Category Archives: What’s New at DGLM

June 27, 2011   DGLM   changes at DGLM, digital publishing, e-books, future of publishing, self-publishing, technology, What's New at DGLM  
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Announcement!

Word gets around the publishing industry pretty quickly (which is not surprising since we’re in the communications business).   So, we wanted you to hear our news from us first rather than pick it up through inaccurate scuttlebutt in seedy back rooms on the web.

As those of you who’ve been reading this blog for the last few years know, we have been following developments in e-publishing with great interest.  As an agency that has  prided itself on being a bit of a maverick among the stodgy old guard, we have always been more intrigued than scared about this new world of e-books.  The consensus among us, even after listening to the doomsayers, has been that e-publishing will re-energize our business and create more readers.  That’s right, instead of bemoaning the death of publishing as we know it, DGLMers have always felt that e-books and electronic media offer a tremendous opportunity to expand our reach and that of our authors.

That said, we have been very clear all along that we are literary agents.  We are proud of the job we do, the services we provide, and the help we’ve given to countless authors over the years in fulfilling their dreams of publishing their work.  We are also more cognizant than most of the superb work traditional publishers have done and continue to do in producing beautiful, lasting, quality books.

Over the past months and years we’ve come to the realization that e-publishing is yet another area in which we can be of service to our clients as literary agents. From authors who want to have their work available once the physical edition has gone out of print and the rights have reverted, to those whose books we believe in and feel passionately about but couldn’t sell—oftentimes, after approaching 20 or more houses—we realized that part of our job as agents in this new publishing milieu is to facilitate these works being made available as e-books and through POD and other editions.

Right now, you’re thinking, oh, DGLM is going to be another of those agencies that has decided to become an e-publisher and charge clients whose books they can’t sell 50% of their income for the privilege of uploading their work.  Some of you may be mumbling, “Uh…that’s a conflict of interest.”    We get it and we understand how that can be the perception.  However, we have no intention of becoming e-publishers.  As we said above, we have too much respect for the work that publishers do and too much respect for the work we ourselves do to muddy the waters in such a way.

Again, what we are going to do is to facilitate e-publishing for those of our clients who decide that they want to go this route, after consultation and strategizing about whether they should try traditional publishing first or perhaps simply set aside the current book and move on to the next. We will charge a 15% commission for our services in helping them project manage everything from choosing a cover artist to working with a copyeditor to uploading their work.  We will continue to negotiate all agreements that may ensue as a result of e-publishing, try to place subsidiary rights where applicable, collect monies and review statements to make sure the author is being paid.  In short, we will continue to be agents and do the myriad things that agents do.

Our intention is to keep on trying to find books we think we can sell to traditional publishing houses, to negotiate the best deal (always), and to give our authors as many options as we can.  Because we will continue to be commission-based, we will not be automatically pushing authors into e-publishing.   Again, we want to give our authors options and empower them to do what they set out to do all along: have their work read by the largest possible audience.

We are excited about this new part of our business and hope you will be as well.  We welcome your thoughts, comments, and concerns.

May 20, 2011   Rachel   about us, Rachel S., selling, What's New at DGLM  
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The Latest at DGLM

As tradition would have it, it’s time again to fill you all in on what’s been going on here at DGLM. In a new, never-before-seen development that will surely knock your socks off, bowl you over with a feather and land you on your seat, I’m the one who will be letting you in on all the recent book sales instead of Lauren. How’s that for a plot twist? You never really do know, do you? Oh stop it, don’t get too nervous, calm down. I won’t do anything too crazy. Before we all lose our nerves, let’s just get started.

Michael kicked things off with author and E! Executive News Editor Ken Baker’s Fangirl, a very modern love story about a girl with a knack for songwriting meeting and falling for the pop star she idolizes, which he sold to Lisa Cheng at Running Press.

