Category Archives: Jane

August 05, 2013   Jane   agents, authors, editors, Jane, technology  
5

“We are in the business of communication!”

The title of this post is a phrase I find myself using all the time.  We “communicate” all day long by texting, by emailing, on Twitter, on Facebook, etc., but I wonder if we are really communicating. Even phone conversations seem to be a dying art.

The other day when I opened my e-mail in the morning, I found a very concerned message from an editor suggesting that one of my clients’ manuscript was deeply flawed and he suggested that he was going to have to reject it.  I reminded him, again by e-mail, of the clause in the client’s contract requiring the publisher to provide a list of the problems and to give the writer a chance to rectify the situation.  Over e-mail the issue certainly sounded dire and unfixable.  But then he and I talked and he suggested that we call the writer together.  He said he was going to tell her that one of her options was to put the current manuscript aside and begin a new one.  This was a person whom he had only e-mailed with and whom I had also mostly communicated with by e-mail, so we had no idea how she would react.

First, the editor e-mailed my client to make a date to talk.  This naturally freaked her out and she e-mailed me and asked what was going on.  I told her a bit about the problem (again by e-mail) and said we would cover the rest in our talk.  Frankly, I wasn’t sure she would participate in the conference call at all.  She did, though, and when she was told on the phone that one of her options was to put the current novel aside and begin again, she was hugely relieved.  She and I had a subsequent lovely and constructive conversation and we all “walked away” feeling good about what had seemed like an unfixable problem at the beginning of the day.  We all felt much more positive and moving forward.

This all goes to prove that picking up the phone and talking can be far more effective and satisfying than e-mailing as this article in Forbes suggests.

It’s true that phone conversations take longer than e-mailing but often they get more accomplished.  I don’t know about you, but I am going to try to talk more and e-mail less from now on and see what happens.  I would be curious to hear what you think about all of this.

July 22, 2013   Jane   about us, interaction, Jane  
5

We’re not always what we seem

Recently, one of my favorite clients explained how even though she seems otherwise, she is an introvert in real life – and that gave me pause.

I am an active and very public literary agent in the publishing world.  I negotiate deals every day with publishers, movie and tv people and foreign publishers and I am known to be a staunch defender of my clients’ rights.  Indeed, I am passionate about what I do.

Deep down, though, I am truly very shy. In fact years ago, I found that during a job interview, the interviewer suggested to me that I really should look the person I was communicating with in the eye.  I never even realized I wasn’t doing that, but in fact, up until that point, I hadn’t been.

Still, today, many years later, if I agree to attend a cocktail party for example, I have to fight the impulse to find one person in a corner to talk to and stay there all evening.  I am extremely nervous entering  a room filled with groups of people I don’t know, and tend to stay with those with whom I am familiar.

Probably those who know me and who read this will find my admission of shyness a surprise because I am such a lioness when it comes to advocating for my clients. But it is very true.  And so I am a definite example of the fact that not all of us are what we appear to be outwardly.

I wonder how many of you are the same and how that comes into play in your professional lives.

July 08, 2013   Jane   about us, Jane, Mike H, Sharon, What's New at DGLM  
2

We’re growing!

One of my favorite things to do on this blog is welcoming new members of our team.  This time, I am delighted to introduce two:

Michael Hoogland joined us on May 20th as our new Royalties Manager.  Michael graduated from Colgate University in 2012 and also attended the Columbia publishing course.  We are excited to have his interest in the business side of publishing which is so important to the continued growth of Dystel & Goderich.

On June 3rd, Sharon Pelletier joined us as the manager of our digital publishing program.  Sharon was previously at Barnes & Noble, Europa Editions, and Vantage Press.  She is extremely knowledgeable about the world of digital publishing and will be helping us grow this exciting area of our business.

I hope all of our blog readers will welcome both Mike and Sharon who are available to answer any questions our clients might have for them.

June 24, 2013   Jane   covers, Jane, opinion  
5

What’s with all those women’s backs?

A book’s cover art is one of the most important sales tools in our business – it must appeal to the potential reader just as other forms of advertising do.  It needs to be attractive, descriptive and, in my opinion, original.

