Writing and food inspiration

by Stacey

As someone who represents a good number of cookbooks and loves food, I found this piece by Melissa Clark about food and writing to be sweet and enjoyable. She is passionate about food, and it shows in her prolific writing and recipes. Although I don't know her personally, we have friends in common and I hear she's a nice person. I hope someday I'll have the opportunity to visit her home and have her cook for me. It sounds like a warm, inviting place to be.

Welcome to DGLM, Stephanie DeVita!

by Stephanie

Hi blog readers! Now that both Jane and Chasya have so kindly introduced me, it’s my turn to chime in. I guess the best way to begin is to give you a little information on my background here. I may be new to the website, but I’m not entirely new to the blog. In fact, I have actually been puttering around this office for longer than you think.

I began at Dystel & Goderich over a year ago as an intern. I was determined to find myself an internship in publishing, particularly during the latter half of my college career. I hadn’t had much luck early on, so by my third year at NYU, nothing was going to stop me. I applied and interviewed for the internship with DGLM all while living in London, where I was spending the spring semester of my junior year. Fully aware that my geographical gap could create a handicap, I knew I had to be persistent. And luckily for me, according to Lauren, I was persistent enough that it exhibited my determination, but not too persistent that it made her want to burn my application and any remaining evidence of my existence. So with that, I was offered the chance to join DGLM that summer as an intern. The semesters passed, I continued to stay with the agency, and before I knew it about a year and a half had gone by and I had graduated from NYU. Then I was lucky enough to be given the opportunity by Jane and Miriam to take over for Chasya as she looks to begin a new chapter in her life. I knew that the timing was right; I felt comfortable here, and I had spent enough time working on the less essential tasks that I had developed the desire to explore the business further and carve out my own place in it. And as clichés go, the rest is history.

In giving this blog post some thought, I remembered something Rachel had said in her welcome post: “I think the one thing I truly love about working in a literary agency is that I get to see the entire process of publishing, from a rough manuscript to a finished book on the shelves.” I might make fun of Rachel for her love of Vegemite, but her words are very true. I’m very excited to finally get the chance to dive in and take on my own work. My time at DGLM has allowed me to expose myself to an industry I have always wanted to be a part of, and now it’s allowing me to embark on a new journey in my life—one that will allow me to build the career I’ve always wanted.

The bottom line is, I’m excited to take on this new responsibility within Dystel & Goderich, because now I get to hear from you. Yes, you. I look forward to hearing your ideas, your thoughts, your opinions. You all have stories to tell. Trust me, I’ve read a lot of them. But now I’m ready to do something with them. Turn them into the books they deserve to be. There are certain subjects I’m particularly interested in reading, which you can find in my bio on our website. So let me hear from you. I can only rearrange the pens on my desk for so long….

Goodbye, dear readers!

by Chasya

You have all joined me in various debates here on the blog and read my musings on some of the most random things, such as bad titles (which I love) and good author squabbles (also love). Sad as I am to say it though, this will be my last blog post. As Jane announced yesterday, I will be leaving DGLM shortly to go back to graduate school in clinical therapy. It’s always tough to say goodbye, but this time it feels especially hard. I’ve spent the past few years working in the presence of extremely hard-working and talented people, all of whom demonstrate an abiding commitment to wonderful books. I have had the opportunity to surround myself with remarkable colleagues and learn as much as I can about an industry that continues to fascinate me every day. I’ve also worked with an extremely talented list of clients and am honored to have had a small part in seeing that their books get published.

Though I’m excited to be embarking on this new adventure, I’m also sad to be leaving a job where I’ve learned and grown so much. It will be strange at first, I imagine, to open up my email and not see queries that are inspiring or make me laugh out loud (for good or bad), but I know that I will cherish my time here and miss the challenges and the endless education that comes from wearing the many hats of an agent. I’m so thrilled that the terrific Stephanie will be here to fill my shoes and know she’ll do wonderfully!

Thanks to you all for interesting discussions and lively commentary, and most of all, thanks for reading!

We're moving right along!

by Jane

Over the years, Dystel & Goderich has grown from literally just two of us—well, actually, we did have a part-time person when we began so it was two and a half—to nine. We have also had interns working with us for a number of years and, over time, many have been promoted to full-fledged staff members.

