Category Archives: Miriam

April 21, 2010   DG&B   favorites, fun, Miriam, Twitter  
19

Twitter and twits…

by Miriam

For some reason (don’t judge) I find Twitter humor irresistible. Maybe it’s because the idea of winnowing human communication to 140 characters at a time seems at once so efficient (in a Dr. Evil sort of way) and so ludicrous, but I can pretty predictably crack myself up trying to imagine those palaverous Victorian authors tweeting about their work.

This fun piece in the Huff Post about historical presidential tweets made me wonder how our bygone literary stars would’ve told their followers about their work in progress. Publishing people have been poking fun at their Hollywood counterparts for their high concept pitches (“When Harry Met Sally meets Jaws”) forever but, as Twitter shows us, there’s an art to boiling down and dumbing down.

RT@MCervantes Almost done with novel about crazy old man and his fat sidekick who like to attack windmills. Feeling good about this one.

RT@LTolstoy This war saga is turning out a little longer than expected. Hope my publisher doesn’t mind that I’m a little over word count.

RT@Faulkner My mother is a fish. That’s a whole chapter in my new book. Twitter has been a great influence.

What would your favorite authors be tweeting?

April 14, 2010   DG&B   advice, feedback, fun, Miriam, opinion  
21

Out of questions yet?

by Miriam

The weather in New York is beautiful today. Sunny, low humidity, none of those icky smells we’ll be subjected to once the temps start heading toward triple digits. And, I’ve got a case of spring fever–meaning that I am having a hard time wrestling my mind back to thoughts of work as it keeps veering off to fantasies of sitting in Union Square Park drinking a mid-morning latte and watching squirrels chase each other.

So, given my seasonally induced lack of intellectual wherewithal to come up with an interesting and enlightening blog topic, I thought I’d jump on Jim’s questions bandwagon and let you guys do all the work. Given what you know about us as agents, bloggers, and all-around snarks, what do you want to know that you can’t find in the submission guidelines or staff bios page of the DGLM website. Target v. K-Mart? Pynchon v. Vonnegut? Dancing with the Stars v. American Idol? Kindle v. Nook? I’ll answer to the best of my lethargic abilities….

April 07, 2010   DG&B   deals, Miriam, opinion, reading  
12

And speaking of dead authors….

by Miriam

Actually, it’s been a while since L. Ron Hubbard or Ernest Hemingway has come out with a new book, so I’m eagerly awaiting the many volumes sure to be forthcoming from the recalcitrant and mysterious J.D. Salinger. In the meantime, George Carlin’s wife has pulled together the great comedian and cultural gadfly’s letters.  Personally, I’m a little sad about this.

For me, part of the experience of an artist’s work is the intention behind it, what that artist chose to say publicly and the vacant lots she or he left purposely empty. Posthumous publications leave me feeling a bit embarrassed for those great artists who, unless they gave specific deathbed instructions to their heirs about how to dispose of their unfinished or personal work, might be horrified to find these writings and ideas collected and organized by others.

Perhaps I’m wrong, but the man who said, “People who say they don’t care what people think are usually desperate to have people think they don’t care what people think” may have actually cared what people thought of his work.

What do you all think?

March 31, 2010   DG&B   Facebook, marketing/publicity, Miriam, opinion, social networking, Twitter  
5

If Margaret Atwood can do it…

by Miriam

One of the more frustrating things about our work these days is trying to convince certain authors of the need for establishing a presence on Facebook, Twitter, etc. Some of them claim that they can’t possibly do this, as it would prevent them from meeting their deadlines. Some tell us they’re too old to learn new tricks and they’d rather leave that newfangled stuff to the kids…who don’t read anyway. Others get on a very high horse and lecture us about the death of culture these sites represent and chasten us for asking them to prostitute themselves.

Then, there are those adventurous souls who are game to try anything that will broaden their readership, allow them to connect to their fans, and sell books! So, it was with great delight that I read this piece by Margaret Atwood–whose literary bona fides are hard to challenge and who could comfortably rest on her mountain of laurels at this stage of her career–about the pleasures of tweeting.

What it boils down to is “communication,” isn’t it?

March 24, 2010   DG&B   Miriam, opinion, reading, thrillers  
12

Thrills and thrillers

by Miriam

I struggled to get past the first 50 or so pages of Stieg Larsson’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, thinking, as I dutifully turned the pages, “this is boring and the writing (or translation) is flat.” I’m almost embarrassed to admit this because it seems that everyone I know has been urging me to read this book (people speak of it with the kind of reverence I usually reserve for the likes of Ian McEwan and Toni Morrison) for months. I’m about 150 pages in now and I’m definitely more engaged, but I’m frankly (don’t yell at me) still at a loss as to why this book has been such a huge global success.

