Category Archives: our blog

March 23, 2010   DG&B   about us, feedback, Lauren, our blog  
20

Checking in

by Lauren

So how’s it going DGLM blog readers? We wanted to take the opportunity now that we’ve had time to settle in to find out how you feel about the changes we made here.

We’ve all been thrilled with the feedback we’re getting and how active you guys are. Finding time to work on this without taking time away from our clients has been a challenge–I’m writing this on the subway en route to the office, for example–but we’re having fun being part of the discussion with you.

So how do you feel about the redesign? We’re blogging much more than we used to, but are there areas we’re still not covering (or covering enough) that you’d like us to consider? What are you liking most? Least? The title contest and Slush Week were both a lot of fun for us, and we’d love to do more contests and series–what do you think? Is there a helpful button or widget you wish you could find in our sidebar? We’ve gotten great suggestions from you guys, like Slush Week and the I Wish I Saw More… sidebar, so please keep ’em coming. (In the comments below, but also in the comments at any time! We’re always interested to hear what you think.)

You can see the blogs that we’re reading to the right–we’d love more suggestions! In particular, I’d love to read a blog by someone who works in sub rights. Anyone know of one?

Speaking of which, who are you? Unpublished authors, published authors, editors, agents, publishing professionals, tax attorneys who simply love our sparkling wit? Let us know below, anonymously or otherwise.

Some housekeeping as well. We stopped doing questions corner because we weren’t really getting many questions emailed, but we’re reading the questions you ask in the comments and try to cover the bigger ones in separate blog posts. If you’re missing that feature, try clicking the advice tag in the cloud at bottom.

Speaking of the tag cloud, I may have gotten a little overambitious early on with the tagging and created a ton of tags that aren’t very useful, so I’ll be cleaning that up a bit.

And for our fellow Blogger bloggers, are there any handy widgets or tricks we should know about? You guys were very helpful in resolving our color issues some time back. If anyone has any tips on embedding video in particular, that’d be great. We’ve had sizing issues, fought with the HTML forever, and then given up when it was still not quite right.

Most of all, thanks to everyone reading! Thanks to the linkers and retweeters and Facebook sharers who’ve helped us find others. Thanks for actively participating in the discussions, letting us know what you think, and helping us improve. Thanks also to those of you who read but don’t comment–we hope to hear from you, too! It’s a genuine pleasure talking with all of you.

And now the train’s pulling into 14th Street, so it’s time for me to go!

December 02, 2009   DG&B   advice, our blog, Stacey, submissions, what we're looking for  
10

What Stacey Glick wants

by Stacey

As some of you might know, I had identical twin girls 10 months ago, and have 2 “older” girls at home (3 and 4 1/2). So, while I have continued to work throughout my entire pregnancies and maternity leaves, my life has had a lot to do with topics like dirty diapers, play dates, and nursery schools lately. Listening to some of the respondents from Lauren’s earlier post, I wanted to give a little insight into what I’m looking for right now. For obvious reasons, I’d like to see more smart, unique, well-told parenting titles. The category is really overcrowded, so it’s important that the authors have a strong platform, a fresh message, and a voice that resonates with today’s overstressed, exhausted parents. It doesn’t have to be practical either. There are some great narrative books out there that aren’t in the parenting category per se, but appeal to that market, books like the one I just recommended on our site, One and the Same by Abigail Pogrebin. I’m also always looking for more narrative nonfiction, like a project I represent, The Widow Clicquot, which tells the little known story of the dynamic French woman who created the champagne brand. Another category I’m very fond of both personally and professionally is memoir. Also overcrowded but when it works, it’s so satisfying , like Come Back by Claire and Mia Fontaine, which I’ve blogged about before, and which I sold after sending the proposal to 54 publishers before finding the right one! It helps for memoir to have a platform already in place, like Shreve Stockton’s The Daily Coyote, based on her very popular blog. In the practical area, I am always interested in working with how-to authors on craft books and cookbooks. And finally, I’ve had some good success recently with young adult fiction, and I’d love to see more smart, quality work in that area. I hope to hear from you soon with new submissions!

