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Miriam Goderich

About Miriam

Miriam Goderich and Jane Dystel have been partners since 1995 and they work closely as an agenting team to generate book ideas, help create book proposals, place projects with publishing companies, and negotiate all contracts pertaining to publishing and subsidiary rights. In addition, Miriam is an insightful editor who has been responsible for discovering and working on a number of first novels. She is also very involved in developing nonfiction projects and taking them from the conceptual stage to publication. Miriam’s areas of interest include: literary and commercial fiction as well as some genre fiction, narrative nonfiction, pop culture, psychology, history, science, art, business books, and biography/memoir. Miriam received a BA in Comparative Literature and an MA in English from Columbia University. She was born in Cuba and, prior to settling in the New York area, lived in Spain and Miami, Florida. Currently, she resides just outside the City with her husband and son, a dog, and a parrot.

Miriam wants to see more…
Commercial fiction

I come from a long line of bookworms. When my parents and I left Spain to come to the U.S., we brought two big suitcases for the three of us, one of them was almost entirely full of my father’s books. Our first apartment in Miami was right across the street from a public library and a couple of blocks away in a strip mall next to a 7-11, there was a used book store whose owners let me trade my vast collection of comic books for worn paperback copies of David Copperfield, Pride and Prejudice, War and Peace, and hundreds of other titles that opened up the world for me.

So, it made perfect sense to me, once I found myself with a master’s degree in English and the same voracious appetite for books that I’d had when I was eight, to look in the classifieds under “Publishing” when I decided to enter the work force. One of the first ads I answered was for an agent’s assistant and – not having a very clear idea of what an agent did – I showed up in Jane Dystel’s office with my best suit on and what I hoped was a very grown-up look on my face. Jane gave me and my skimpy resume an appraising once over and offered me a job.

A few months later, I came across a manuscript called China Boy by an unpublished lawyer named Gus Lee. I fell in love with the book and watched Jane make a great sale to Dutton and launch a talented writer’s career. And, two decades later, I still get a kick out of holding a finished book in my hands and knowing that I played a part in making it happen. Everyday, I look for the next brilliant novel, fun beach read, gripping nonfiction narrative, inspirational memoir or biography, and instructional self-help title. Still a bookworm after all these years.

Query Instructions

My goal is to make this process as painless as possible for you, and the following guidelines will make us better able to respond to you in a timely manner.
 
-Do send your query letter via email, and include the full query in the body of the email, not as an attachment.

-Do include a writing sample of the first 25 pages of your manuscript (fiction) or your proposal with sample chapter (nonfiction) in the body of the email below your query letter.

-Do proofread carefully and double-space your materials if possible.

-Do be sure to query only one agent at this agency. We will not review queries sent to more than one of us.

-Do resend your query email if you haven’t heard from us in 8 weeks, noting the date previously sent. Our goal is to read and respond to every query in that time frame.

 
-Don’t send attachments with a blank email or an incomplete query – we will not open them.

-Don’t send materials as a shared file or download link (such as Dropbox or Google Docs). We will not open these files.

-Don’t submit to more than one of us at once, whether in the same query or separate queries, or requery another agent here after getting a pass. We share queries with each other frequently, so a no from one is a no from all.

-Don't query more than one project at a time.

-Don’t send a query for a novel until the manuscript is complete, polished and ready for review. We do not accept partial manuscripts for novels. Nonfiction can be queried with a proposal.

-Don’t pitch projects or follow up on queries over the phone or via social media. Pitches made via Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc, will not be considered except as part of a planned pitch event.

 

Query Tips
 

We like our unsolicited queries to be concise, well-written, and well-proofed, and as devoid of gimmicks as possible. Here’s what to include:

A professional, personalized greeting.

A mention in the first paragraph of why you’re querying us: you admire a client’s work, you met us at a conference, you read a great interview, etc. Be brief and specific!

Key stats for your project: title, genre, word count, and comp titles or authors.

Your pitch: a paragraph or two summarizing your novel or nonfiction project that will hook us on your work. For fiction, please include genre, word count, and comp titles.

Your bio or credentials: your expertise in the topic, your previous publication credits, your social media platform.


Nonfiction Proposal Guidelines

We work very hard with our clients to help them create their proposals and because we think this part of the publishing process is so very important, we wanted to share our basic formula for putting together a non-fiction proposal. The proposal is broken down into several parts.

Overview

This begins with a brief dramatic anecdote which is meant to get the reader, in this case the editor at the publishing company, interested in the material. Immediately after this anecdote, you should describe in two or three sentences—no more—what the book will be about. This is followed by another brief paragraph on why it is being written and then another on why you are qualified to write it.

After this, you need to describe your audience who will buy your book—both demographically and statistically. The more numbers you have here the better.

Alongside your audience, describe your platform and marketing advantages: who you are, your qualifications, your media experience (or media coverage of your project/podcast/organization), your social media reach (not just numbers but growth and engagement), outlets where you regularly speak or publish pieces, any other media where you have a strong connection. And anything else you bring to the table to support your book. 

The final element of the overview is a comparative section where you compare your book to others that would be found in the same place in the bookstore. In each case, you must provide the author, the title, the publisher, and the year of initial publication and, book by book, tell us how your proposed book will be as successful as those or more so.

Annotated Table of Contents

This consists of chapter heads and no more than a couple of sentences on what each chapter will contain.

Sample Material

If you’re writing a general nonfiction book, we need at least one sample chapter that matches a chapter described in your annotated table of contents.  The sample chapter is meant to do two things: show off the writing and tell us things we don’t already know.

If you’re writing a cookbook, there should be a section of sample recipes, which can be labeled as such. There should be 10-12 recipes from all parts of the book (i.e., one or more from the appetizer section, one or more from the soups and salads section, one or more from the entrees section, etc.). Each of these recipes should be accompanied by headnotes (about a paragraph of text introducing the recipe). Each recipe should be in standard cookbook format and should clearly state the number of people it will serve.  In addition to the sample recipes, you’ll need to include introductory text from one or two different sections of the book so that editors get a sense of your narrative writing style.

Author Biography

Finally, there should be a more formal narrative of the author.

This is followed by links that serve as Support Material—reviews of previous books, recent articles by and about you from national publications, a schedule of speaking appearances, any national media appearances, etc.

Address

One Union Square West
Suite 904
New York, NY 10003

Phone Number

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