Bestselling cookbook author Steve Raichlen’s The Hermit of Chappaquiddick, a story of love, loss and redemption followed, which Tor’s Bob Gleason bought from Jane.

Then Jim sold Shannon Jamieson-Vasquez at Berkley a book called The Devil I Know by Jackie Barrett, the true story of a psychic medium’s correspondence with convicted Amityville murderer Ronnie DeFeo, which leads her into an investigation of what really happened the night he killed his family.

Noted chef and entrepreneur Debra Ponzek’s The Modern Cook’s Survival Guide, a cookbook that highlights the go-to favorites of the American palate and provides seasoned advice on how to perfect those foods, was sold by Jane to Kristin Wiewora of Running Press.

John came in next with Shandy Lawson’s debut YA novel LOOP, set in New Orleans, about two teen lovers desperately trying to break out of a time loop that always ends with them being killed in a botched robbery, which he sold to Emily Meehan at Hyperion.

Jane’s next sale went to Kate Hartson at Center Street forA Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Adulthood by Marion Grodin. The daughter of actor/comedian Charles Grodin, Marion struggled growing up in the shadow of celebrity and faced down a number of demons during her bumpy road through adolescence. Her book captures Grodin’s “addiction-laden, hilarious, heartbreaking, and ongoing journey toward standing on her own two feet and stepping, finally, into her own light.”

Joe Oestreich’s memoir Hitless Wonder: A Life in Minor League Rock and Roll, which details him coming to grips with age and realities while on a two-week tour with his long-running band Watershed, was also sold by John, this time to Mary Norris at Globe Pequot.

Following the successful Fresh from the Vegetarian Slow Cooker, Stacey sold Robin Robertson’s new cookbook, Fresh from the Vegan Slow Cooker to Dan Rosenberg at Harvard Common Press. Robertson’s latest will feature over 200 recipes.

Stephanie sold Anita Porterfield and Marie Sprague’s In the Crosshairs, an investigative piece of narrative non-fiction that recounts the events of the Fort Hood massacre and raises questions regarding the shooter, government cover-ups, and military work environments, to Hilary Claggett at Potomac Books.

Stacey’s next sale went to Mary Norris at Globe Pequot press for Peyton and Diane Goddard’s I am Intlgent, which is an inspirational memoir written by a nonverbal autistic woman and her mother, describing their experiences of the girl’s difficult and abusive childhood, her eventual ability to communicate with the outside world, culminating in her graduation as valedictorian of her class from college, and her work now as an advocate for disabled individuals without a voice.

Suzanne Young’s The Program, in which teen suicide is an epidemic and a girl struggles to stay out of the Program—a preventative treatment that will erase her memories—in order to save herself and the boyfriend who’s already forgotten her was sold by Jim to Jennifer Klonsky at Simon Pulse.

Expanding on his work in Strategic Intuition, Bill Duggan’s Creative Strategy turns that concept into a method and plan that strategists can use. Michael sold this to Myles Thompson at Columbia University Press.

And finally, Jane sold author of Writing Tools, The Glamour of Grammar, and the forthcoming Help! for Writers, Roy Peter Clark’s How to Write Short, a book on communicating effectively in short form writing to Tracy Behar at Little, Brown.

As you can probably see, it’s been a pretty busy month here at DGLM and we really have no intention of stopping any time soon. And if you read the list above in a booming orator’s voice espousing the newest great ideas and innovations, then you’ve matched perfectly how it sounded in my head as I was writing. It’s BEA this week, so everyone’s more excited than usual about new books, new writers and new ideas—I encourage you to also proclaim your work below just as proudly as we have here.

