News from 2003 ...

November 14, 2003

From Publishers Weekly:

November 10, 2003

Hooked on Classics -- Another title getting a new life is Jason Kelly's THE NEATEST LITTLE GUIDE TO STOCK MARKET INVESTING (Plume, January 2004). Published five years ago, when the stock market was booming, the book is just as relevant now as it was back then, says Plume editor-in-chief Trena Keating, who sees it as a guide for the investor cautiously re-entering the market. The book has been updated to reflect changes resulting from the dot-com crash and the bear market.

October 2, 2003

The DSM Agency announces our ...

FRANKFURT HOT LIST 2003

Top books with foreign rights available

Jeffrey J. Fox

HOW TO MAKE BIG MONEY IN YOUR OWN SMALL BUSINESS:

Unexpected Rules Every Small Business Owner Needs to Know 

• Jeff Fox does it again, this time giving the reader easy, useful tips on successful entrepreneurship
• How to Become CEO and How to Become a Rainmaker are international bestsellers.
• May 2004 publication date, partial manuscript available now
• Published by Hyperion

Jeffrey J. Fox & Richard C. Gregory

DOLLARIZATION DISCIPLINE

• Based on 20 years of application in the trenches of sales and marketing, "dollarization" -- a term coined by the authors -- helps the customer make the right economic decision and enables the marketer to profit from the "value added" it delivers
• Fall 2004 publication date, proposal available now
• Published by John Wiley & Sons (World English)

Hamilton Beazley

NO REGRETS:

A Ten-Step Program for Living in the Present and Leaving the Past Behind

• Dr. Beazley, a renown expert on addiction recovery, helps the reader make the present more productive and offers a practical solution to those whose lives are negatively impacted by the past
• January 2004 publication date, manuscript available now
• Published by John Wiley & Sons (World English)

Deborah Davis

YOU LOOK TOO YOUNG TO BE A MOM:

Teen Mothers Speak Out on Love, Learning, and Success

• From love to education to sleep deprivation to stereotypes, women who became mothers as teens speak out in this anthology
• Foreword by Ariel Gore, teenage mother, founding editor of Hip Mama, and author of several books
• April 2004 publication date, proposal available now
• Published by Perigee, Penguin Group

Stacy Whitman with Wynne Whitman

SHACKING UP:

The Smart Girl's Guide to Living in Sin Without Getting Burned

• Hip and much-needed advice for couples who choose to live together before tying the knot
• A killer combination: Stacy Whitman sassy writing style can be seen in magazines like Glamour, Shape, Cosmopolitan, and Parenting. Her sister, Wynne Whitman, is a lawyer and MBA who offers her expertise in the legal and financial aspects of living together
• Published in April 2003, book available upon request
• Published by Broadway Books

Please see the Our Books page for a complete list of our titles

August 1, 2003

From the Midwest Book Review:

WHY DID I MARRY YOU ANYWAY?: 12.5 Strategies for a Happy Marriage, by Barbara Bartlein, R.N., L.C.S.W.

Like Chatting with a [knowledgeable] Friend

by Roger Herman

      Wouldn’t it be nice to have a marriage counselor for a friend? And wouldn’t it be nice to have a friend as a marriage counselor? Everyone is who is married—happily or aspiring to be happy—needs to continually examine and reinforce all those wonderful positive reasons you chose your mate…and chose to stay with your mate for all those days, months, years, decades…lifetimes. Marriage isn’t easy or perfect. It’s a special relationship that you have to work hard to make work.

     OK, so how do you make a marriage work? Well, first you shatter all the myths about skipping down the daisy-lined paths along the white picket fence. Life isn’t like what we see in some of those movies and television shows that make it all seem so easy. Barbara knows. She’s been there, done that…and shares her life in personal disclosures that are comfortable and instructive. Readers will feel that they are building a friendship with this author, sitting over a cup of coffee—or herbal tea—at the table in cozy breakfast nook.

     Barbara (we’re feeling that first-name comfort now) will tell you what works and what doesn’t. Her life and experience as a therapist, combined with her work as a consultant and professional speaker, will enable her to really get her points across in ways that we can understand, relate to, and put to work.

     Challenges in your marriage? Lay ‘em out. Is the commitment really there? Can I count on you? I married you because you were perfect; now change! You’re just like your father, mother, brother, sister, etc. Why don’t we do things together? Money, intimacy, kids. Just about everything you can imagine will bubble to the surface in these pages. You’ll read the myths and the realities. Stories, case studies, tools and end-of- chapter quizzes enhance the value of this book. No index: doesn’t need one, but there is a helpful section of resources at the end of the book.

     You’ll learn. You’ll laugh. You’ll shake your head and nod your head. You’ll read sections to your spouse. And, as you share the concepts of this book, your marriage will become even stronger. Extra note for business owners, executives, and managers, many of the things you read just might have some application for a different kind of marriage: the relationship between employer and employee.