Over the last year, I thought I must be imagining the fact that a huge number of my clients’ book covers were featuring women’s backs; at first I thought this was interesting and unique – and it was also inviting, urging the potential reader to imagine what the books’ heroines looked like.  Then, I noticed that almost all I was seeing were covers with women’s backs on them.  I didn’t say anything about this until about a week ago, and then in one of our staff morning meetings I asked, “What’s with all these covers with women’s backs on them?”  In the beginning, I guess this conveyed a certain amount of mystery.  And I know that authors often would prefer that the characters they portray in their novels be imagined by their readers rather than literally depicted on the covers.  But so many backs?

My colleagues laughed and pointed out that a number of years ago covers used to feature cut-off heads.   And, then then there was a spate of covers with only landscapes on them.  All for the sake of mystery and imagination.

Finally, yesterday, the New York Times Magazine picked up on this phenomenon in the piece “Show Some Spine” by Chloe Schama.

My question is:  where is the originality that I remember in book jackets and covers when I began in this business so many years ago?  Isn’t using the same device on all of these covers making them more difficult to tell apart and therefore sell?  Finally, what is the next trend going to be? – it is time to do something different, after all.

June 11, 2013   Jane   fun, Jane, vacation  
5

What I did on my vacation

This year, my husband and I decided to travel far away to one of the places on our bucket list.  We would celebrate our son’s twenty-first birthday with him (he was doing is college junior year spring semester abroad in Sydney, Australia) and then travel throughout the country – far from the goings-on in our lives back home.

And so on May 25th, we landed in Sydney – a truly beautiful city and walked right into The Sydney Writers’ Festival,  which was enormous and just steps away from our hotel.  As we strolled on the piers near the Rocks Section of the city, we were surrounded by publishers and authors at their very familiar looking cocktail parties.

Several days later, we were off to Ayers Rock, Australia’s most recognizable natural icon and I found an informative and relevant book describing this really phenomenal area, Uluru, Kjata Tjuta and Watarrka Ayres Rock by Anne Kerle (New South Publishing).  What a great setting for a kind of Raiders of the Lost Ark type of story!

On we went to Adelaide where I again discovered that there is an annual arts festival – usually held in March – and which includes some of Australia’s most prominent writers.

We journeyed to the Barossa Valley,  which is included in the very popular 1,000 Places to See Before You Die by Patricia Schultz (Workman Publishing) and where we also spent the day at several vineyards, tasting all kinds of wine including a 100-year-old “fortified wine” (it is literally against the law to call this a port in Australia).

Finally, before heading back to Sydney, we spent two days on Kangaroo Island, a beautiful place filled with kangaroos, koala bears, all kinds of birds and seals, sea lions, whales, and wallabies.  And on the last day, of course, upon hearing that I was a literary agent, our guide Jamie presented me with a signed copy of his wife Gaynor Bowden’s book, SHACK ATTACK! Humorous Kangaroo Island Verse (her self- published book).  I had come full circle.

And so we had a true adventure in this fabulous place, but it proved one thing to me – one can never get far away from books and the people involved with them.

Where will you go on your vacation this summer?

May 13, 2013   Jane   feedback, fun, Jane, reading, vacation  
9

What should I read on my vacation?

Finally, our vacation is in sight.  It’s  been a long  time since we’ve been away and it’s been a long winter of recovery from emergency surgery (for my husband, Steve) and lots of hard work for us both.  But our trip to Australia to spend my son  Zach’s twenty-first birthday with him is almost here.  As these will be the longest  flights we’ve ever taken, I am wondering what great suggestions our blog followers will have for me to read.

Yesterday, one of my clients asked me if I still enjoyed reading for pleasure because I review so many flawed manuscripts.  I answered that, indeed, I am able to put my “agent’s hat” aside when reading for my own enjoyment (other than, of course, to wish that the book I am loving had been one I had represented).  The problem is that I have so little time to choose what I read and so many books to choose from.

So, I am very eager to have your suggestions.  Not only would I like to know the titles and authors of the books you single out, but also why you think they are great reads.

I very much look forward to hearing from you.

April 29, 2013   Jane   ideas, Jane, writing  
5

Mining for book ideas

Sunday is my absolutely favorite day for reading the newspaper as I love diving into the New York Times.  Usually, I just digest it and enjoy but always in the back of my head, I am asking myself whether or not the story I am reading might be a book.  Today I actually read two, one about a Holocaust survivor who died last year at the age of 97 leaving $40 million and no will, and the other about an enemy agent in New York City during World War II called Doll Lady. I think that each of these stories could be the basis for either a book of narrative nonfiction or even a novel.

