Category Archives: Miriam

February 10, 2010   DG&B   memoir, Miriam, nonfiction, opinion  
6

Memoirs of scorned wives

by Miriam

Tina Brown is someone whose successes and failures as a journalist, magazine publisher, book author and media pundit have made her a sometimes controversial celebrity. Personally, I always find her new ventures and her ability to reinvent herself fascinating (she’s the Madonna of the publishing biz) and I usually get a kick out of her insights on current events.

This week, I’ve been thinking of how annoying Jenny Sanford’s new book and the attendant media blitz surrounding it are. After dealing with her public humiliation with dignity and elegance at first, she’s now flogging a book that makes her sound self-righteous, vindictive and petty. Given what a jerk her ex-husband was, it’s no small feat to write a tell-all that makes you seem almost as unsympathetic. But, as Tina says in this NPR piece, that seems to be the trend among the “he-done-me-wrong” memoirists:

“The men they’re married to are utter snakes and worms, but these women — they do buy into this stuff, and then they are so humorless about it at the end. Jenny Sanford’s book is such a pious document. At some point, I really wish one of these women would begin their book and say, ‘I am writing this book out of sweet revenge; my husband was a total worm, and this is payback time.’ It would be a little more honest.”


Instead, Brown complains, political spouses often retreat to platitudes: ‘You know, ‘I’m doing this for the children,’ ” or some such. “It is all nonsense. It is about one of two things: money or revenge. Very often both.”

When the Sanford story broke, we here at DGLM discussed the inevitable book deal and the consensus was that this was not a book we were interested in reading (or repping). Are we missing something? What do you think?

February 03, 2010   DG&B   marketing/publicity, Miriam, opinion, reading, what we're looking for  
16

Authors as rock stars

by Miriam

The publishing business is weird. That’s a given for those of us who toil within its ranks. It’s also unpredictable, quixotic, and often baffling. One of the things that never ceases to amaze me is the phenomenon of serious author turned “rock star.” Joshua Ferris, according to Jason Pinter, is the latest Jay McInerney, J.D. Salinger, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Lord Byron, etc., and no disrespect to Mr. Ferris, whose first book I thoroughly enjoyed and strongly recommended, but what is it about him that people find so, well, sexy? And, should that be a reason to rush out and buy his sophomore novel?

Over the years, I’ve come across many very attractive authors, many not so attractive but highly charismatic authors, and some who, attractive or not, were so shy or self-conscious or socially inept that it made perfect sense to me that they’d chosen to become writers – traditionally a solitary and vaguely misanthropic pursuit. Except, of course, nowadays even the most retiring of authors has to glam it up for the cameras, both physically and personality-wise in order to get attention for his or her work. We at DGLM have always been aware that this is a reality of the media-driven age we live in but still cringe at the thought of having to advise authors to “maximize their assets” by working with a p.r. coach on finding ways to become more telegenic, for instance. Personally, I prefer my writers to be reclusive, eccentric and odd-looking and more interested in crafting beautiful sentences than looking beautiful on Oprah, but in the tabloid era that type seems to be a dying breed.

Does an author’s looks or celebrity status influence your decision to buy his/her books?

January 27, 2010   DG&B   advice, credentials, Miriam, queries  
7

Self-hype

by Miriam

At our morning meeting today, we were chatting about query letters and how to help authors who contact us (and other agents) make the best first impression possible. As we’ve mentioned many times on this blog, crafting a successful query letter is by no means an exact science. In some instances we’re hard pressed to account for our decision to request one project over another based on the relative merits of their query letters. Sometimes, I think that the process of elimination is a better way of communicating what works. Maybe by telling you what elements of your query letter turn us agent types off you might avoid having your very worthy book rejected before it’s even seen.

One of the things that makes me (and others here) crazy is self-hype that’s hard to verify or quantify. If we can’t find that award or publication you mention on Google and we can’t track that bestselling novel on Bookscan or even find it on Amazon, it should definitely not find its way into your query letter. Eric, over at Pimp My Novel has a very useful post about when and how to mention awards and accomplishments when querying agents. On a personal note, I’d rather have you tell me something fascinating that you’ve done that’s in no way related to book publishing–e.g., you wrestle alligators as a hobby–but that makes me look at your letter twice than to read about obscure literary accomplishments, real or imagined.

