“So?” you might be thinking, “You work in publishing.  You read a lot.  It’s a bestseller with a slew of enthusiastic reviews and miles of buzz behind it.  Why wouldn’t you want to read it.”  Seven hundred and eighty-four pages is why!  The thing is a doorstop.  I’ve got a mountain of manuscripts and proposals, a backlog of magazine articles fading in relevance as I type this, a full inbox, and an eight-year-old with more homework every night than I had class work as an undergrad at Columbia.  When, for Pete’s sake, am I supposed to fit in an almost eight hundred page book?

But, still, I’m drawn to it like I’m drawn to pumpkin doughnuts and stews in the fall.  Because it’s the season for big, important books that you can curl up with in your favorite arm chair on a chilly day—wrapped in a warm cardigan, sipping some warm apple cider as you turn the pages—and lose all track of time.  Something about the dip in temperatures and the fact that it’s twilight at 3:30 PM  makes me want to read long and complicated works. 

Clearly, I’m not alone in this.  The publishing world has traditionally scheduled big, important titles in the fall/winter season and beach reads starting in late spring.  And, when I googled “seasonal reading” to see if it’s already been classified as a disorder in the DSM, I came across this piece in the Guardian which…yeah…it seems I’m not at all original (or unique) in my fall reading needs.

What about you?  Do you get all nostalgic for War and Peace or Dune once the flip flops are put away and the jackets come out?

We’ll be blogging as usual over here at www.dystel.com now instead of at Blogger, and there are also some other things for you to explore over to the right (unless you’re not currently reading this on the site itself, in which case you might want to just poke your head in and take a look!).  You might be interested in learning more about us and our clients.  If you’re an author looking for representation, perhaps you’ll want to peruse our FAQ, Submission Requirements, Who We Are and What We’re Looking For, and Nonfiction Proposal Guidelines.  Need something new to read?  Check out our Staff Recommendations, Recent and Forthcoming Titles, and What We’re Reading in the column on the right. Maybe you want to know where we’ll be?  We’ve got a calendar with our upcoming conferences and events in that sidebar as well!  Of course, if you’d like, please feel free to use the links over there to Subscribe, Follow, or Like us and share our site with others!  The new blog should start feeding into our Twitter and Facebook accounts today, so if you’re already following us there, you don’t need to do anything.  If you’re reading us in a blog reader, please subscribe to the new RSS feed.

Make yourselves at home!

As always, we want to hear from you!  What do you think of the new digs?  Any suggestions for improvement?  Glitches we may not have caught?  (We hope not, but let us know if so!)  New features that you’d like us to consider?  We can’t always implement everything recommended to us, but we’re always open to hearing your ideas.

I know it’s a little ways away still, but I’ve been starting to see some marketing materials for this year’s BEA, taking place in NYC May 25-27. The website gives a lot of great information about the event, and they recently announced that they are trying to broaden the appeal and turn it into an entire New York Book Week May 24 through May 28. This is very cool, and offers not only authors, publishers, agents and the entire publishing community a chance to come together, but it also gives regular New Yorkers the opportunity to get involved and come out to join in the fun. Many venues are taking part, and people will be able to visit places all over the city for events, including bookstores, the 92nd Street Y, and the NY Public Library. If you’ll be in town, take a look at some of the great programs they are planning and put them in your calendar now so you can come out and support the book biz.

I’ve had a few questions about how this will work, so I’ll try to address those here. First and foremost: I want to be very clear that I will continue to agent my amazing clients, and I remain on the lookout for exceptionally talented new authors. I’m a literary agent, and that’s not going to change.

Though I’ll be living and working in L.A., you can expect to see me in New York. Often. I’ll be back at the end of January for more than a week (I’ll be attending the SCBWI Winter conference to do the roundtables on January 29), meeting with editors, publishers and, of course, authors. There will be several trips like that throughout the year, so you New Yorkers can breathe easy (or not!).

I’ll be working New York hours, at my desk about 9:30 AM – 7 PM Eastern time, and I’ll be at my new phone number, 310-363-0252. That number is already live, so feel free to call me there any time (it’s forwarded to ring me wherever I am). My email remains the same: mbourret@dystel.com. I’ll still be on Twitter, where I’ll try to be more active–computer issues have kept me off a bit that past couple of weeks–and you’ll see me blogging more than before.

Speaking of Twitter, I asked my followers there for questions they wanted answered about the move. Either they’re all comedians or already knew everything, but here are a couple of questions and answers:

Question: Is it true that people sparkle in LA?

Answer: I don’t know, but I’ll find out and will let you know.

Question: Could you cover submission guidelines and how to submit, if that’s changed?

Answer: Great question! I’m now only accepting email queries. Please do not mail queries to the New York office. (Though all other official mail should still go to the New York office.)

Question: Do you remember driving? I would love to see how that’s treating you.

Answer: I actually drive several times a year, and I didn’t grow up in NYC, so driving isn’t going to be new. Getting a car, however, is a very bizarre notion. I’m going to have to bring a friend because I have no clue how it works!

-Michael