In fact, I find book ideas everywhere especially in the obituaries which are often filled with rich and colorful material (one of my clients is publishing a book in June which began many years ago when I read one of these pieces).

I am always intrigued about where writers get their book ideas.  With nonfiction, many times the author explains this in their book’s preface or introduction.  Novelists on the other hand rarely explain where their ideas come from and so I am wondering, those of you who write fiction, what inspires you to write the stories you write.

April 15, 2013   Jane   advice, in memoriam, Jane, publishers  
1

Stepping outside the box

Last Sunday, a much loved and major figure in book publishing died.  Peter Workman was an icon of our industry. Not only was he kind and generous, but he was also a creative genius.  Beginning as a book packager, he quickly became the publisher of such bestsellers as What to Expect When You’re Expecting, The Silver Palate Cookbook and many other hugely successful titles.  The New York Times says his percentage of “wins” merited membership in the Cooperstown Baseball Hall of Fame and it did.  One out of every three books he published sold over 100,000 copies.

Why were this man and his publishing company, one of the last independent companies in our business, so successful?  Because time and again he stepped out of the box in his book packaging and marketing decisions.  His willingness to do the untraditional and unexpected was what made him and Workman Publishing so incredibly successful.

We all, I think, can learn a lesson from Peter Workman.  I see it in the book ideas many of my clients present to me.  I see it in the new arena of indie book publishing, which is so exciting.  I see it in publishers’ new willingness to be creative in their pricing and promotional ideas.  Most importantly, I see it in publishers and authors being more willing to work together to publish great books successfully.

We will miss Peter Workman very much.  But I believe we can pay a great tribute to him by studying his many and varied creative ideas and implementing versions of them as we step out of our boxes and conduct and grow our business.

April 01, 2013   Jane   advice, Jane, problem solving, relationships  
4

The power of networking

The other day, one of my clients approached me asking if I knew anyone – an agent or a manager – in the music business who could help a close relative who is a talented songwriter and singer.  This is something way outside of my bailiwick but then I remembered that a colleague, who I really like, respect and trust, works at a large, multi-faceted agency, and it occurred to me that they must have a music component.  Sure enough, I contacted him and he got right back to me saying that he had been in touch with someone in their music department about my client and his situation.  I put them all together and am really hoping that something solid comes out of this.

This got me thinking about the power of networking in our business.  Over the years, publishers have come to me for recommendations on people they should interview for jobs and I have not hesitated to recommend those who I think are qualified and appropriate.  And, of course, as an agent, it is networking that gets me to the right editors and publishers for my projects.

Historically, I haven’t seen a lot of networking  among the various segments of the writing community.  (Sure there are cliques – but these are small and not always effective.) That, however, seems to have changed now, and I think this change is a very positive one.  Over the last year or two, a number of my newer clients have recommended me to their friends and colleagues and everyone has benefitted from this.  By networking, these writers are learning more about their craft and about the business and I am learning more about new talent.

In fact, I think networking is absolutely essential in this crowded and very competitive marketplace. I would love to hear about your own networking experiences.

March 18, 2013   Jane   ideas, inspiration, Jane, writing  
4

Where do those ideas come from?

Last week, one of our movie colleagues from the west coast came into the office for a meeting and, before we began discussing various projects, she mentioned that whenever she is in a new city, she immediately goes to the local news to find out a little more about what is “happening” there.  (We actually began by talking about our mayor Bloomberg trying to ban those huge bottles of soda.)

That discussion got me to thinking about ideas and where they come from—in particular the ideas that form the basis of novels.  I know that many first time novelists take their ideas from their own lives and experiences and that is totally natural.  Our longtime client, Gus Lee based both CHINA BOY and HONOR AND DUTY on his life, for instance.  But after that, what happens?

Some, I know, turn nonfiction stories into fiction—we see this especially with television series  like Law and Order; some use the events of history as the basis of their novels. Another of our clients, Mary Doria Russell, has based her last novels on Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp. And in his new novel, MURDER AS A FINE ART, our bestselling author David Morrell goes back to the 18oos and the works of notorious opium eater Thomas De Quincey  to create his story.

And so I thought I would ask you writers who I hope are reading this blog where your ideas come from, your own or other peoples’ lives?  I look forward to reading your responses.

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