And that leads to the subject of Alexander Nazaryan’s piece in the Daily Beast about the decline of the American thriller now that the category has been hijacked by foreigners. Mr. Nazaryan wonders, “Will the American thriller go the way of the American automobile? Will even this small part of our superiority cede to another part of the world?” My response is “Does it matter?”

In fact, it seems to me that anything that revives this rather tired category is a good thing. The problem, as I see it, is not that the foreigners are taking over, it’s that readers have become so used to the big, bloated franchise writers who dominate the bestseller lists (I’m looking at you Dan Brown and James Patterson) and publishers so unwilling to nurture the more daring and intriguing entries into the field that it takes an international Cinderella story to make American readers pay attention once again.

I’m a big fan of intelligent, well-written, well-plotted thrillers with iconic protagonists and thorny moral issues. And it’s always seemed to me that, like jazz, the thriller is a quintessentially American literary form (no disrespect to Dostoevsky and Hugo). Like all things American, however, in order for this genre to evolve and prosper, it needs to allow and be allowed new influences and styles.

What are your favorite contemporary American thrillers?

March 10, 2010   DG&B   advice, Facebook, marketing/publicity, Miriam, social networking  
8

Facebook for fun and marketing

by Miriam

Being a relative latecomer to Facebook, I’ve embraced it enthusiastically. On a personal level, I enjoy knowing what my friends are up to without actually having to schedule a phone call in the middle of a busy week. Given how busy most of my friends are as well, I’m pretty sure that the feeling is mutual. On a professional level, I like to keep tabs on our clients and publishing colleagues – it’s helpful to know who’s doing and saying what, and, often, rumor and information get around faster on Facebook than through PW or Pub Lunch. And, of course, it’s undeniable that with the gazillion members and the sophisticated networking capabilities, Facebook is a great way to market yourself and your book. Thing is, you gotta do it right.

Because I’m far from being an expert in this area, I won’t go into technical details about what doing it right entails. (In fact, I would suggest that those of you trying to establish an effective presence on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites, who have the means to do so, should seek help from a good brand building consultant specializing in this area.) But, I can share some of the things my colleagues and I have discussed as being turnoffs:

1. Be interesting. If you’re using social media to further your career, don’t treat it like the equivalent of sitting on your couch in an old t-shirt, watching reality tv and eating Doritos. You should make an effort to make interesting observations, post entertaining links, etc. Telling all your friends repeatedly that you love your cat, or offering local weather reports in your area, or what you had for dinner last night is nice every once in a while but if all your posts are the same, people will stop paying attention.

2. Don’t oversell yourself or your book. If you only post when you have a book event you want people to go to or use your update screen to post fragments of your novel, your “friends” will start to get annoyed. Your posts will become the equivalent of spam and be roundly ignored.

3. Try to read your friends’ posts and comment when appropriate – don’t just indiscriminately “like” everything or offer clichéd or throwaway responses to their posts. Remember, their friends are seeing your comments too and that’s an opportunity to expand your own network.

4. Avoid sending “gifts” en masse. A birthday greeting to a friend is fine. A “blessing” that will appear on the walls of your 1,500 friends…not so much.

What are the Facebook practices you all find irritating? And which other social networks do you find yourself and your favorite authors on online?

March 03, 2010   DG&B   advice, Miriam, queries, slush week  
8

Miriam’s Slush Week entry

by Miriam

(For details on Slush Week, see Chasya’s introduction.)

We’ll start with the query on its own, then the response after the jump:
 
(Dear Agent:)

I would like you to represent, The Price of Blasphemy, a complete 62,000 word work of up-market fiction and social realism.

The novel is told as a first-person narrative, throwing the reader into the tumultuous mind of Richard Bunbury, a charismatic and volatile agnostic who is determined to live a simple, Monticello-inspired lifestyle by operating a charity that aims to impede America’s divisive nature.

While living in Washington D.C., Richard falls in love with Dawn, a devout Christian attorney who specializes in non-profit law. Incompatible faiths eventually create a fissure between the unlikely pair. Dawn begs Richard to convert, but he refuses, arguing that her God, if he exists, is passive and weak. Angered and outraged by Richard’s blasphemy, Dawn abruptly brings the relationship to an end. When the fury caused by his broken heart mixes with his preexisting (yet dormant) mental instability, Richard lashes out, which results in disastrous and shocking consequences.

Beginning with the murder of an imaginary homeless man and progressing to leasing, insuring, and converting dilapidated Bible Belt churches into satanic places of worship, Richard is out to prove his theory that God is passive, while exploiting the Christian religion in order to acquire his personal Monticello. As Richard Pavlovian-ly predicts, the rural communities of North Carolina unknowingly facilitate his scheme with their helpful acts of arson, but as Richard’s sanity continues to crumble, his plan gets sloppy. Richard fails to account for the media’s outrage and the anger of the local townspeople, causing the reader to learn that drawing the ire and contempt of a pious following carries a steep price.