Working at any organization initially as an intern is good for the intern and for the company, in my opinion. It enables the intern to learn whether he or she wants to continue on this career path and at this company and it enables the company to evaluate the intern’s ability and enthusiasm. In the end, the intern system is good for everyone.

Four years ago, I hired one of our interns to be my assistant; Chasya Milgrom had recently graduated from college, didn’t really know what she wanted to do, but thought giving our company and the business of literary agenting a try might be interesting. In fact, over the years, she has done very well—developing new systems for us and growing enormously herself. Last year she began building a client list and also began overseeing royalties (a big job) when Jim McCarthy was promoted to Senior Agent.

Now, sadly for us, Chasya has decided to move on. She will be attending graduate school in an area that she is passionate about. We know she will be terrific at whatever she does and we are excited to watch her succeed.

I am delighted to say that our very bright and energetic intern of the last year and a half, Stephanie DeVita, has just joined us as a junior agent; Stephanie has learned so much about our agency and the business of being a book agent in the time she has been with us that I have no doubt she is going to make a very successful career out of this. She will be taking over the royalties position as well as Chasya’s client roster and has already begun to talk about building a list of her own.

I am always excited when new people come on board and I am especially excited when they are as determined as this young woman is. I know you will hear from her soon and I know you will enjoy it.

From the Vault: Reading explained

Happy summer, everybody!  For the next while, there are going to be some absences from the blog as we take vacations, but we'd hate to leave you guys hanging.  It's no secret that we blog much more now than when we started this baby, and there are far more of you reading than there were way back when.  So we thought we'd bring back some blog entries of days gone by that you may have missed if you just joined us in the last year.  We've cued up enough, but if you have any favorites you think your fellow readers might enjoy, give us a shout below!

by Jim

Choosing what projects to take on can be a tricky thing. Given the number of manuscripts I usually have waiting to be read and how few of those I’ll actually be able to work on, I start each one assuming that I’ll be passing on it. For about 50 pages, I keep an eye out for the specific reasons I’ll be rejecting. I’m looking for overwrought writing, character inconsistency, sloppy plotting, and/or any reason to put the pages down and move on to something else.

Let’s say I pass page 50 and haven’t found a reason to definitely say no. I hit my optimistic reading phase and for the next 100 or so pages, I’m thinking, “Hook me!” I’ve invested just enough time that I won’t be upset if I end up deciding to pass, but I’m starting to think, “Hey, this could be my next new client.”

At page 150, my mood shifts entirely to, “Don’t let me down now.” Pessimism sneaks back in a bit. Even if I like this, I start to wonder, can I sell it? This is where I bust out the super handy trick that Jane taught me when I was starting out: if you can think of five editors you know who this could be right for, then it’s probably worth a shot. I ride the manuscript out keeping that in mind and also thinking about the competition. What similar books have done well? Are there too many similar books? Does this read like what’s working now, or does it read like what might be working a year from now when it would come out?

Of course, every so often, a manuscript comes along that shuttles my reading rules right out the window. And that is what I live for.

Let’s flash back to last summer. I drag a bag of manuscripts up to my roof, yank out the first one, open to the first page, read the first paragraph…and stop. It sounds so corny and over the top to say that you were hooked on something from the first page except that when it happens, it’s transporting. I read until the sun went down, and the next morning, I handed the manuscript to a colleague.

“Read a page and tell me if I’m crazy,” I requested. “I mean—this is really as good as I think it is, right?”

I fell so head over heels for the novel that I actually wanted confirmation I hadn’t just lost my mind. I felt stupidly luck to even have the project in hand. When the first page was read, I got the affirmation I needed: “It’s really that good.”

“Crap. Who else has this?” Luckily for me, though other agents did have and did want to represent the novel, its author, in her infinite wisdom, decided to work with me. The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan is an astonishing novel for the young adult market that blends the literary and the commercial, stunning writing with rich characters and brilliant plotting. I eagerly look forward to its publication by Delacorte next spring.

The point I always come back to is that people who work in publishing do so because they’re readers. Yes, I read with an eye toward market and potential profit. This is a business, and when you work on commission, you can bet that there’s always an eye on the bottom line. The most thrilling part of the job, though, is playing some role in ushering a book you feel passionately about into another reader’s hands.

At the delightful (and not just because you can gamble there) Las Vegas Writers’ Conference last year, someone asked a panel I sat on, “Would you rather have something come across your desk that has great writing or a great plot?” It’s an unanswerable question. Because I’m not looking for pieces of a good book. I’m looking for the whole package, or for someone who inspires me to believe in their ability to create the whole package.

