Discovery Award Judges
The top 6 winners of the IndieReader Discovery Awards will be sent to Dystel, Goderich and Bourret Literary Management to be reviewed by these top New York City literary agents
Why does that matter? A literary agent may get 5,000 query letters a year. Only a fraction of these will lead to the agent requesting the manuscript. If you think about it, an agent reading one out of a hundred submissions must read 50 books every year!
Jane Dystel is the president of Dystel, Goderich and Bourret, a large literary management firm in New York City. She has worked her way up the publishing world, with agencies such as Bantam Books and Grosset & Dunlap in her portfolio. She has also been the Publisher of World Almanac Publications, where she created her own imprint.
Jane quickly developed a reputation for honesty, forthrightness, hard work, and real commitment to her authors and their writing careers. She founded Jane Dystel Literary Management, which became Dystel, Goderich and Bourret Literary Management in 2016.
Dystel, Goderich and Bourret bring an added level of prestige to the Discovery Awards, The best way to put your book in the hands of some of the most powerful people in publishing.
The Top 6 Winners of the IndieReader Discovery Awards Will Be Shared with Acclaimed Producer Ram Bergman
The Top 6 Winners will be featured by IngramSpark and Bookfinity
Discovery Awards Judges 2026
Mark Gottlieb
Trident Media Group, Agent
Mark Gottlieb is an executive vice president and prominent literary agent working at book publishing’s leading literary agency Trident Media Group in New York City. He has ranked highly among literary agents across the industry for overall number of deals and other individual categories. While at Trident Media Group, Mark Gottlieb has represented New York Times bestselling authors as well as major award-winning authors. He has optioned and sold numerous books to production companies and studios for film and TV adaptation. He greatly enjoys working with authors to help manage and grow their careers with the resources available at Trident Media Group.
In addition to having worked at the company’s Foreign Rights Department, he also ran the company’s Audiobook Department. Utilizing his drive and intuition for discovering talented writers, he is currently expanding his client list of authors. As a literary agent he looks
forward to bringing authors to the largest possible audience.
Mike Sager
The Sager Group, Publisher
Mike Sager is a bestselling author and award-winning reporter. He’s been called “the Beat poet of American journalism.” For more than forty years he has worked as a writer primarily for the Washington Post, Rolling Stone, GQ and Esquire. In 2010 he won the American Society of Magazine Editors National Magazine award for profile writing. A number of his articles have been optioned for or have inspired movies and documentaries, including Boogie Nights.
The author of a dozen books and eBooks, Sager is also the editor and publisher of The Sager Group LLC, a content brand that publishes books and eBooks; ministers to artists and provides modest grants; designs products; and produces documentary, narrative and commercial films and music videos.
Madison Wilson
IngramSpark, Sales Ops and Services Manager
Madison Wilson is the Sales Ops and Services Manager at IngramSpark, an online self-publishing platform that enables authors and publishers to print, globally distribute, and manage print and ebook titles. She focuses on equipping indie authors with tools that drive discovery and deepen reader engagement. An avid reader herself, Madison is passionate about amplifying indie voices and giving them the spark they need to ignite.
Suzanne Lang
NPR Affiliate A Novel Idea, Podcast Host
Suzanne M. Lang explores the world of books on her NPR Affiliate podcast—from nonfiction to pulp fiction through engaging conversations with writers, academics, and readers alike. Because everyone has a story to tell, and every story begins with A Novel Idea.
Jon Chopan
Award-Winning Author & Professor of Creative Writing at Eckerd College
Jon Chopan is a professor of creative writing at Eckerd College. His first collection, Pulled From the River (Black Lawrence Press). He was winner of the 2017 Grace Paley Prize for Short Fiction for his collection Veterans Crisis Hotline (University of Massachusetts Press). It also won the Foreward Indie Silver Medal for Adult Fiction in Military and War. His work has appeared in Glimmer Train, Hotel Amerika, Post Road, Epiphany, The Southampton Review, and elsewhere.
Manon Wogahn
Influencer, Publishing Operations Manager
Manon Wogahn (aka @mysterymanon) is a reader, writer, and bookish content creator with a love for fictional crime. She edits the Cluesletter, the email newsletter for mystery lovers, and works for AuthorImprints, a self-publishing services company. Her short stories have been published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine and Malice Domestic: Mystery Most Senior. Manon credits her art history degree for her obsessions with beautiful books and the Chicago Manual of Style. As for the mystery obsession, she can only blame Trixie Belden, Nancy Drew, and her own nosy inclinations.
Hallie Hoffman
Reedsy Discovery, Community Manager
Hallie Hoffman is the Community Manager at Reedsy Discovery, a platform dedicated to helping indie authors get pre-release book reviews from a trusted community of reviewers. Through her work with authors and reviewers, and her weekly newsletter that reaches hundreds of thousands of readers, Hallie helps spotlight outstanding new titles and promote the hidden gems of indie publishing.