April 05, 2011   Lauren   about us, Lauren, selling, What's New at DGLM  
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The latest from DGLM

So what’s the scoop since we last updated you on happenings Chez DGLM?  The weather did not really improve, I’m afraid to report, though there were a couple quite nice days in the middle there, including a Friday so beautiful that the next day’s dreary weather seemed a massive insult.  The storm clouds are currently gathering, so we’ll just have to look forward to the flowers in May that these showers are supposedly bringing us.  In non-weather news, a few other developments:  Jane got an incredibly gorgeous and adorable new dog, Gilli.  Jim entered a contest to guess the outcome of the Tournament of Books, rode high atop the chart for a while, and then crashed out spectacularly at the last minute.  Better luck next time, Jim!  And I moved in to a new apartment and am currently contemplating just how to organize my books on my bookcases—I’m thinking new home means new rationale—but I still don’t have a library with rolling ladders.

In deal news, we’ve had a pretty productive month around these parts!

Jane started us off with a new Jacqueline Carey trilogy, beginning with Siren Summer, in which Daisy Johanssen, who may or may not be the devil’s spawn, is charged with the responsibility of liaising between the small Midwestern resort town of Pemkowet and the hidden community of eldritch folk and their reclusive demigoddess who also live there.  Anne Sowards at Berkley/Ace bought World English rights to the trilogy.

Then Trish Todd at S&S bought Molly Wizenberg’s next memoir from Michael.  Delancey, by the originator of the award-winning, popular blog Orangette and author of A Homemade Life, will be about a very young marriage, the difficult birth of a wildly successful restaurant, trust, faith, and what we do for the people we love

Jane also sold Carter Oosterhouse with Chris Peterson’s Carter’s Way to Lara Asher at Globe Pequot.  HGTV personality Carter will help homeowners find the ideal design for their homes and instill in readers his “you can do it” approach to design and home improvement.

Daniel Marks’s YA debut Velveteen, about a serial killer’s victim’s attempts to get revenge from Purgatory, spinning her new world into chaos, was sold by Jim McCarthy to Krista Marino at Delacorte.  Think Jennifer’s Body meets Beetlejuice.

Jim also sold the delightful Twig Terrariums by Michelle Inciarrano and Katy Maslow to Deborah Aaronson at Abrams—the book will be an instructional guide to building your own whimsical terrariums.  Check them out here.

Abby Zidle at Pocket bought from Jane the next two as-yet-untitled books in Anne Stuart writing as Kristina Douglas’s The Fallen series, which began with Raziel in January.

Another from Jane—this time William G. Hyland’s Long Journey with Mr. Jefferson, the first and only biography of the distinguished scholar Dumas Malone who spent nearly forty years researching and writing the definitive biography of Thomas Jefferson—went to Elizabeth Demers at Potomac Books.

Then Stacey placed baker Abigail Johnson Dodge’s next cookbook, No Fork Desserts, with Carolyn Mandarano at Taunton.  It will offer 75 delicious recipes for desserts that can be eaten utensil-free.

And Jane wrapped it all up nicely with actor and author Michael Tucker’s debut novel, which she sold to Stephanie Gorton at Overlook.  Like Life is about love and loss between soulmates Herbie and Annie, set among a diverse cast of characters that support the couple with humor and guidance.

What about you?  Any big life changes?  Monumental decisions?  Fabulous victories or crushing defeats?  And has spring sprung yet near you?  If so, could you put in a good word for us?

March 04, 2011   Lauren   about us, Lauren, selling, What's New at DGLM  
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News from DGLM!

A month has passed since we offered you some news from around DGLM.  February was a busy (and brutally cold) month here, and we’re hoping March will be just as busy (in a good way!) but quite a bit warmer!

Michael started us off right when he placed Ask the Passengers, the next YA novel from A.S. King, author of the Printz Honor Book Please Ignore Vera Dietz and the forthcoming Everybody Sees the Ants, with Andrea Spooner at Little, Brown Books for Young Readers.  Ask the Passengers is about a girl, a town, and the passengers in the planes that fly over her house.

This was followed by two books Stacey sold to Jenna Ciongoli at Broadway/Crown by her client Jeff Yeager.  How to Retire the Cheapskate Way is the next Ultimate Cheapskate book, which focuses on planning for retirement.  Broadway/Crown will also be publishing an original e-book by Yeager called Don’t Throw That Away which will provide tips for repurposing common household items.