In responses to rejection letters, understandably upset writers sometimes ask, “Who are you to judge me? What right do you have to say who’s good enough?” All I can answer is that I’m a reader. I’m an audience. And I want you to win me over as much as you want me to be won. It can’t happen always, but we hope it happens enough.

Originally posted in April 2008.

Contest: World champion!

by Lauren

Well, the USA may have bowed out to Ghana back in June, but thanks to Harper Lee's classic To Kill a Mockingbird, we are the victors in this contest.  Let's take a moment to pause for chants of "USA! USA!" and maybe a round or two of "We are the Champions." 

OK, so now that that's done, here's the results:

1) USA: Harper Lee's TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD: 36.59%
2) England: George Orwell's 1984: 26.83%
3 - tie) Chile: Isabel Allende's THE HOUSE OF THE SPIRITS: 9.76% and Spain: Carlos Ruiz Zafon's THE SHADOW OF THE WIND: 9.76%
4)  Netherlands: Anne Frank's DIARY OF A YOUNG GIRL: 7.32%
5) Argentina: Jorge Luis Borges's LABYRINTHS: 4.88%
6 - tie) South Korea: Hwang Sok-yong's THE GUEST: 2.44% and Paraguay:  Augusto Roa Bastos's I, THE SUPREME:  2.44%

So, our winner is...Anonymous.  Email me at labramo@dystel.com to claim your prize, which you'll recall is a copy of one of the fine books in the contest. 

And while I did promise to read the winner and report back, I've actually read both #1 and #2 on this list.  I love them both (and still fear being in close quarters with rats as a result of the latter), so I certainly support their victory.  But since the goal was to get me reading more foreign lit, I'll skip on down to the tie for #3.  I have long meant to read both, so they're both moving up to the "to read soon" pile.  Tell me which to start with below!

Thanks to everyone who participated, and I hope we all at least got some good book recommendations out of it!

Literary fashionistas

by Rachel

I’m no fashionista, yet I find it fascinating reading descriptions of characters and their garb in books. I remember reading Charlie and The Chocolate Factory as a kid and being blown away by Roald Dahl’s descriptions, and then watching the movie—wow! So, this article by Judy Berman piqued my interest and made me think about some of the best-dressed book figures out there. I’m going to be cliché here and vote for Ian Fleming’s James Bond as my best-dressed literary hero. I also agree with a lot of the names on Berman’s list—Dorian Gray, Scarlett O’Hara, Emma Bovary—what great examples of fashion-conscious characters.

I’d love to hear who you think is one of the best-dressed literary figures out there! Or perhaps the worst (if I recall anything from my college reading, Dorothea Brooke from George Eliot’s Middlemarch wasn’t such a sharp dresser).

It's alive!

by Michael

While the serious, business-minded e-books news continues to unfold at a rapid pace, I thought I’d take a moment to show a creative insight into what books can be. And this one is simple, doable, and doesn’t change the nature of the reading experience: the digital book cover. Instead of just a static cover, why not have something that’s animated or video? And if all covers are as elegant as this clip, I say bring ‘em on!

Typos

by Jessica

Some time ago I was horrified to note that I had inadvertently switched off the spell-check on my e-mail application, and after many attempts, still could not manage to turn in back on. I am a reasonably competent speller, but I’m an idiosyncratic typist at best, prompting properly instructed touch-typists around me to blanche when they see me at my keyboard. I can, however, type with one hand like nobody’s business—a skill developed from propping my head up during late-night editing sessions, and later holding my son (who believed in sleeping on people, not cribs) when he was an infant. I could, I realize, go back and learn to type properly, but I never quite have the time. Plus, I worry that I will suffer a similar fate as an acquaintance of mine, a man who logged in many hours with a golf pro to “unlearn” his poor technique, and promptly took his game to a new, and seemingly irreversible, low. My typing could not tolerate such a setback. I’d be corresponding via crayon.