January 20, 2010   DG&B   fun, Miriam, opinion, quotes, sarcasm  
6

SarcMarking

by Miriam

It’s hard not to be amused by the SarcMark and the notion that writers need a symbol to express sarcasm. And yet, I worry that this new emoticon (someone’s already peddling the software that will add it seamlessly to your happy/sad face repertoire) is just another way to dumb down the writing process. If you can’t convey sarcasm on the page (or the screen) with the right combination of syntactical elements such as repetition, hyperbole, and oppositional concepts–and a dash of general mean spiritedness–well then you probably should just resort to being earnest.

Can you imagine these people using a SarcMark?

“No, Groucho is not my real name. I am breaking it in for a friend.” – Groucho Marx

“You have delighted us long enough.” – Jane Austen

“He has all of the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.” – Winston Churchill

“Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.” – Mark Twain.

“He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary.” – William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway)

“Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words?” – Ernest Hemingway

January 13, 2010   DG&B   fun, lists, Miriam, optimism, reading  
2

So much to read, so little time….

by Miriam

As usual, I’m juggling three different books that I’m reading for pleasure along with the roughly 675 manuscripts and proposals I’m reading for work (I exaggerate, but only slightly). As all you voracious readers know, however, there are always more literary worlds to conquer. So, as I ponder the long months of inclement weather ahead of us still, and the myriad interesting looking books publishers are rolling out every day, here’s my wish list…right now:

(1) GAME CHANGE by Mark Halperin and John Heilemann – Along with the rest of the country I was fascinated by the 2008 presidential campaign. But this gossipy, inside baseball account promises to change the way we look at all the players.

(2) WHERE THE GOD OF LOVE HANGS OUT by Amy Bloom – I’ve been on a short story kick lately and I hear good things about Amy Bloom. Mostly, I just like the title.

(3) LET THE GREAT WORLD SPIN by Colum McCann – I’ve actually started this one and am dazzled already.

(4) YOU: ON A DIET by Michael F. Roizen and Mehmet Oz – Post-holiday guilt about overindulging? Maybe. But I like the “YOU” books and the way the authors present useful information.

(5) JUST KIDS by Patti Smith – Great early reviews for this memoir about the iconic rocker and her crew.

(6) THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO by Stieg Larsson – Because if one more person tells me I have to read this series….

(7) WOLF HALL by Hilary Mantel – I’m a sucker for well crafted historical fiction and this sounds splendid.

(8) DRIVE: THE SURPRISING TRUTH ABOUT WHAT MOTIVATES US by Daniel Pink – A subject I’ve always been fascinated by. And, maybe, just trying to get myself motivated in the new year.

(9) BORN TO RUN by Christopher McDougall – I’ve been toying with the idea of taking up running again. Probably won’t do it, but I can read about it….

There is no #10. Right now.

January 12, 2010   DG&B   about us, fun, Jane, Jim, Michael, Miriam, Stacey, why we are agents  
6

Why I Am an Agent (Stacey)

by Stacey

I think it’s so interesting to learn how people got to where they are. I guess everyone has a story to tell. It might be a stretch, but I’ll start at the beginning by saying that my agenting career, or at least the path there, began when I was a professional child actor starting back in the early 80s. I worked with an agent then and got to understand a bit about what they did, and I was also faced with an enormous amount of rejection! During college, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do, having spent so much of my childhood in front of the camera, so I studied film, and psychology. Upon graduation, I felt a little lost, like most post-grads do, and found a couple of internships in NY in film development, essentially looking for books to be adapted into movies. I eventually landed jobs at PolyGram Filmed Entertainment and Hearst Entertainment, where I scouted for books-to-film, and got to knows agents, editors, and the book biz in general. I realized pretty quickly that trying to pursue a career in film in New York was an almost insurmountable challenge. I knew it couldn’t last because of how dispensable these New York film offices were, and so I planned to move to LA to infiltrate myself deeper into the world of film. With one foot practically out the door, I met my now-husband on a blind date and decided the west coast move was out, and I took a long look at what I wanted to do and realized that an agenting career, or at least a job at an agency, was the right direction for me to take.

