Category Archives: what we’re looking for

November 14, 2011   Jane   about us, changes at DGLM, Jane, Morris, what we're looking for, What's New at DGLM  
8

Welcome, Morris Shamah!

I am delighted to welcome Morris Shamah as the newest member of  the Dystel & Goderich Literary Management team.  Morris joins us today as our royalties manager. He is also going to begin building his own list of clients.

Morris graduated from New York University and previously interned at two literary agencies where he acquired some well rounded experience in our business.  He is interested in thrillers, mysteries, men’s fiction, mainstream super hero illustrated novels and up-market graphic novels.  He is also interested in Judaica.

Please join me in welcoming Morris to our “family.”  And be on the lookout for his first blog post which will be up later this week.

September 19, 2011   Jim   Jim, what we're looking for  
12

Underrepresented voices

Okay folks, it’s time for me to clarify something in my bio. It says that I’m looking for “underrepresented voices,” and that’s totally true. However, it seems that line has caused some confusion.

Here are the two most common reactions I have to that line as evidenced in my slush.

Number 1: “You say you want underrepresented voices. I wrote a zombie thriller!” This is a lovely effort to convince me that the thing you’ve written is exactly what I want, but it tends not to work.

Number 2: “You say you want underrepresented voices. What’s more underrepresented than the middle class white male? What happened to our point of view?” To those, I now simply respond with an mp3 of me hitting my head against my desk.

So to clarify, by underrepresented, I basically mean racial, religious, ethnic, or sexual minorities. Here’s the tricky part: why should people writing those books come to me? I’m so white I’m translucent, and it’s not like I can speak for all religious or sexual minorities either. The honest answer is simply that I’m interested. Whether or not that’s enough to qualify me to sell those books is totally up to the author to decide.

To further clarify, I DO still love zombie thrillers. They’re just not what I was referring to here.

September 09, 2011   Rachel   queries, Rachel S., what we're looking for  
3

I’m telling, I’m asking

How is it that I have gone nearly a year of writing for this blog without once letting you know what types of queries I would like to receive? Glaring oversight, but not without a purpose. Receiving a wide variety of material has educated me in a way that nothing else could. I’ve read all sorts of letters, samples and manuscripts. I’m finding my bearings and discovering the types of projects I’ve gravitated more towards as well as those that do not interest me. And it’s paid off! I’ve learned a lot about myself, my tastes and what books I would be both more willing and more able to work on extensively.

I’m not the girl you want if you have an amazing business book or a brilliantly crafted horror story or thriller—no matter how great the premise is, I want to be interested enough in the subject matter to be able to give the project its due. That’s also not to say that in the future I won’t have learned that these are excellent prospects, but currently, I know far too little about finance or corporate management and still faint at excessive gore.

What do I love? I really, really would love to see a great historical fiction. YA, literary, commercial—I don’t really care as much about that as I do about the story itself. I’m not even going to limit it to particular eras (though you can always get me with a really good Edwardian or WWII story). It’s been awhile since I’ve seen a query that really gets the historical voice down. I’ve written about it before, but there’s nothing more frustrating than an interesting plot, well conceived characters and realistic setting that’s all told in some stuffy approximation of what the author believes the people of that time would sound like. If I wanted to read Jane Austen, I would read Jane Austen. If I want to read about a fictional contemporary of Jane Austen, it wouldn’t sound natural if the narrative and dialogue were completely antiquated. The characters should suit their time, but the writing doesn’t need to.

I could rant for paragraphs more about the number of historical novels that could be SO GOOD if it wasn’t for the awkward writing style that clearly isn’t the author’s customary way. But I won’t. Instead, I’ll just ask that if you have a super intriguing plot (Family drama? Government conspiracies? Love affairs?) with a kicky heroine or bumbling hero please send it to me!

I’m also a sucker for a good eerie story—paranormal in a human way. Witches, ghosts, mind reading. In a similar vein, magical realism in a subtle way can be really beautiful—I’m thinking similar to Aimee Bender’s The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake or The Monsters of Templeton by Lauren Groff. Any writer who can insert the tiniest elements of the wondrous unreal into what is otherwise a very normal world and make it work is a writer whose books I want to read.

These are just the first on my list of Books I Wish Existed, so if this isn’t your style, don’t give up on me yet!

June 06, 2011   Jim   fiction, Jim, what we're looking for  
12

Send me good stuff!