Jane sold The Courage to Hope: How I Stood Up to the Right Wing Media, the Obama Administration and the Forces of Fear by Shirley Sherrod to Malaika Adero at Atria.  Raised in the deep South during the final violent years of Jim Crow, Sherrod understands firsthand the power of faith and the call to be a witness for truth and racial healing, which served her well in the summer of 2010, when a media storm blew apart her life and forced her to resign her position as the USDA’s Georgia Director of Rural Development.

Jane also placed Dimity McDowell and Sarah Bowen Shea’s Train Like a Mother, a follow-up to their Run Like a Mother, which will comprehensively focus on how to train for a race and cover the importance of strength training and injury prevention, but with the same wit and tone as their first book, with Chris Schillig at Andrews McMeel.

Jim sold Mindi Scott’s Live Through This to Liesa Abrams at Simon Pulse. The novel follows a girl as she embarks on her first romantic relationship at the same time she is trying to come to terms with the sexual abuse she’s endured at the hands of a family member.

Jane followed this with a deal with Dawn Davis at Harper for Caroline Clarke’s Postcards from Cookie, about Clarke’s life changing journey after discovering that her biological mother was Carole Cole (nicknamed Cookie), the daughter of iconic crooner and pianist Nat King Cole, and the time Clarke was able to spend with Cookie following her discovery.

Emma Carlson Berne’s untitled YA thriller about best friends whose attraction to the same boy turns deadly was sold to Emilia Rhodes at Simon Pulse by Michael.

First Class, a memoir by radio and television journalist Alison Stewart about her journey as she works through the grief of her father’s sudden death by discovering what her parents’ lives were like as they grew up in the 1940′s in segregated Washington, D.C., was sold by Jane to Jerry Pohlen at Chicago Review Press.

Jane also sold James Villas’s latest cookbook, Southern Fried, a comprehensive collection of quintessentially Southern recipes, to Justin Schwartz at Wiley.

Another of Jane’s cookbooks went to Pam Krauss at Rodale: Beatrice Ojakangas’s The Best Soup and Bread Cookbook, a diverse collection of 150 recipes for soups and breads based on flavor, texture and classic combinations.

And Stacey finished us up (for now!) with Joanne Chang’s follow-up cookbook to the successful Flour, which will offer more sweet and savory recipes from Chang’s Boston bakeries.  Chronicle’s Bill LeBlond will be publishing it.

How about all of you?  Any news?  Exciting goings on?  Was it bitterly cold where you are, or are you lucky enough to be somewhere that doesn’t require a million layers to make it through the day?

January 28, 2011   Lauren   about us, Lauren, selling, What's New at DGLM  
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What’s new at DGLM, you ask?

Sometimes, dear readers, we’re asked what’s going on around these parts beyond the precious gems we post here on the blog.  Of course, our days are primarily filled with emails and phone calls and meetings and convening by the copier to ask someone else to tell us if we’re actually idiots or some proposed contract language genuinely makes no sense.  That’s all well and good, but it’s not much fun to report.  However, to give you all a peek into what’s going on here, we thought we’d share a news update with you about some projects we’ve been selling.  (One caveat: sometimes we don’t announce deals right away for specific reasons, so this isn’t a comprehensive report!)

Stacey kicked off the year’s sales with Dr. Larry Rosen’s iDisorder, which will focus on how the overuse of technology is making us sick.  Laurie Harting at Palgrave bought this book by the author of Rewired, who is an expert on the psychology of technology.

In the narrative nonfiction Real Wolfmen: True Encounters in Modern America, which Jim sold to Mitch Horowitz at Tarcher, Linda Godfrey investigates reports of bipedal wolfmen that have appeared throughout the country over the past 70 years.