The Price of Blasphemy explores themes of love and inhumane manmade divisiveness. In the tradition of A Clockwork Orange, The Catcher in the Rye, and Fight Club, this novel is deeply probing and begs the question: Which is more godly, faith or love?

My book will be of broad public appeal in that it offers the fervor of controversy, true love, and a fragile protagonist who is a talking looking glass, representing the society of yours and mine. Our readership will vary from those with an appreciation for a touching story with clean, fluid prose, to those desiring to relate to a voice that shares feelings of isolation and an uncontrollable instinct to self-destruct.

This is a multiple submission. If you are interested in reading the manuscript, I would love to give you the exclusive opportunity over an eight week period. Thank you for taking the time to help me pursue my literary endeavors.

(Closing, Author’s Name)


(Dear Agent:)

I would like you to represent (This is an awkward opening. I prefer something more artful. Like Jane, I think that opening a query with “I” is not a good idea unless you’ve got a really eye-catching sentence that will get my attention – e.g., “I am a serial killer.” Or “I know where Jimmy Hoffa is buried.”) The Price of Blasphemy, a complete 62,000 word work of up-market fiction and social realism.

The novel is told as a first-person narrative, throwing the reader into the tumultuous mind of Richard Bunbury, a charismatic and volatile agnostic who is determined to live a simple, Monticello-inspired lifestyle by operating a charity that aims to impede America’s divisive nature. (This sentence is wordy, overstuffed with adjectives and tells me very little; I am not at all drawn to Richard from this description.)

While living in Washington D.C., Richard falls in love with Dawn, a devout Christian attorney who specializes in non-profit law. Incompatible faiths eventually create a fissure between the unlikely pair. Dawn begs Richard to convert, but he refuses, arguing that her God, if he exists, is passive and weak. Angered and outraged by Richard’s blasphemy, Dawn abruptly brings the relationship to an end. When the fury caused by his broken heart mixes with his preexisting (yet dormant) mental instability, Richard lashes out, which results in disastrous and shocking consequences. (This is overwritten and full of throw-away hyperbole. Instead of a straightforward description of the plot, there’s too much emotional editorializing about motives. Less is more when offering plot summaries.)

Beginning with the murder of an imaginary homeless man and progressing to leasing, insuring, and converting dilapidated Bible Belt churches into satanic places of worship, Richard is out to prove his theory that God is passive, while exploiting the Christian religion in order to acquire his personal Monticello. As Richard Pavlovian-ly predicts, the rural communities of North Carolina unknowingly facilitate his scheme with their helpful acts of arson, but as Richard’s sanity continues to crumble, his plan gets sloppy. Richard fails to account for the media’s outrage and the anger of the local townspeople, causing the reader to learn that drawing the ire and contempt of a pious following carries a steep price. (Right about now, I’m really lost. The premise comes across as far fetched and the themes raised seem impossibly ambitious. Nothing about the writing here makes me think the author will be able to pull off something this complicated.)

The Price of Blasphemy explores themes of love and inhumane manmade divisiveness (Another throwaway phrase. Awkward and clunky.). In the tradition of A Clockwork Orange, The Catcher in the Rye, and Fight Club (As a rule, comparing one’s work to canonical titles is a recipe for disaster. You’re setting yourself up against very stiff competition and stacking the cards against yourself from the get-go.), this novel is deeply probing and begs the question: Which is more godly, faith or love?  (Frankly this makes the book sound high minded and deadly boring. Let your reader decide what the issues. If you’re a skillful enough writer, your agenda will be inferred instead of hitting the reader on the head with a skillet.)

My book will be of broad public appeal (I’d rather know what particular audiences this might appeal to because there is no such thing as a work of literature that everyone loves) in that it offers the fervor of controversy, true love, and a fragile protagonist who is a talking looking glass, representing the society of yours and mine. Our readership will vary (do you mean “range”?) from those with an appreciation for a touching story with clean, fluid prose, to those desiring to relate to a voice that shares feelings of isolation and an uncontrollable instinct to self-destruct (this sentence lacks effective parallel structure).

This is a multiple submission. If you are interested in reading the manuscript, I would love to give you the exclusive opportunity over an eight week period. (I don’t know about you, but when someone tells me they are going to give me a deadline for something, I’m already moving on to the next thing. It’s okay to tell me the material is out with other agents but how about “I appreciate your time and I look forward to hearing from you.”)  Thank you for taking the time to help me pursue my literary endeavors.



(Closing, Author’s Name)

Thanks very much for participating in Slush Week!