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted what I’m looking for, so it seems like as good a time as any. Because let’s be honest, the idea that publishing shuts down in the summer is more or less a fiction. Things might happen at a slightly slower pace because vacations interrupt things and we have the option of cutting out a little earlier on Fridays, but the volume of work, judging by my inbox and Kindle certainly, never slows down all that much. And I’m always on the lookout for new talent.

I’ve long said that I’m not especially interested in historical fiction. Then a year or so back, I signed on a delightful historical romance author. And at BEA a couple weeks back, I snagged a copy of Amor Towles 1937-set novel Rules of Civility which I read in one sitting and tumbled head over heels in love with. It’s not that I’m not interested in novels set in the past, it seems. I’m just not interested in novels about history. Which is to say that if someone novelizes Napoleon’s life, I’ll still not be interested. If, however, someone writes a rollicking murder mystery set in an interesting past, then I’m right on board. So now I’m thinking I’d particularly love to find something rich and exciting set in an exciting period. My personal taste would lead more urban and plot focused than rural and ruminative. Think more The Alienist than The Girl with the Pearl Earring.

It would be a delight for me to find some young adult fiction set in the real world. I adore the paranormal, fantasy, and sci-fi novelists I work with, and I’m certainly open to more, but with very few exceptions, I don’t have much real life fiction. I’d love to find some more—think Sarah Dessen or Lauren Myracle. Basically, I love what I do, but I’m always interested in expanding my boundaries and trying new things.

Has anyone read Swamplandia? I loved that book—the author depicts really unusual characters whose lives aren’t remotely mainstream, but she never relies on quirk or absurd humor to render them. It’s a beautiful book about people whose story isn’t necessarily relatable but whose feelings and thoughts are. It reminded me of Geek Love and made me want to find a novel about a bunch of misfits to call my own. Want to get started on a specific idea? In the early 20th Century, Coney Island was the home of “Lilliputia, the Midget City,” a self-contained village for little people that charged admission for visitors. I once gathered about 100 pages of information on this fascinating place thinking I’d use it some day before I remembered that I don’t write. So someone else: hop to!

And then, of course, I want to find the next astounding, jaw-dropping, brilliant, wonderful, high concept, bestselling, award winning novel in any category, adult or young adult. So if you have that, by all means, send it along!

Anything that you all would give your right arm to see on the shelves right now?

On a side note, an orange randomly appeared on the roof outside my window last week, and I’ve checked on it every day, waiting for decay to inevitably set in. I anticipated long weeks of IM’ing my colleagues updates on the state of the orange. If I’m being honest, I probably would have included State of the Orange updates in my blog entries. In fact, I just went to the window to photograph it—the beginning of the long saga of a lonely fruit. Alas, the orange has disappeared. I’m suspecting foul play. Now I’m going to need to come up with more new blog ideas. This is all very alarming.

June 02, 2011   Michael   Michael, what we're looking for  
11

What I’m looking for

One of the greatest things about being an agent is that we constantly get new submissions. Seriously. I love getting queries and manuscripts and proposals, not knowing when I might find the next big thing, the next great thing, or the brand new thing. And right now, I’d really like the last thing on that list.

I see a lot of material. A lot of it looks pretty much the same: the humorous but touching memoir, the dystopian or paranormal YA, the adventurous middle grade. And all that is just fine, and you should keep sending it!  But I’d love to see something truly weird or off-beat. We’re updating our staff picks on the website, and you’ll see that my latest pick is Andrew Smith’s The Marbury Lens. If you haven’t read this book, do!  And if you have, you know just how off-beat and original it is, both in content and form. I would love to see some YA that really breaks the rules, whether that book is fantasy, paranormal or even contemporary. A.S. King, an author of mine, is another example of someone with a unique approach to form that I love–each of her books is a surprise.

I recently read Aimee Bender’s amazing The Particular Sadness of Lemoncake, another example of a book that doesn’t quite fit into any category. Depending on how you read it, it could be women’s fiction, magical realism, or a coming-of-age story, and it’s somehow all of these and none of these at once. And I loved it so much I couldn’t drag myself away from it, even when I needed to.

On the nonfiction front, I’d love something akin to the recent Area 51 by Annie Jacobsen, which isn’t so innovative in its structure, but certainly covers some odd territory. Not only is the book about one of the most written about places that supposedly doesn’t exist, it also makes some pretty jaw-dropping claims. I love off-beat topics for nonfiction, and it’d be great to see some more of those.