Then Jane sold veteran journalist John Coston’s Homestretch to Jackie Wehmuller of Johns Hopkins University Press.  This narrative nonfiction book will be the untold story of a fundamental transformation that is taking place in long-term care models for America’s senior citizens.

Justin Schwartz at Wiley bought Shauna James and Daniel Ahern’s next book from Stacey:  Gluten-Free Girl Everday is the second cookbook from the couple and will focus on more mainstream and simple, yet delicious and flavorful, gluten-free recipes.

Jim sold Leah Hultenschmidt at Sourcebooks The Whole Warm World, which is the YA follow-up to Geoff Herbach’s forthcoming Stupid Fast, following younger brother Andrew Reinstein’s efforts to get to the bottom of family mysteries.

From Michael, Emily Easton at Walker Books for Young Readers bought Suzanne Selfors’ The Milkmaid, a charming YA fantasy novel about an outcast girl who can magically turn milk into chocolate (which is but a myth in her world), the boy who loves her, the monarchy that tries to use her, and how she uses her talents and wits to not only improve her own life, but the world.

In subrights, Brodi Ashton’s Everneath trilogy went to Oetinger in Germany at auction.  Also in Germany, Chicken House bought German rights to James Dashner’s The Scorch Trials.  Audible picked up audio rights to Victoria Laurie’s forthcoming Vision Impossible, the ninth book in the Psychic Eye mysteries.  Richelle Mead’s Taiwanese publisher, King-In, bought the second half of the Vampire Academy series (Blood Promise, Spirit Bound, and Last Sacrifice), the last of which also found a home in Turkey with Artemis, who published the first five books in 2010.  In the Czech Republic, Alpress picked up David Morrell’s latest thriller, The Naked Edge.  Gallmeister in France bought his classic First Blood, which introduced the world to Rambo, and Albatros in Poland bought The Brotherhood of the Rose and The Fraternity of the Stone.

So that’s a bit of a window on what’s happened in our world in January, other than copious amounts of snow.  What happened in yours?

January 10, 2011   DGLM   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  
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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.

October 18, 2010   DGLM   about us, changes at DGLM, Rachel S., What's New at DGLM, why we are agents  
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Welcome to DGLM, Rachel Stout!

by Rachel S.

Reading all the past blog posts, I feel like there’s a lot to live up to here as the new Rachel in town. While I’ve only been here a week, I’ve grown comfortable, and it’s all thanks to the wonderful people here at DGLM.

I’m incredibly excited to be here, finally, as I’ve been trying to find my spot in the publishing world for quite some time now. With a degree in English, a minor in Irish studies and no practical, handyman type skills to speak of, I pretty much focused on my dream of working in book publishing and left little option for anything else. I interned with another literary agency, LJK Literary Management, in my last year of college and the summer following. Before that, I had no idea that literary agents even existed! It all makes sense to me now, and I fell in love with the reality of what I had tentatively been envisioning for my life. It’s nice when things work out as good or better than you’d hoped, isn’t it?

Words and books have always been my passions and I’m looking forward to being able to observe and actively participate in the process where one becomes the other. I keep lists of words I like the sound or look of, and one of my most embarrassing moments to date is still the spelling bee in sixth grade when, over confident 12 year old that I was, barely listened to the teacher and spelled “BUNK” as “BUCK” and was promptly told to sit down in the very first round. Humiliating.

Since then, I’ve grown to take more time and exert a little more care over my work (though the exhilaration of it all still makes itself known) and always listen to the words I’m supposed to be spelling. Or reading. Or writing. It hardly matters to me as all aspects of the literary process are still new enough to fascinate, and as soon as I find my particular niche I know it will always hold a similar allure.

In any case, I’m really looking forward to growing and learning under DGLM’s wing as well as taking part in this blog. I’m also over on Dystel and Goderich’s website for a more complete bio. You’ll hear from me again soon.