(Now seems a good time to point your attention to our relatively new sidebar:  “I wish I saw more…”  We’ll use it as a way to keep you all up to date on the “Why can’t someone just send me a query for X?” conversations that go on ’round the DGLM offices.  Check it out to the right!  UPDATE:  Sorry, I meant to thank Susan at Stony River for the excellent idea!!  -Lauren)

November 06, 2009   DG&B   changes at DGLM, feedback, our blog, polls, What's New at DGLM  
3

DGLM Poll-a-thon

Thanks to all of you for the great feedback in the comments on our post about changing things up around here. I’ve turned that feedback into some handy polls, so we can get a better sense of what all of you would like to see. And while we’ll still have to decide how much of the feedback we’re getting it’ll make sense to run with, we are eager to hear from you.

And let me apologize in advance if these polls don’t actually work–I’m trying some advice I found on a message board to put the polls in the posts rather than the sidebar, but as we’ve seen, when I get near HTML code, colors tend to go wonky. I’ll fix ’em if this doesn’t actually do the trick. Wish me luck!

-Lauren

Where should the DGLM blog live?

Which type of post would you like to see most often?

Show or Tell?

Give me more… (Choose as many as apply.)

Give me less… (Choose as many as apply.)

November 03, 2009   DG&B   advice, Chasya, Chasya's Questions Corner, our blog  
3

Introducing Chasya’s Questions Corner

Whether it’s an inquiry about queries or curiosity about the publishing industry in general, we know you all have tons of burning questions. Which is why, once a week, I’ll be tackling one or two of your questions on the blog and answering them in a little segment we’re going to call Chasya’s Questions Corner (because who doesn’t like a little alliteration?).

So send me your questions at news@dystel.com with the word question in the subject line and let us know what you want to know!

-Chasya

November 02, 2009   DG&B   Lauren, our blog  
20

The blog it is a-changing

As you may have noticed, the DGLM blog has begun to change just a bit. There’s been more activity around here, and that’s only the beginning.

We’re beginning a gradual process of changing the way we do things. First and foremost, there will be more entries, more regularly, from more agents. And we’ll be paying closer attention to which posts you guys seem most excited about and trying to give you the content you’re looking for. We’re aiming to link more, to post more multimedia, and to start more conversations with you fine folks.

Change will be gradual, but we’re hoping to get feedback from all of you and to incorporate as many of your ideas as we can to build a stronger blog together. We may not be able to take on every suggestion, but we promise to listen and consider what you have to say. And we hope you’ll continue to let us know as we go along as well–and let us know what you think of the changes you see!

So what do you think? What would you like to see from us that we’re not already doing? What should we do more of? Is there anything you see on other blogs, particularly publishing industry blogs, that you’d also like to see here? And which other blogs are you reading? Which subjects do we cover too much and which should we cover more (or at all)? We’re thinking of switching from Blogger to WordPress–yay or nay? Polls and contests would be fun, right?

We’re looking forward to hearing your feedback and finding out how we can make this a more fun, helpful, and rewarding experience for us all! Let us know in the comments!

-Lauren

P.S. If anyone can tell me how to convince blogger to change the link color to what the Fonts and Colors screen tells me the link color is, I’d definitely appreciate it! I even tried poking around in the HTML, pretending to know what I’m looking for, and I don’t see the bright blue and purple of the links and followed links in the settings anywhere. UPDATED: Thanks for the help! It’s fixed now!

September 11, 2006   DG&B   our blog  
4

Our first post

We here at Dystel & Goderich are an opinionated bunch. Conveniently, there’s always something new for us to have an opinion about: new books, new trends, new formats, etc. We’ve also noticed that as we continue to meet more and more authors (the aspiring and the published), some questions are universal and will almost always come up at some point.

As such, we’ve decided to give ourselves a spot to spout off. Every week, a different DGLM staffer will visit this space to share thoughts and information relating to publishing or writing in general. We won’t be able to answer every question anyone has, but we hope to be able to share a little of what we’ve learned over the years. For some added perspective, we’ll have guest writers from our client list every so often to weigh in on important issues or merely to rant about whatever they feel is rant-worthy.

The tables are turned, and now we’re the ones sitting at our keyboards trying to fill the pages. Wish us luck, and feel free to let us know if there are particular subjects you’d like to see covered.

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