So give me your strange, your bizarre, your weirdo manuscripts striving to find publication. I’m in the mood to be surprised.

March 03, 2011   Michael   about us, advice, Michael, what we're looking for  
8

Make me laugh

I went to a comedy show last night.  I’ve seen a lot more comedy since I moved to LA, in part because I know a couple of people here who do it.  One friend actually hosts a monthly show that I always attend, even when I don’t feel like it.  When you work from home and start work at 6:30 AM, getting your butt out of the house for a comedy show that starts at 8 PM is a challenge.  (Ok, I know plenty of people for whom this would not be hard, but I’m a bit of a homebody.)  I always make myself go, though, because no matter how crappy I may feel when I leave the house, I always feel great by time the show starts.

It comes down to this: I love to laugh.  And I will laugh at just about anything, though especially at my own jokes–which anyone at DGLM will confirm.  And I think humor is important.  One of the comics last night dealt with some really dark, heavy topics, but in doing so with humor, she really drew the audience in.  People were listening to her in a way they wouldn’t have if she’d dealt with the issues in a more serious way.

All of this is to say, I’d really like to see more funny submissions.  Funny memoir, YA, middle-grade, adult fiction–you name it.  I’m just in the mood to laugh.  And if you’re laughing about life’s more serious subjects, even better.  I’ll always take darkly comic over slapstick.  So I dare you: make me laugh!

January 27, 2011   Michael   about us, fun, Michael, our clients, what we're looking for, why I signed up, writing, YA  
8

Why I signed.. Brodi Ashton

I thought I’d give you, our readers, a bit of insight into what I like and what I look for in a submission.  It’s often hard to articulate what does and doesn’t work once you get past simple mechanics and formatting–which is one of the reasons agents often blog and write about those details.  I hope hearing about why I signed Brodi Ashton gives you a window into my thoughts.

This story is going to start in a surprising way, maybe even for Brodi herself!  Brodi came to me highly recommended by not just one but several clients.  I had actually been hearing about her for quite some time before she queried me.  The clients recommending her were enthusiastic about not just her work, but also as a person.  Everyone seemed to like her.  You’re probably thinking that this was all weighing heavily in her favor, and the truth is, it was…and wasn’t.  By time she queried me, I’d heard such good things that I was a bit overwhelmed by the praise, and frankly concerned she couldn’t live up to it.  But her email query was very friendly, and I really liked the sound of her novel, which she mentioned was based in part in Greek mythology:

“17-year old Nikki Beckett has just returned from the Underworld to a family who doesn’t know where she’s been, a boyfriend who doesn’t know why she left, and old friends who think she’s using. But Nikki won’t have time to answer questions. She only has six months at Park City High before the tunnels of the Underworld come for her again. Six months for goodbyes she’ll never be able to say out loud. Six months to find redemption, if it exists.

She didn’t plan on Jack’s reaction to her return. The boy she betrayed so long ago doesn’t care why she left him or why she’s back, as long as he doesn’t lose her again.

When Nikki discovers she didn’t return to the surface alone, being near Jack becomes dangerous – for him. Cole, an Everliving, followed her back from the Underworld, and he needs Nikki in order to make his push for the throne. He’ll do anything to make it happen, even if it means going back to high school.

Jack would sacrifice anything to help Nikki defeat Cole, but the choice will be Nikki’s: serve the Underworld, or rule it.”


Greek mythology?  Supernatural beings?  Undying love?  And a heroine who who must choose between two seemingly terrible alternatives?  Yes, please!  Paranormal books continue to sell very well, and this pitch was full of both romance and high stakes–something I knew editors were looking for.  I was also impressed that I was able to understand the heart of the story very easily from a short pitch, despite not understanding the rules of the world yet.  I was paying attention by this point, but it was the next paragraph of her query that really drew me in:

“I wrote this story because as a teenager, I had a friend who just took off one day. When she returned months later, she was different. Broken. I never found out where she went, but I wondered what would do that to a person as I watched her try to reclaim her life. I was fascinated in the before and the after, so this story looks at why Nikki left and the struggle after she returned.”