In any event, I was in the midst of looking through the contents of my “sent folder,” cringing at the assorted errors I made—including spelling my own name Hessica—when I came across this article in Salon. The authors of The Great Typo Hunt traveled across the country, logging misspellings as they went, with delightful results. As we know, I hardly live in a glass house as far as mistakes are concerned, but that doesn’t reduce my pleasure in typo-spotting. “Affect” and “effect” are probably my favorite, followed by misplaced apostrophes, “it’s” and “its,” and “I” for “me,” all the classics. When I lived in Egypt (where as a functional illiterate in the local language I had zero right to judge) I was still delighted with the English language menus, signs, and packages—the latter imported from China—that were chock full of errors and weirdly wonderful turns of phrase. On a package for an action figure called “Bat Knight,” a shameless if not entirely successful clone of the Caped Crusader, the tag line read “Get Ready To Crumble Obscure!” There was a kind of found poetry in the phrase.

Any of you spot some memorable misuses of the language? Also, if anyone knows how to turn spell check in Outlook back on, I’d be grateful.

Two for the price of one!

by Michael

I’ll admit, I was having a tough time coming up with something for the blog this week. After a busy Comic Con (wrap up here) and a hectic SCBWI National Conference (great conference blog led by my good friend Alice Pope here), my brain had shifted into neutral. I think this was a precaution to keep it from overheating. Coincidentally, I also made a return to Twitter, where one’s brain need never be engaged—just kidding! Seriously, I’d taken a break during a very busy time, and I just hadn’t gotten back into the habit. But I recommitted myself to tweet last night, so I turned to my friends to see what they’d like to find out. And, since I got two good suggestions, I’m taking them both!

First, my wonderful author Nova Ren Suma pointed me to this blog post by up-and-coming novelist Scott Tracey. It addresses the idea of “overpromotion.” In this day and age, when agents, editors and publishers all harp on authors that they need to be out promoting themselves, things can get out of hand. Scott gives an example of authors who focus on acquiring friends and followers on Facebook and Twitter. The purpose? To bombard these folks with reminders about of an upcoming book—a book, Scott humorously points out, that may be a year away from publication! More than overpromotion, this is a case of improperly using social networking. Networking, both in real life and online, is about building relationships and creating a give-and-take. You wouldn’t show up to a party and start screaming that you have a book coming out in a year (at least, I hope no one does that), so you shouldn’t be doing that on social networks, either. It’s about building relationships with other authors, industry professionals, and your audience. You want to mix direct marketing with actual interaction. You want to help promote other authors and the business generally. And if you can do it all with a sense of humor, well then, everyone will appreciate it all the more. So before you go sending out tweets about your DEBUT NOVEL!!! COMES OUT MAY 2102!!! WILL SEND TWEET REMINDER EVERY DAY UNTIL THEN!!!, remember that networking is a two-way street.

The other great question I got was from the talented Joanne Levy. She said, “I keep hearing that editors would rather publish a debut than an already pubbed author—can you elaborate?” I’ve actually been asked about this a few times, and it’s confusing to people as it seems counterintuitive. If you’ve already sold a book, aren’t you immediately more valuable to a publisher? Haven’t you proven yourself to be reliable (well, we hope that’s what you’ve done) and talented? But, that’s not necessarily the case. Yes, you’ve show you can deliver and write, but the question is, can you sell? If your first book doesn’t sell well, it’s tougher for a publisher to take on your second book. Why’s that? Because B&N, Borders and Amazon are not likely to line up to buy copies of a book by an author with a bad track record. And if the publisher can’t get those guys to take books, they have no effective way of selling them in large numbers. And if they can’t sell a book in large numbers, they won’t acquire it. This is a simplification, of course, and many other factors come into play. A well-written, high-concept book will often overcome the challenge of a bad track record. Also, the children’s side of the market (and the author who asked writes children’s books) is a little more forgiving than the adult side. Though as with everything in children’s publishing, that’s switching to more of an adult model, too, for better or worse.

So despite being stumped earlier, I hope I’ve been helpful. Let me know in the comments if you need clarification.

Writing and drinking: Same rules apply

by Stacey

I found this piece from Sunday's NYT book review enlightening and entertaining. The combination of booze and the written word goes way back and for good reason. Both offer pleasure, escapism, and the ability to keep one up late into the night. I'm especially fond of Keith Waterhouse's advice that you should never drink while you're writing, but it's ok to write while you're drinking. The similarities Nicholson hits on between drinking and writing are clever, and funny.

For anyone who likes to drink, read, write, or any combination of the three, you'll enjoy this essay. Feel free to share your own stories of boozing and writing, or your favorites from history.