October 18, 2010   DGLM   about us, changes at DGLM, Rachel, Rachel S., What's New at DGLM  
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So long, farewell…

by Rachel

In my blog post on Friday, I touched upon the need—or the compulsion, really—to revise my blog entries, and then to revise them again. This blog entry is no different and I’m sure to self-edit a handful of times before I send it off, as I want to leaving a good lasting impression (!) on all of you, because, as Jane mentioned earlier, I’m leaving the DGLM crew to go back to Australia for a short time.

Working as Jane’s assistant has been a true pleasure. I started my position knowing only a little about the publishing industry, but I’ve learned an incredible amount since my time began here (after all, I’m learning from the best of the best), and I’ve been so fortunate to get as many wonderful opportunities as I have. I’ve had quite an amazing run with the DGLM team, and it’s been a delight to work with such dedicated and passionate people, who truly love what they do; the enthusiasm and drive of each agent has been inspiring.

I’ll miss a lot of things about working with the DGLM family. Of course I’ll miss the (sometimes) weird and wacky queries that sometimes made my skin crawl; I’ll miss reading wonderful manuscripts by talented authors, and there’s no doubt I’ll miss the morning stampede to the kitchen when breakfast arrives (and of course the eyebrow-raising conversations that take place there!).

So, I might’ve failed in getting anyone in the office to eat Vegemite, but—as corny as it sounds—I really did succeed in falling in love with books all over again, and making wonderful friends here at DGLM whom I hope to cross paths with in the future. I know Rachel Stout is going to be a great addition to the team and really enjoy working with this incredible group of people.

October 18, 2010   DGLM   about us, changes at DGLM, Jane, Rachel, Rachel S., What's New at DGLM  
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The two Ms. Rachels

by Jane

So there is good news and bad news at DGLM. The bad news first:

Our dear Rachel Oakley has had to depart. Originally from Australia, Rachel was well ensconced in our company and doing a superb job. She had even signed her first client. In short we all loved working with her.

Sadly, about four weeks ago, Rachel learned that her father, who lives in Australia, is critically ill and so she is leaving the States to be with him during this difficult time. Because she doesn’t know how long her stay will be, we were forced to accept her resignation.

And then came the new Rachel—our good news!

Rachel Stout is a graduate of Fordham University here in New York with a degree in English and has always wanted to be in book publishing. After a year working in the retail clothing business (the perfect background for our very fashionable office) and pursuing publishing internships, she has joined our team. We are absolutely delighted to have her, and I hope all of you will welcome her to our staff.

October 15, 2010   DGLM   What's New at DGLM  
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What’s New at DGLM

We are pleased to welcome John Rudolph and Stephanie DeVita, DGLM’s newest agents. John was most recently executive editor at Putnam Books for Young Readers, where he oversaw books in the children’s, middle grade, and young adult categories, and Stephanie started her career in publishing as an intern at DGLM. We are also pleased to welcome Rachel Stout, DGLM’s newest member, and Jane Dystel’s assistant. Rachel recently graduated from Fordham University with a degree in English.

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Dystel & Goderich Literary Management is pleased to announce that Stacey Glick, who has been an agent with the company since 1999, has been named Vice President.  With an impressive roster of clients, Stacey, a former child actress who started out as a film scout, has distinguished herself in the industry for her dedication, her passion and her professionalism.  She is an invaluable part of the DLGM team and has contributed to the agency’s success over the last ten years.

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Dystel & Goderich Literary Management is pleased to announce the opening of a West Coast office in Los Angeles, spearheaded by Vice President Michael Bourret.  Michael, who has been with DGLM for 10 years, will continue to maintain and grow his own list of clients while aggressively pursuing new film and TV opportunities for the agency.  Jane Dystel, Miriam Goderich and the entire staff of DGLM are excited by this opportunity to extend the agency’s reach at a time when we are proactively pursuing a number of initiatives to better serve our clients.  The L.A. office will be operational as of December 1st. 
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