I love to know where writers get their ideas.  And I really loved that Brodi used Greek mythology to explain why something happened in real life–just like the Greeks used myths to explain the world around them.  So, before I got her email I was apprehensive that she couldn’t live up to the hype, and then she blew me away with just the kind of story I love.  I was totally, completely hooked, and I hadn’t even read a word yet.  Though she’d included a sample, I didn’t need to look at those pages to know I’d be reading the whole book.  So I quickly requested the manuscript that day.

Needless to say, the manuscript lived up to the query letter.  I knew about half way through that I wanted to work with Brodi, but the moment when I knew I could sell this book came only a few pages from the end when–and this is hard to admit–I may have teared up.  Or cried.  Whatever you want to call it.  The story moved me in a way that I did not expect.  Before I could reach out to her, Brodi let me know she already had more than one offer of representation, and I immediately set up a time to speak with her.  We discussed the book at length, and it turned out that she and I had a similar vision for it and the rest of the series.  We talked about what I thought worked and what needing more fleshing out, and we talked about dramatically changing the very end of the book.  I was happy with the conversation, confident that my vision was the right one for the book, and nervous beyond belief.  In the end, I was lucky enough to have Brodi choose me over several other agents clamoring for her book, now titled EVERNEATH.  In the fall, we accepted a pre-emptive offer from the amazing Kristin Daly at  Balzer + Bray, and the book is due out in 2012.

So that’s why I signed Brodi Ashton.  Hope it gives you a better idea of what I’m looking for and what the process is like.

January 27, 2011   Stacey   about us, advice, opinion, Stacey, what we're looking for  
6

What I’m Looking For

As we move further into the New Year, and battle through yet another snowstorm, I thought it would be a good idea to take Jessica’s lead from Back to Blogging and let our blog readers know a little bit more about where my interests are these days as far as new projects go. I can’t quite believe it, but I’m coming up on my 12 year anniversary with DGLM and my list has changed quite a bit during that time, in many cases reflecting my personal and professional interests simultaneously.

Narrative nonfiction is an area of my list I’ve worked very hard to develop over the last few years. I like a wide range of narrative nonfiction topics (politics not being one of them), and recent titles I’ve responded to in the marketplace are The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks and Unbroken, two books that uncover a fascinating, little known and inspiring person or story with a strong narrative arc.

I am always interested in memoir, even though they’ve become increasingly difficult to sell. I’ve had great success with an usual hybrid — the mother-daughter memoir. And I’m especially interested in parenting memoirs, which are almost impossible to place, but with the right combination of elements, they can work big. Recent titles I would have liked to represent are Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother (even if I don’t entirely agree with all of her parenting choices!), Poser by Claire Dederer, and Devotion by Dani Shapiro.

Food has always been, and continues to be, a passion of mine. Cookbooks are still a staple on my list, and I’ve also been selling a lot of books by food bloggers. It’s competitive, but authors with a big or growing website and blog can definitely find an audience. Baking books continue to work well, even though most publishers say there are too many of them. Too many great titles to name, but if you want to pitch a food book, it’s really important to have a persuasive concept, pitch, solid recipes, and the platform to back it up.

I still represent a good amount of practical nonfiction outside of food as well. The category has become increasingly difficult, and platform is really imperative for these titles to work. But I am always open to a great health or fitness title if it’s well positioned and executed. Carb Lover’s Diet was a great easy-to-digest concept, and hit a chord with readers.

Craft is another category I’ve had a lot of success with. Two of my books were on Amazon’s Top 10 list for 2010, and I am open to hearing about more fun, smart, unique how-to ideas.

I’m signing up a lot less adult fiction, because it’s so hard to sell but also because my time is limited and fiction can take a lot of work to develop. And I’m not really looking for genre fiction right now. My taste in this area tends to gravitate to contemporary mainstream fiction with a psychological backbone, like Room by Emma Donoghue or Laura Lippman’s I’d Know You Anywhere. Dark is good.

Even though I’m scaling back on adult fiction, I am actively developing and selling more young adult and middle grade fiction. It’s an exciting category, and one that feels less limiting than many areas on the adult side. Reality-based teen fiction is a hard sell, but paranormal is still working well, and I have a big middle grade fantasy series upcoming with a male protagonist, so that’s an interesting area too. There’s a lot of competition, so I think it’s just about grabbing me with a strong cover note and a perfect voice, combined with a story that offers something we haven’t seen before. High concept is definitely a plus. The Suzanne Collins trilogy worked well for me, as well as James Dashner’s The Maze Runner (represented by Michael) for great original ideas.