March 02, 2010   DG&B   about us, fun, Miriam, why we are agents  
12

Tempus fugit

by Miriam

We all know birthdays are a time for deep reflection, for taking stock of the present, reviewing the past and charting course for the future. (Or, if you’re me, pouring yourself a glass or five of wine and hoping the whole ugly business will go away by the time the Advils kick in.) But this year, with another birthday looming and a long post due for the DGLM blog, I’ve been doing more reviewing than usual. It occurs to me that I’ve spent almost half of my adult life working in publishing–for those of you trying to do the math, yes, I started out when I was 14. To put it in perspective, the first George Bush was in his freshman year as president when I first walked into the offices of Acton & Dystel; Oprah’s Book Club was seven years away, and the kids who founded Facebook were getting ready to start kindergarten.

A lot of cataclysmic events have come and gone since the day I sat in Jane Dystel’s office for an interview wearing my best (okay, my one) gray suit and hideously uncomfortable matching gray pumps. I can’t remember exactly, but since this was the ‘80s, there must have been shoulder pads and white pantyhose involved. Jane was–and is–a tiny, delicate blonde with a voice like whisky soaked granite (I think I’m actually quoting someone here). She was, herself, relatively new to the agenting side of the business and was a tightly wound bundle of energy and determination. She was building a client list and learning the ropes from the then very successful Jay Acton–a fascinating man whose clients ranged from bestselling romance writers to the legendary Tip O’Neill to numerous sports stars whose memoirs all went straight to the Times list–and she needed an assistant.

Long story short, reader, I took the job and never left. Occasionally a friend or acquaintance will ask why I’ve stuck around so long. “Don’t you get bored?” “Aren’t you itching to try something new?” “Isn’t publishing a dying industry?” The answers: “never,” “sometimes,” and “emphatically no.” Thing is, like any other line of work, what we do is sometimes tedious but never boring. (Does that make sense?) Literary agents don’t spend all their time schmoozing celebrities and cashing $1,000,000 advance checks or even reading great literature. There’s a lot of haggling over ¾ of a percentage point in the royalty section of a 25-page publishing agreement written in a cross between Sanskrit and legalese with a font size of 5.5. There are the endless stacks of queries (some of which make you wish you’d never learned to read). There are unhinged authors and psychotic editors. There are big disappointments when a book you had high hopes for gets remaindered almost before it’s published or when you lose an author you’re pursuing to a bigger, flashier agency, despite the fact that you know they’d be better served by a smaller, more attentive outfit.

But there are also great rewards. You meet and befriend talented, interesting people. You get to be “in the know” about all sorts of events–current and scandalous. You get to have engaging conversations about relevant issues or important subjects almost every day. All that and free books!

The kid who walked into Jane’s office those many years ago wasn’t looking for riches or fame (she was incredibly dumb that way). She just loved books and wanted to be a part of making them happen. All these many years later, I’m still doing it and it’s still (mostly) a pleasure.

February 24, 2010   DG&B   fun, holidays, lists, Miriam  
2

Matchmaker, matchmaker…

by Miriam

Okay, Valentine’s Day is in the rear view mirror by now, but Lauren passed on this delightful piece about literary matches made in hell, and I thought I’d share.

Makes me wonder what other couples a good matchmaker could bring together: Scarlett O’Hara and Mr. Big? You know he’d get her a great big ring and she’d never go hungry again eating at trendy places in Manhattan. Raskolnikov and Bella from Twilight? She likes those brooding, tortured types and would probably hang around until he gets out of his Siberian prison….

Any others you can think of?

February 17, 2010   DG&B   ghostwriting, Miriam, opinion, reading  
10

Literary ghosts

by Miriam

The subject of ghostwriting seems to be in the air right now. The recent New York Times profile of James Patterson pulled back the curtains on something that was a fairly open secret within the industry: Of the 620 books (give or take) that Mr. Patterson publishes every year, most are collaborations in the loosest term of the word. As Andrew Crofts points out in his rather passionate defense of the practice, if it’s not the oldest profession, ghostwriting has certainly been around since writing utensils began to be used to make literature instead of just grocery lists.

Two new films, Roman Polanski’s The Ghost and L’Autre Dumas, starring the great Gerard Depardieu, deal with the notion of authorship and literary collaborations and I’m intrigued by what they have to say. For agents, a good ghostwriter is a huge asset to one’s client list. Generally excellent writers themselves, they are able to put their egos aside and use their skills as literary entrepreneurs. They are usually able to multitask, are very organized and meet deadlines without the sturm und drang that can drive editors (and sometimes agents) to the nearest bar. And their services can command very nice money.

So, why do we still feel a little disappointed when we find out that a favorite author had more than just transcribing help? Do you?

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