Category Archives: contest

November 03, 2011   Miriam   contest, fun, Miriam, queries  
18

High concept pitches (and a mug)

Film people—producers, agents, managers—come by our offices quite often and when they do, we all sit around the conference table and listen to them tell us what they’re looking for this season.  Lately, an interesting trend has surfaced.  In our last several meetings, a Hollywood person has told us that all they need is a title.  Often, they use Sh** My Dad Says or Go the F*** to Sleep as examples of titles that they can use to build a tv show or movie around.  The first time I heard it, I thought, “Well, dang, that’s taking the high concept thing in a tragic direction.”  I mean, it’s one thing to pitch someone the contents of a book by saying, “This story is Transformers meets Annie Hall,” but you’ll have to read the manuscript (or at least the coverage) to find out how that unholy pairing is possible.  It’s quite another to have the title be both the pitch and the content.

You might think I’m about to launch into a screed about  Hollywood’s ongoing jihad against our collective intellect, but you would be wrong.  The title-as-high-concept trend does intrigue me.  In fact, it has made me think about how much more entertaining query letters for books would be if, instead of a boring synopsis, authors included a succinct, pithy, immediately graspable description of their book.

Wikipedia tells us that “High concept narratives are typically characterised by an over-arching ‘what if?’ scenario that acts as a catalyst for the following events.” I confess, I’m a sucker for “’what if?’ scenarios.”   If nothing else, it’s a fun parlor game to try to sum up your favorite books this way—e.g., “What if a sparkly vampire and a sullen high school girl fell in love?”

There’s also the Transformers meets Annie Hall approach, as mentioned above.

And, then there’s the title-as-high-concept. Snakes on a Plane anyone?

Applying any of these devices to commercial fiction is one thing but how about to literary fiction?  Are literary novels high-concept proof?  Can you guys send in your high-concept tag lines, either for your own work or published books that we’re all familiar with?  There’s a DGLM mug for the best high-concept pitch I get….

May 11, 2011   Stacey   advice, blog-to-book, contest, cookbooks and food writing, marketing/publicity, Stacey  
1

Blogging advice continued (and a prize!)

Last week I wrote about food blogs. I’m following it up this week with a fun timeline of food blogs published by Saveur. If you are interested in this category, this piece offers a great sort of who’s who, and a bit of information about the blogs and bloggers, along with some of their first posts. It’s amazing to see how fast this world has grown, and how some of the bigger names got their start. And I’m happy to see we have a couple of authors on this list.

For those of you looking for specific advice in the area of blogging, whatever your topic of choice, I found this blog post, shared with me by an editor friend, incredibly helpful. It’s really detailed, and my favorite part is that it offers the approximate time it will take you to successfully complete each of the suggested tasks. The advice is broken down in such a way that it avoids feeling overwhelming or too nebulous, and I think if you read it carefully and implement some or all of the suggestions (if you are already blogging, there will be things you can pass over, but I think there are good reminders here too), you will see results. Who’s ready to give it a try? If any of our readers take the time to follow the 21 steps listed here, let us know one month after completion if there is a noticeable increase in your blog traffic. When you send me the stats, I will send you a copy of one of my books. It’s a win-win — increased blog traffic and productivity for you, and a shiny new book to go with it!

March 07, 2011   Jim   contest, fun, Jim, reading, Tournament of Books  
5

The Tournament of Books: a blog post (you knew it was coming)

I blog about The Morning News’s Tournament of Books every year.  There’s been little evidence that anyone cares very deeply, but I do. So I’ll keep doing it!

The tournament is a March Madness style head to head of books from the past year. It’s usually 15 literary novels and one outlier—one year it was a YA novel, another year they had something more commercial. This year they have Anne Carlson’s poetry collection/scrapbook/objet d’art Nox. Whatever you want to call it, it’s beautiful. And it doesn’t have a chance of winning.

The real question this year is whether Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom will go the distance or whether it will be trounced in a backlash. As someone who liked it considerably less than The Corrections but still admires Franzen’s phenomenal skill as a writer, I’m completely okay with it going either way. The books I’m rooting for are my two favorite novels of last year: Room by Emma Donoghue and A Visit from the Goon Squad by the incomparable Jennifer Egan.