When the opportunity to work with the esteemed Jane Dystel came up, my then-boss and mentor at Hearst recommended I jump on it. In February, 1999, a new and exciting chapter in my life began. I have to admit the first year or so was rocky, trying to learn my way around with no clients, lots of admin to handle (a highlight of which was hiring Jim and Michael, and I’m sticking to my story about Michael’s blue hair!), and little understanding of what this side of the business was really all about. I remember hearing Jane and Miriam talk so fast about so many things in our morning meetings and wondered if I’d ever really get the language of book publishing. But I was intrigued and up to the challenge, and before long, Jane started passing projects my way. I eventually started coming up with my own book ideas, signed up my first client, and submitted my first project to editors. The moment when I got the call that an editor was “running numbers” on a proposal I’d submitted, I thought I was having a heart attack my heart was beating so fast. I was hooked. One project led to another, and before long, I was selling lots of books in all kinds of different categories. And I was loving every minute of it. I think that being an agent is a little like being a drug or a gambling addict (in a healthy way)–you are always on the prowl for that high you get from selling books, and you never know when that big hit is going to come your way. And of course, once you start, it’s hard to stop.

Now almost eleven years later, I can say without pause that I am doing what I love, and feel rewarded in big and small ways with the work that I do. I am very grateful for the opportunities that Jane and Miriam have given me here over the years, and that they believed in me even when I didn’t believe in myself. I feel truly lucky that I have found a career that is satisfying and fulfilling in ways I didn’t think possible when my journey began so long ago. I have four kids at home now, and I love them enormously, but my extended publishing family of clients, colleagues, and friends is just as important to me, and I cherish each and every one of them. I am looking forward to a big and bright future for all of us in this wonderful and wacky world of words we inhabit.

January 07, 2010   DG&B   about us, fun, interns, Jane, Jim, Lauren, Michael, Miriam, optimism, Stacey, subsidiary rights, why we are agents  
11

Why I Am an Agent (Michael)

by Michael

I figure it’s my turn to explain why it is I do what I do, as Jane, Jim, Lauren, Chasya, and Rachel have—if only to satisfy the clients who keep asking when I’d do one of these!

It all started at the end of the last decade, December of 1999. It was my senior year, and I really needed a job. I had no idea what to do, and was thinking of finding something in retail, as I love a good discount. But my friend Jim McCarthy told me that the literary agency where he was interning was looking for another paid intern. Now, Jim had told me what he was doing, but frankly I never quite understood. These people were agents for authors? Why did authors need agents? And isn’t publishing for rich kids who want a hobby career? Though I didn’t think it was the job or industry for me, I figured it couldn’t hurt to go in and interview.

Like Jim, I was interviewed by Stacey Glick. If you talk to her, she’ll tell you that I had blue hair at the time. This is not true. I had bright, bleached-blond hair. The blue hair came later. (And the blue dye largely ran out of my hair when I had to make a delivery to one of our most important clients in the pouring rain that summer.) I believe she hired me on the spot, and I started working Friday of the same week.
I had no idea what I was doing in the beginning. I did what people requested, paid lots of attention, and started asking questions. Slowly, but surely, I came to be very interested and involved in what was going on at the agency. I’d loved books growing up, but I’d not been the same kind of reader in college. It was great to get back to reading things that were fresh, new and contemporary. And, as I looked around, I liked what I saw: a group of smart, creative, engaged, interesting people helping authors manage their careers. Just a few short months later, I was hooked—on publishing, agenting, and DGLM. When Jane and Miriam offered me a job in September of that year, I was honored, and I jumped at the chance.

When I started full-time, I was doing much of what I did as an intern, along with managing royalties and helping Jane with submissions. But quickly, I took on new responsibilities. I began assisting the rights director, learning the ins and outs of the foreign and domestic rights markets. When she left the agency a few years later, I took over the agency’s rights, eventually attending the London Book Fair with Jane and selling rights around the world. At the same time, I was building a list of my own, something Jane encouraged me to do within my first year at the agency. I started representing children’s books at Jane’s suggestion, something I was unsure of at the time(!). But quickly I found that I had a passion for middle grade and YA books, and my career as an agent really took off then. Several years ago now, I became a full agent, and the talented Lauren Abramo took over as our rights director, freeing me up to focus on my own projects.
Last year I was very excited to be promoted to vice president at the agency, and just as pleased this past December when I moved to Los Angeles to open a West Coast office for DGLM. I tell people all the time—I’d never have had these opportunities at any other agency or in any other job, and I’m forever grateful to Jane for that.