Iceberg theory

by Miriam

Being a lifelong Hemingway fan—yes, few writers are easier to parody, but few have also done so much with clean, well-lit prose—I’ve always found his “iceberg theory” of writing to be absolutely dead on. Instead of trying to throw everything and the refrigerator into your book, why not have your accumulated knowledge inform your characters’ motivations or the choices you make in telling their story rather than overwhelming it. There’s nothing more tedious than a writer who has to show off every bit of research that went in to his/her saga about 19th century pickle canning for instance.

In this excerpt from George Rabasa’s Views from the Loft: A Portable Writer's Workshop, the author offers some helpful tips to keep the iceberg from sinking your narrative ship. My favorite is #10: “Research does not make the story. The story makes the story.”

Publicity pointers

by Chasya

Though publishing blogger THE INTERN is hanging up her hat for now, in one of her last posts she offers some insightful (and entertaining!) advice about book publicity and marketing gleaned from her experiences as an author. Number one on the list? It helps to be friendly. A simple but excellent (and, as she points out, easy to forget) point. It also helps to “see everything as hilarious,” as in not take anything too seriously. Oh, and to be bad at math (naturally).

Do you have any other unusual pointers for the recently published author?

Let's talk true crime

by Jane

The other day Lauren Abramo pointed out this piece to me and it brought to mind how much the category of true crime non-fiction has changed over the last twenty or more years.

When I began representing books in this category, they were almost always published initially in hardcover and you could be sure once a high-profile crime was committed and someone arrested for it, there would be three or four authors rushing proposals out to publishers through their agents. I can actually remember one of my true crime writers coming through my office door with the proposal he had stayed up all night to finish just to beat out the next writer. When the Amy Fisher murder case happened, for example, my client’s book was one of three made-for-TV movies that aired.

Advances for true crime in those days could be substantial, which is why so many people wanted to get in the game, so to speak.

Over the years though, these books came to be published only in a mass market paperback format and advances went way, way down. That was the bad news; the good news is that full proposals are no longer necessary, especially for writers who have previously published in the category. Even when there needs to be some kind of a proposal, it nowhere near as complete as it once had to be.

True crime today is fairly formulaic. It must have a sensational murder; the characters need to be people whom the reader can truly relate to and it doesn’t hurt if there is lots of money and sex involved.

We are still handling several true crime titles every year and, though the advances are low, they very often earn out and so the writers earn royalties (which they generally didn’t when the advances were higher). Still, this is a very difficult category to succeed in. It takes someone who is persevering, energetic and patient enough to search out just the right cases.

If you have any questions about this category, I am happy to try to answer them.

Bookaholic?

by Jim

It’s finally August which means a few things: I’m counting down to vacation (five days!), New York smells like hot garbage, and publishing is in its slowest season. I’ve set a goal of clearing my Kindle before I head out of town on Saturday. It’s an ambitious goal, but so far seems doable (check with me on Thursday).

So what does that mean? One week of entirely non-work reading. It’s the week I have in mind all year long when I hit the registers of a bookstore laden down with things I know I don’t have time to read. Book shopping is my crack. It always makes me feel good. Until I go to put the books on shelves and realize how much I have that I still haven’t read from the last time I went shopping. And the time before. And the time before that. And 2006-9.

Come Friday, I expect this to happen: I go through my bookshelves picking out my vacation reading. I end up with maybe 12 novels. As I start to whittle down, I realize that none of these are what I really want to read on vacation. I reshelve everything and start over. This time I come up with 15 novels. I narrow to five, and I’m completely sure of them. They go into my suitcase. Saturday morning: I pull all five out, throw them on the coffee table, and randomly grab the first four things I see. I get to the airport and drop $75 in the bookstore.

Does anyone else have this problem? We’re all readers here, so I feel like I can’t be alone in this. But, I mean…I work in publishing. I get free books! And I STILL can’t avoid the pull of bookstores.

So fess up: does anyone else have the Barnes and Noble and the Borders frequent shopper card…even though they prefer shopping in independent bookstores? Has anyone else bought three copies of the same book because they just kept thinking it looked awesome? Or shown up late to dinners, shows, movies because they were lost in the stacks of beautiful books waiting to be read?

And, okay, let’s say I do end up shopping again for my vacation reads. Anyone fall completely head over heels for a book lately and just HAVE to recommend it?