Thanks for listening, and I hope I’ll hear from some of you with new projects, ideas, proposals, or anything else you want to bounce off of me!

January 13, 2011   Jessica   about us, advice, Jessica, opinion, what we're looking for  
3

Back to blogging

Happy 2011. It’s terrific to return from maternity leave to this lovely new online home. By way of catching up, I am pleased to report that the newest addition to my family, baby John Gabriel, is settling in nicely.  That his four-and-a-half-year-old brother has only once inquired whether we’ll be returning him to the hospital strikes me as a good sign.

As I rejoin the agenting fray, I look forward to additions of a different sort–these to my list, and not my household. I’m looking for a few good projects, so keep the material coming. I’m especially interested in the following: literary fiction with a strong storyline, narrative nonfiction in history, business and science, including projects that incorporate a personal voice. Annie Murphy Paul’s ORIGINS: How the Nine Months Before Birth Shape the Rest of Our Lives is a good recent example of a blend of science and personal narrative, but I am open to themes unrelated to babies.

I’m also interested in historical fiction. While on leave, and before my newborn evinced the first noisy signs of colic that would then occupy my evenings between 9:30pm. and midnight, I read Hilary Mantel’s superb Wolf Hall. Monumental in scope, dazzling in detail, and animated with a protagonist as believable and well-drawn as any contemporary narrator, Wolf Hall reminded me that good historical fiction accomplished a feat no less wondrous than time travel. (Post-colic, I reread Harvey Karp’s The Happiest Baby on the Block, which was as effective with colicky baby number two as it was with colicky baby number one).

It’s probably worth noting that I am not in the market for inspirational books, Christian or otherwise. I get several queries a day regarding works of Christian inspiration, so I suspect that a website somewhere lists it as an interest, nor do I do much in the way of straight genre fiction, science fiction, fantasy or mystery. Some quirks; I rarely fall for experimental fiction, hallucinatory prose, or even, weirdly, comic novels. I read Gary Schteyngart’s Super Sad True Love Story, and while I admired how smart it was and his flair for satire, I didn’t love the book. I enjoy working with academics who are interested in (and able) to write for a broader audience, so if you’re a professor convinced that your area of expertise can be the next Freakonomics, drop me a line; I’m feeling leery of memoir, so much that I’m tempted to say that I won’t be taking any on (though I’d love to be proved wrong). In any case, I look forward to hearing from you, and working with you in 2011.

January 10, 2011   DG&B   about us, advice, calendar, changes at DGLM, conferences, DGLM Recommends, Facebook, feedback, fun, Jane, Jessica, Jim, John, Lauren, Michael, Miriam, opinion, our blog, our clients, our website, Rachel S., Stacey, Stephanie, technical help, Twitter, what we're looking for, What's New at DGLM  
9

Welcome to the new DGLM blog and website!

Welcome to our shiny new home, blog readers!  For the new year, we bring you a new DGLM site, a merger of our website and blog.  Thanks to everyone who made suggestions a couple months ago on features and tech questions—where possible we’ve incorporated your feedback, and other things we’re keeping in mind in case we can implement them in future.

We’ll be blogging as usual over here at www.dystel.com now instead of at Blogger, and there are also some other things for you to explore over to the right (unless you’re not currently reading this on the site itself, in which case you might want to just poke your head in and take a look!).  You might be interested in learning more about us and our clients.  If you’re an author looking for representation, perhaps you’ll want to peruse our FAQ, Submission Requirements, Who We Are and What We’re Looking For, and Nonfiction Proposal Guidelines.  Need something new to read?  Check out our Staff Recommendations, Recent and Forthcoming Titles, and What We’re Reading in the column on the right. Maybe you want to know where we’ll be?  We’ve got a calendar with our upcoming conferences and events in that sidebar as well!  Of course, if you’d like, please feel free to use the links over there to Subscribe, Follow, or Like us and share our site with others!  The new blog should start feeding into our Twitter and Facebook accounts today, so if you’re already following us there, you don’t need to do anything.  If you’re reading us in a blog reader, please subscribe to the new RSS feed.

Make yourselves at home!

As always, we want to hear from you!  What do you think of the new digs?  Any suggestions for improvement?  Glitches we may not have caught?  (We hope not, but let us know if so!)  New features that you’d like us to consider?  We can’t always implement everything recommended to us, but we’re always open to hearing your ideas.

« Older posts
Newer posts »