Our industry is going through big, drastic, challenging changes, and I’m glad that Jane, Miriam, the rest of the DGLM staff and I are working together to attack them head-on. My ten-year journey with the agency has been full of amazing experiences and opportunities, and I am just as enthusiastic about the ten years to come.

January 04, 2010   DG&B   e-books, future of publishing, Miriam, opinion  
3

New Year, new discussions of e-book rights!

by Miriam

I agree with almost everything Jonathan Galassi says in his Op-Ed piece in Sunday’s New York Times about the fact that books, even the ones penned by authors who are considered literary geniuses, are not the product of just one individual spewing brilliance at the world. I go back to my oft repeated point that in this new era of e-books, blogs, vlogs, and all things digital, we’ll still need agents and publishers to act as gatekeepers, shepherds and midwives. My only quarrel with the piece is, of course, Mr. Galassi’s somewhat disingenuous (he is a publisher, after all) implication that Random House (or any other publisher) should be automatically “involved” in these e-book rights (meaning that they would control and derive revenue from them) because of their work in producing the original book. If, as he says, e-books are just another format of a book (like audio and translations), then these rights should be “in play” when a book is sold. And, if the author retains those rights, he or she should be able to dispose of them in any way they see fit without having to involve the publisher of the original work.

What do you say?

December 23, 2009   DG&B   fun, Miriam, opinion  
8

To quote or not to quote?

by Miriam

My friend Jim Donahue of The Velvet Blog, a great copyeditor and literary curmudgeon (in the best sense of the word) pointed me toward this piece in Salon. I admit that I, too, find it irritating when writers decide to do away with punctuation and other grammatical and syntactical rules and claim artistic license as their excuse. Seems to me it’s mostly laziness. But then, I may be a little OCD about the whole thing. How do you all feel about quotation marks gone AWOL?

December 16, 2009   DG&B   guilty pleasures, Jim, Miriam, nonfiction, opinion, scandal, what we're looking for  
7

Chasing ambulances

by Miriam

Every once in a while a celebrity news story morphs into a veritable hydra-headed monster of a tabloid saga. And, given my love for that particular brand of infotainment, I am usually sucked in right along with the other readers of Us Weekly, People, and, yes, Star. So, you know I’ve been bouncing from one blog to another for the last couple of weeks following the supernova of a meltdown that is the Tiger Woods saga. Same thing happened with the Eliot Spitzer, Mark Sanford and John Edwards gossip fests. The rubber necking fascination for grown men behaving badly never seems to wane, despite the fact that at this point it seems more the norm than the exception. Fame/Money + Unbridled Ego = Tabloid story in the making.

So, whenever one of these events turns into the usual circus, my colleagues and I immediately think “Is there a book in this?” And, of course, there usually is. In fact, there are usually 10 books. So, how do you decide whether to jump on the ambulance chasing wagon, track down a writer and loose them on the story or take a chance on the “insider” account by one of the members of the disgraced figure’s entourage, his ex-whatever, or his second grade teacher or simply keep watching from afar. The answer is tricky and it depends on what kind of agent/agency you are.

Generally speaking, we take on books that we think we’re going to be able to sell because we don’t get paid for our efforts unless we do. Given that simple premise, it doesn’t make sense to run through hoops in order to try to make a book about one of these scandals happen unless (a) that book is going to offer revelations that are truly not to be found in the 24/7 coverage by blogs, magazines, newspapers, and tv shows (b) there is serious analysis of the situation and its more universal implications by a writer who has strong credentials and who is not just going to do a clip job restating the obvious and (c) one of the main players is willing to sell out his mother for a book deal and really does know where the bodies are buried. Ultimately, though, it’s one thing to be titillated by these kinds of stories while eating your Cheerios and quite another to spend the time, energy and dedication it takes to get a book published on a narrative that will soon be supplanted by the next celebrity/politician/sports star behaving badly. And, sometimes, despite the potential monetary windfall, the subject is just too distasteful to pursue–I don’t think anyone here would have repped OJ Simpson’s book (except perhaps Jim), even though we all would strenuously defend an agent’s choice to do so.

If you were agents would you try to sell a Tiger Woods book right now?

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