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The Steve Laube Agency

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Home » Archives for Dan Balow » Page 2

Dan Balow

Disciplined Creativity: The Key to Platform Development

By Dan Balowon March 10, 2022
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An ever-present part of developing an author platform is the content in it. List all the various media an author can use to connect with potential book readers, and one quickly realizes they are nothing but empty containers until filled with something.

Some media are better than others for certain types of messages to certain audiences, but without a clear idea of what you want to communicate, you will panic for lack of material and post pictures of your lunch.

Exciting.

Unless you are a foodie writing reviews of various dishes, you will need to apply yourself creatively as much to your platform as you do for a book. You need to explore what “disciplined creativity” means to you.

“Disciplined creativity” seems like words working at cross-purposes to the other. An oxymoron for sure.

In what is becoming a lost art, newspaper columnists are a perfect example of “disciplined creativity.” At one point in time, newspaper columnists wrote many of the best-selling books. Just do an online search for “authors who were once journalists” for a lot of options proving this point.

Newspaper columnists earned a good living but lived by deadlines. They wrote a certain number of words every day. It was their job. They learned to discipline their creativity, or they lost their jobs. Maybe they had moments of writer’s block or difficulty in coming up with ideas, but those moments passed quickly as they pushed through the fog because they had no choice.

Successful authors work regularly and with purpose. Maybe there are times when they focus more to complete a project, but it is built into their lives.

Similarly, platform growth is always fueled by disciplined creativity, mixing the following ingredients:

–Clear idea of whom the platform is intended.

–A stated content focus, which not only gives an idea what to do but also what not to do.

–Self-imposed deadlines.

–Self-imposed schedule for posting or sending content.

–Relentless adherence to your content, deadline, and posting schedule.

–Clear idea of what works to draw the most interest to your platform and what does not.

–More postings of what draws the most interest and less of what doesn’t.

Now that I think about it, this doesn’t sound like much fun. In fact, it sounds like pure drudgery, unless you keep in mind the purpose and mission.

Most Christian authors I know have a sense of God’s calling on their lives. They feel led to write, create, communicate, encourage, explore, entertain, learn, teach, investigate, inspire, and inform. Always present is a sense that God is prodding them to communicate something worthwhile.

I can say the same about any Christ-follower I know in any vocation or profession. Sure, there are discouraging days and seemingly endless roads between destinations; but you always know why you are doing it and who is traveling the road with you.

And these facts make it all possible.

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Category: Platform

The Full-Armor Writer

By Dan Balowon March 2, 2022
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Christian communicators need a clear view of what they are getting into. No matter how creative you might be, if you are carrying the banner of Jesus Christ, you will become the target for attack. Pick any subject; and the world will object to it, going to varying lengths to marginalize it to the lunatic fringe. Thank you, social media. Surprised? You shouldn’t be. The times of “cultural …

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Category: The Writing Life, Theology

Watch the Jargon

By Dan Balowon February 17, 2022
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In early 2018, a corporate consulting firm, Grant Thornton, did a detailed analysis of Fortune 500 company websites, press releases, and social media. What they found was not surprising, but still proved how the use of business jargon (commonly used phrases) pervades the corporate world. What was the most commonly used phrase by Fortune 500 companies? “Best in class” Rounding out the top ten most …

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Category: Book Business, Book Proposals, Branding, Marketing, Pitch, Pitching, The Writing Life

Reader’s Digest Centennial

By Dan Balowon February 9, 2022
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This week we celebrate the 100th anniversary of the first edition of Reader’s Digest with one of their most popular jokes as voted by readers: A turtle is crossing the road when he’s mugged by two snails. When the police show up, they ask him what happened. The shaken turtle replies, “I don’t know. It all happened so fast.” Perfect. For those who browsed and read Reader’s Digest regularly, among …

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Category: Publishing History

The Grand Canyon of Crossover Writing

By Dan Balowon January 27, 2022
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A number of Christian writers desire to write a book published by a large publisher focused beyond the Christian market. The motivation and focus are well-intentioned, amplifying a Christian message to the larger world. But while the author has this desire to reach a broader audience with a message of hope, companies that publish to the general population have an entirely different agenda, which …

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Category: Book Business, Marketing, The Publishing Life

What I Am Looking For (Dan Balow)

By Dan Balowon January 19, 2022
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(Updated 1/19/2022) I know it is frustrating for aspiring authors to “decode” the processes involved when working to get published. It seems everything is organized to keep people out, rather than find new writers. On top of this, the publishing world is highly subjective, where no one can speak with absolute certainty about much of anything. How do I know if something is good? I don’t know, but I …

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Category: Agency, Book ProposalsTag: Agency, book proposals

God’s Timing vs. Ours

By Dan Balowon December 22, 2021
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With Christmas coming soon, we pause to remember what happened a couple thousand years ago. Of course, we know the whole story. The King of heaven was born, lived and died, resurrected and returned to the Father where he came from, all over a period of about 33 years. We can read a lot about his life, family, teachings, friends, followers, and foes in the pages of Scripture. But if we had a …

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Category: Personal, The Writing Life, Theology

Publishing in the Dark

By Dan Balowon December 9, 2021
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The story of the elephant and the blind man is told in many religious traditions. Even business seminars have found value using it to make a point. As the story goes, depending on what part of an elephant a person touches without seeing the whole, that forms their opinion of what the entire animal looks like. This same process could be applied to many things. A customer’s one-time experience with …

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Category: The Writing Life

Project Gutenberg

By Dan Balowon December 1, 2021
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Fifty years ago today, at the age of 24, Michael Stern Hart of Urbana, Illinois, founded Project Gutenberg. It was the world’s first digital library, using technology that would eventually help create the Internet. Michael invented ebooks. An interesting guy, his parents were both professors at the University of Illinois. He graduated from U of I in two years with a degree in Human-Machine …

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Category: Historical, Publishing History

What’s Your Platform Identity?

By Dan Balowon November 18, 2021
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A mistake for authors is defining their author platform as a list of people to market their next book on social media. Can you imagine a pastor of a church looking out over their congregation during a sermon and primarily thinking who among them would make good contacts when the new building finance program is announced the following week?  Maybe some do, but I cannot imagine a worse way to …

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Category: Platform
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