     Warning: Don’t expect to read this book at one sitting. There’s too much content to absorb that quickly. Besides, because you’ll want to share with others too frequently, your reading will be constantly interrupted!

March 30, 2003

From The New York Times Book Review of March 30th:

THE MUSHROOM MAN by Sophie Powell

Into the Woods

March 30, 2003

By Karen Karbo

      At the heart of Sophie Powell's first novel is a child's invented fairy tale, set in a Welsh forest, about an amiable hermit who fashions umbrellas from wild mushrooms to protect the local fairy population from the rain and, as a reward, is turned into a fairy himself, ''immortal and invisible.''

     Eleven-year-old Amy -- a triplet who lives on a farm in the Welsh countryside with her identical sisters; her older brother, Joseph; and her widowed mother, Beth -- is the creator of the tale. One night she tells it to her 6-year-old cousin, Lily, who's so enchanted that she sets out to find the mushroom man and goes missing in the process, thus setting the novel's plot in motion.

     Lily has come to visit the farm for several days with her mother, Charlotte, Beth's sister, and these two women also provide ''The Mushroom Man'' with fairy-tale elements. The previously estranged sisters are a study in opposites. Beth is warm and welcoming, Charlotte cold and off-putting. Beth was married to a carpenter who died in his mid-40's: ''They loved each other with the wonder and passion of teenagers falling in love for the first time, every day that they were together.'' Charlotte's selfish, unloving husband is having an affair with Pavlova, the Estonian au pair. Beth is a painter who isn't painting because she's unhappy; Charlotte isn't playing the piano for the same reason.

     When Lily disappears into the forest near Beth's farm, the adults believe she has been abducted. But the children are convinced that she has found the mushroom man and has been rendered invisible herself. In a lovely passage, one of the triplets decides that there might very well be such tiny invisible fairy worlds: ''If people weren't aware of the existence of the millions of eight-legged dust mites crawling around in their beds until the discovery of the microscope, then what's there to argue against the existence of millions of worlds we don't have the technology yet to fathom?''

     But the novel has a grown-up edge: interspersed with the story of Charlotte's visit and Lily's disappearance are adulterous scenes featuring Charlotte's husband and the au pair, as well as scenes of sexual discovery between Joseph and his girlfriend.

    ''The Mushroom Man'' is a respectable debut by a very young writer (Powell was born in England in 1980 and now lives in New York), but it's as ephemeral and light as the forest fairies it depicts so well. For readers who fear that the hefty encyclopedic novel stands poised to take over the literary world, this minimalist fiction will provide reassurance.

    Powell's concise style is often swift and effective:

     ''When the triplets crash into the kitchen with their basketful of mushrooms, Beth is frying bacon and eggs and slices of fresh tomatoes and Charlotte is sitting straight-backed at the table with her eyes fixed out the window. Her black coffee is untouched in front of her and her fingertips with their long, perfect nails are pressed down on the edge of the table as if she were about to start playing a piano.''

     However, there are moments when less is not more but merely less, as when Pavlova, stranded alone in London after Charlotte's husband has left for Wales to help find Lily, calls home to her sister in Estonia:

    '' 'Hallo.'

    '' 'Tatiana?'

    '' 'Pavlova!'

    '' 'I'm coming back home.'

    '' 'Are you O.K.?'

    '' 'I'm fine.' Her voice breaks against her will. 'I just want to come home.'

    '' 'That's great.' ''

    Still, the spirit of the book is infectious, and Powell has done a fine job of casting her spell. She has managed to create a world where the sad adult business of estrangement, mourning and betrayal coexists with the unseen childhood world of light and happiness, and that's no small feat. The Welsh countryside has never seemed so alluring, or the existence of simple magic, despite the nasty disappointments of adult life, so probable.

March 11, 2003

Powerful Women in Publishing

Program Moderators:
Doris Michaels, President, Doris S. Michaels Literary Agency, Inc.
Jeanette Zwart, Vice President of Field Sales, HarperCollins Publishers
                            WNBA/NYC Auxiliary Board Member

February 3, 2003

Excerpted from Publishers Weekly:

“Dychtwald runs Age Wave, a consulting firm specializing in teaching clients how to sell to baby boomers and mature adults, two rapidly merging categories. As life expectancies continue to grow, boomers are staying active and, Dychtwald argues, rapidly replacing the 18-to-34 demographic as the prime force driving the economy. She shows how they're defying conventional wisdom about growing old in the arenas of work and leisure, as well as with relationships and the concept of retirement.”

January 10, 2003

We are pleased to announce the arrival of the galleys for HOW TO BECOME A MARKETING SUPERSTAR by Jeffrey J. Fox. The book will be published by Hyperion in May of 2003. We are very proud to announce that this title already has a number of international deals in place including a deal for the Chinese complex character rights, the Chinese simplified character rights, the UK English rights, and the Russian rights. Thank you to Phillip Chen and Abner Stein for their hard work with this wonderful title.