Again this year, I conned the DGLM bookclub into reading titles from the tournament, randomly selected from a hat. Miriam is deeply bitter about getting Lord of Misrule. Prediction: she’ll hate it. I ended up choosing James Hynes’ Next. Halfway through, I’m falling very, very hard for it. I can only hope that it sustains itself at the level of grace, insight, and humor it has shown so far.

I’m also pleased that someone is doing a contest for folks to predict the outcome. You can enter here.  I’m personally not predicting many spoilers in the first half of the contest. I get much nervier with the right side of the bracket when I predict Super Sad True Love Story gets knocked out super-fast. Of course, that’s because I’ve read (or tried to read) each of Gary Shteyngart’s novels and deeply disliked each one in new and exciting ways.

So join me in following the tournament this year? It’s good fun, I promise. It doesn’t take itself seriously, and it’s ultimately a bunch of nerds talking about books and presenting an award in the process. These are a few of my favorite things…

January 18, 2011   Stephanie   contest, fun, marketing/publicity, reading, Stephanie  
2

Putting those cringe-worthy photos to good use

In an effort to keep it light-hearted this week, I thought I would pass along this great blog a friend brought to my attention. Created in preparation for the release of her book of the same name, Will Work for Prom Dress is a blog wherein author Aimee Ferris shares a picture each day of a different published author in their prom attire. Because who doesn’t want to relive those images, am I right or am I right? But more to the point, the blog also includes a competition, allowing readers to guess the authors and enter a prize drawing, to be held on the date of the book’s release. Some of the pictures are fantastic in the worst way—really, it’s more questionably-colored taffeta and organza than you could ever hope for. But on the technical side, I absolutely love Ferris’s creative and quirky approach to advertising and building interest for her book prior to release. That’s one of those things we can’t stress enough to our clients: the importance of taking charge of self-promotion and marketing from the home front, if you will.  I hope you enjoy Aimee’s blog as much as I did!

December 10, 2010   DG&B   author events, contest, favorites, fun, Lauren, reading, short stories  
4

Short stories and glory

by Lauren

Twice this week, I spent my evenings at Symphony Space, soaking in culture at some great literary events. On Monday, I was lucky enough to see Emma Donoghue for the second time—rather than doing a reading, this time she was discussing the fabulous Room with Michael Cunningham. Then on Wednesday, Jim and I went to the Selected Shorts program’s evening with Colum McCann, who I’ve also had the privilege of seeing before. If you feel about Let the Great World Spin and McCann’s work in general as we do, you’ll be happy to hear that the series is actually recorded for radio broadcast, so you can listen to it here. On this particular night, Colum McCann hosted Amy Ryan reading his story “Everything in This Country Must” (from the collection of the same name that first introduced me to one of my favorite writers!), Mary-Louise Parker reading “(She Owns) Every Thing” by Anne Enright, and Michael Cerveris reading Nathan Englander’s “Free Fruit for War Widows.” It was a phenomenal performance all around, and I think I’ll be attending far more of these events in the future. As Jim said, Mary-Louise Parker should read everything.

Tucked into the program I found a flyer for the Selected Shorts Writing Contest, which I thought might be right for some of you. The 2011 Stella Kupferberg Memorial Short Story Prize with guest judge Jennifer Egan will result in a $1000 prize for the winner, whose story will be read as part of a Selected Shorts performance and recorded for possible broadcast. Plus Jennifer Egan saying you’re worthy is no small thing in itself. The deadline is March 1st, and you can read the rules here. Anyone planning to submit? If so, good luck!

November 10, 2010   DG&B   contest, fun, memoir, Miriam, nonfiction  
9

And the winners are….

by Miriam

After much in-fighting and name calling, we’re ready to give you our top three picks for memoir pitches, following last week’s contest. This was a tough process because many of the pitches sounded like books we’d like to read (and/or represent). I hope you will actually send us your queries when you’re ready to tell these stories.

Now, without further ado, the winners:

First place: Ariana Richards
Second place: Ken Olsen
Third place: Tamara

Honorable mentions: February Grace and EHF for Suzan W

If the winners would e-mail me their addresses at Miriam@dystel.com, we’ll send you your prizes (Michael Tucker’s delightful Living in a Foreign Language, a DGLM water bottle, and a DGLM soup mug).

