The Steve Laube Agency is committed to providing top quality guidance to authors and speakers. Our years of experience and success brings a unique service to our clients. We focus primarily in the Christian marketplace and have put together an outstanding gallery of authors and speakers whose books continue to make an impact throughout the world.
Our Service Philosophy
Content
To help the author develop and create the best book possible. Material that has both commercial appeal and long-term value.
Career
To help the author determine the next best step in their writing career. Giving counsel regarding the subtleties of the marketplace as well as the realities of the publishing community.
Contract
To help the author secure the best possible contract. One that partners with the best strategic publisher and one that is mutually beneficial for all parties involved.
Recent Posts
5 Questions Your Proposal Must Answer: Question 2
Is Your Idea a Book or a Magazine Article?
Not every good idea is a book-length idea. This can be a challenge for any writer to accept.
A nonfiction book requires breadth, depth, and durability. It must sustain a reader’s attention over 40,000 to 60,000 words (or more) without thinning out or repeating itself. Many proposals begin with a compelling premise; but when examined closely, they contain only a single strong chapter—or worse, a single strong paragraph.
The question is not whether your idea is interesting. The question is whether it can be sustained and therefore carry enough substance.
A helpful test is expansion. Can your concept be broken into eight to ten distinct, necessary chapters, each building on the last? Do those chapters develop the idea, or do they circle it? If you find yourself restating the same insight in slightly different language, you may not have a book. You have an article trying to stretch beyond its natural length.
Another test is thought-changing consequence. Does your idea change the reader in stages? A book should move a reader somewhere. Can you take a reader from inquiry to understanding, from doubt to action, from assumptions to apprehension? If the entire argument can be grasped in a single sitting, it may not need a full-length (tens of thousands of words) treatment.
In some ways, this is a principle of all persuasive speech.
How often have you listened to a speaker who brought you to a tremendous conclusion, only to keep talking for another 15 minutes? How often have you started to read a book, only to abandon it because you “got the idea already”?
Writers sometimes mistake intensity for depth. A powerful insight feels expansive, but it may not be. Publishers are wary of ideas that peak too early and have nowhere to go.
Let me be clear, this does not minimize your idea. It simply suggests that every writer consider what the best form is for conveying the idea. (If it isn’t read, it lies undiscovered like an ancient manuscript buried in the desert.) Some of the most effective writing is brief, focused, and timely. An article, a series, or even a short-form project may better serve the idea than a book.
A wise proposal shows, in its presentation, that the author understands the difference between a nice idea for a post or an article versus what is best communicated in long-form.
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5 Questions Your Proposal Must Answer Series:
Question 1. Is Your Audience/Platform Big Enough?
Question 2. Is Your Idea a Book or a Magazine Article?
Question 3. How Is Your Book Different (And Is It Different Enough)?
Question 4. Will Enough People Pay for Your Book?
Question 5. Why Should You Write It? Why Not Someone Else?
Fun Fridays – April 17, 2026
Enjoy today’s video of a solo guitarist. It is wonderful to watch a gifted artist maximizing their creativity. Notice a couple things. (1) He is left-handed. That is rare to see because most guitars are strung for a right-handed player. I know I’m showing ignorance here, but that was a delight to observe. (2) He uses so many difficult techniques that if you close your eyes they might be missed. That is the mark of a craftsman. I spent a couple of college years trying to learn to play the classical guitar (inspired by Leo Kottke and others). Thus, when …
5 Questions Your Proposal Must Answer: Question 1
Is Your Audience/Platform Big Enough? This platform question is one of the more aggravating and frustrating issues most writers face. Either they try to explain it away, overestimate it, or avoid it entirely. A publisher is not asking whether your topic has a large audience in theory. They are asking whether you can reach enough of that audience in practice. There is a difference. Many proposals mistakenly claim a sizable readership—“millions of Christians,” “thousands of leaders,” “anyone struggling with …”—but fail to connect that audience to the author. The assumption is that if the audience exists, the book will find …
Fun Fridays – April 10, 2026
Back before Captain Cook sailed the Seven Seas, I went to high school in Honolulu. (I know, someone’s gotta do it.) Today’s video was something I never knew about the state of Hawaii. Enjoy the trivia! (If you can’t see the video in your emailed newsletter, please click through to the site and view it there.) ShareTweet
My Pet Peeve Therapy Session
I have a lot of pet peeves. So many that this is the second time I’ve written about them. The first was three and a half years ago, when I vented about a host of things. Click here. I am not finished. Other peeves involve people who don’t wait for their turn. Like those who drive on the shoulder of the road to bypass traffic or those who try to get on the plane before their group is called. Another would be towns that allow trees and bushes to grow over road signs without trimming them, so a stop sign …