to our relatively new sidebar:  "I wish I saw more..."  We'll use it as a way to keep you all up to date on the "Why can't someone just send me a query for X?" conversations that go on 'round the DGLM offices.  Check it out to the right!  UPDATE:  Sorry, I meant to thank Susan at Stony River for the excellent idea!!  -Lauren)

DGLM Poll-a-thon

Thanks to all of you for the great feedback in the comments on our post about changing things up around here. I've turned that feedback into some handy polls, so we can get a better sense of what all of you would like to see. And while we'll still have to decide how much of the feedback we're getting it'll make sense to run with, we are eager to hear from you.

And let me apologize in advance if these polls don't actually work--I'm trying some advice I found on a message board to put the polls in the posts rather than the sidebar, but as we've seen, when I get near HTML code, colors tend to go wonky. I'll fix 'em if this doesn't actually do the trick. Wish me luck!

-Lauren

Where should the DGLM blog live?

Which type of post would you like to see most often?

Show or Tell?

Give me more... (Choose as many as apply.)

Give me less... (Choose as many as apply.)

Introducing Chasya's Questions Corner

Whether it’s an inquiry about queries or curiosity about the publishing industry in general, we know you all have tons of burning questions. Which is why, once a week, I’ll be tackling one or two of your questions on the blog and answering them in a little segment we’re going to call Chasya’s Questions Corner (because who doesn’t like a little alliteration?).

So send me your questions at news@dystel.com with the word question in the subject line and let us know what you want to know!


-Chasya

The blog it is a-changing

As you may have noticed, the DGLM blog has begun to change just a bit. There’s been more activity around here, and that’s only the beginning.

We’re beginning a gradual process of changing the way we do things. First and foremost, there will be more entries, more regularly, from more agents. And we’ll be paying closer attention to which posts you guys seem most excited about and trying to give you the content you’re looking for. We’re aiming to link more, to post more multimedia, and to start more conversations with you fine folks.

Change will be gradual, but we’re hoping to get feedback from all of you and to incorporate as many of your ideas as we can to build a stronger blog together. We may not be able to take on every suggestion, but we promise to listen and consider what you have to say. And we hope you’ll continue to let us know as we go along as well--and let us know what you think of the changes you see!

So what do you think? What would you like to see from us that we’re not already doing? What should we do more of? Is there anything you see on other blogs, particularly publishing industry blogs, that you’d also like to see here? And which other blogs are you reading? Which subjects do we cover too much and which should we cover more (or at all)? We’re thinking of switching from Blogger to WordPress--yay or nay? Polls and contests would be fun, right?

We're looking forward to hearing your feedback and finding out how we can make this a more fun, helpful, and rewarding experience for us all! Let us know in the comments!


-Lauren

P.S. If anyone can tell me how to convince blogger to change the link color to what the Fonts and Colors screen tells me the link color is, I'd definitely appreciate it! I even tried poking around in the HTML, pretending to know what I'm looking for, and I don't see the bright blue and purple of the links and followed links in the settings anywhere. UPDATED: Thanks for the help! It's fixed now!

Our first post

We here at Dystel & Goderich are an opinionated bunch. Conveniently, there’s always something new for us to have an opinion about: new books, new trends, new formats, etc. We’ve also noticed that as we continue to meet more and more authors (the aspiring and the published), some questions are universal and will almost always come up at some point.

As such, we’ve decided to give ourselves a spot to spout off. Every week, a different DGLM staffer will visit this space to share thoughts and information relating to publishing or writing in general. We won’t be able to answer every question anyone has, but we hope to be able to share a little of what we’ve learned over the years. For some added perspective, we’ll have guest writers from our client list every so often to weigh in on important issues or merely to rant about whatever they feel is rant-worthy.

The tables are turned, and now we’re the ones sitting at our keyboards trying to fill the pages. Wish us luck, and feel free to let us know if there are particular subjects you’d like to see covered.