Thank you so much for playing along!

November 03, 2010   DG&B   contest, fun, memoir, Miriam  
31

Misty, water colored memories…(and a contest)

by Miriam

For someone who’s fanatical about fiction, I’ve always had a soft spot for biographies and memoir (of course, a good account of an interesting life has much in common with the best fiction). Losing oneself in the pages of a novel full of invented characters is a delicious way to spend an afternoon, but there is a particular kind of pleasure in reading about real people’s exploits and experiences and especially how they describe themselves and what they’ve gone through. I find that willingness to share one’s humanity and the courage it takes to air one’s laundry and leave it flapping in the breeze pretty irresistible.

I’ve been charmed by Laurence Olivier’s diffident, self-deprecating take on his prodigious talent and by John Bayley’s loving account of his relationship with the great Iris Murdoch. I’ve been blown away by Paul Monette’s gorgeous Becoming a Man and Elie Wiesel’s devastating Night. I’m desperate to read Keith Richards’ surprisingly well-reviewed Life and Antonia Fraser’s ode to her love affair with Harold Pinter. But, I’ve also got a night table buckling under the weight of memoirs by the likes of Mary Karr, Jeannette Walls and Anne Lamott.

Samuel Johnson, himself the subject of a great biography and the author of the wonderful Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets, put it thusly, “I have often thought that there has rarely passed a life of which a judicious and faithful narrative would not be useful; for…every man has, in the mighty mass of the world, great numbers in the same condition with himself, to whom his mistakes and miscarriages, escapes and expedients, would be of immediate and apparent use.” He went on for a while after that, but you get the idea. Everyone has a story to tell. Their own.

So, I’d like to propose a memoir contest. Give us a couple of sentences that tell us the gist of your memoir and we’ll put it to a vote and decide whose story has the most potential. (Please keep in mind that this is not a referendum on your life…just on your ability to craft a good pitch for it.) We’ll come up with prizes for first, second and third place entries and let you know what those are as soon as we’ve figured them out.

I look forward to reading.

Update: Thanks for all the good stuff, guys. Keep the entries coming until Monday, Nov. 8, at midnight. We’ll announce the winners (and prizes) on my Wednesday blog post.

August 06, 2010   DG&B   contest, fun, international literature, Lauren, reading  
3

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!

July 30, 2010   DG&B   contest, fun, international literature, Lauren, reading  
1

Contest: Into the finals

by Lauren

You know about our contest, right? If not, read here and here.

So first, let me start by apologizing for the technical difficulties.  The polling site I used to generate the polls seems to have gone down and the polls won’t load now.  Anyone who tried to load that blog post (or even our home page) in the last couple days before we noticed would probably have found it very slow going.  Sorry for that! 

It also proves a slight problem because I’m not 100% sure about all the books now and of course hadn’t written them down.  I think I’ve gotten this right, but please let me know below if I haven’t.

I did write down the countries that won the last round before the site went belly up, fortunately.  In the interest of not dragging this out, let’s skip ahead to the final match, shall we!  New poll pitting the last 8 against one another, below.  (I’m using a different polling site and sacrificing a USB drive to the technology gods for good measure.) 

Let’s get ourselves a winner, shall we?  Polls open till Thursday 8/5, and the winner will be handed glory the next day.

July 16, 2010   DG&B   contest, fun, international literature, Lauren, reading  
3

Contest: Be your own psychic octopus

by Lauren

You know about our contest, right?  If not, read here.

I think we could all learn a little something about the courage of our convictions from the world’s most awesome psychic, Paul the Octopus, so let us all embrace that spirit and go forth and declare winners!  I lack the technical know-how to set up something awesome and bracket-like for you here, but polls are open until Monday the 26th, so root for your favorites below, and let’s see who makes it to the quarterfinals!

[Sorry, technical difficulties!! See the next round post!]

Thanks, everyone, for the nominees!  A bunch of these have been on my to-read list for ages.

*Selected from a list of Korean novels on Library Thing!
**Technically, this isn’t from Slovakia, but it was the closest suggestion I got, since it was published in Czechoslovakia before the split.
***Vicki pointed out that while Allende is Chilean, this was published in Spain. I’m sure she’s right, but I’ll include it here because we did get another Spain entry and no other Chile ones!

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