Steve Laube

A One Year Anniversary Announcement

By Steve Laubeon May 21, 2012

by Steve Laube

A year ago we welcomed Tamela Hancock Murray and Karen Ball to our agency. I couldn’t be more pleased.

These two ladies are amazing people. They both work very hard to serve their clients with passion and excellence. I am blessed to have them as part of our team.

Next week will be the eighth anniversary of the founding of The Steve Laube Agency. We have had some wonderful success and represented some amazing authors and books in those years. I pray that we continue to help change the world word by word.

Fun Fridays – May 8, 2012 -The Chaos of English Pronunciation

By Steve Laubeon May 18, 2012

Fun Friday - May 18, 2012

Quoted in its entirety from The Better Spelling Society (read their article the history of this piece). My favorite is the last stanza that reads "which rhymes with enough? Though, through, bough, cough, hough, sough, tough??"
The Chaos - by Gerard Nolst Trenité
This version is essentially the author's own final text, as also published by New River Project in 1993. A …

Category: Fun Fridays, GrammarTag: Grammar, spelling

News You Can Use – May 15, 2012

By Steve Laubeon May 15, 2012

J.A. Konrath Responds - [Warning: There is some coarse language in the post.] Konrath's response to my blog post from yesterday.

Vetting a Freelance Editor - Victoria Strauss writes an incredible article on how to pick the best independent editor for your project.

Icons that Make No Sense to the New Generation of Readers - A tremendous article about words that could "date" your writing if …

Category: Get PublishedTag: Editing, Rights Reversion, Twitter

Goodbye to Traditional Publishing?

By Steve Laubeon May 14, 2012

by Steve Laube

Recently Ann Voss Peterson wrote of her decision to never sign another contract with Harlequin. One major statistic from the article is that she sold 170,000 copies of a book but earned only $20,000.

Multiple clients sent me Peterson’s “Harlequin Fail” article and wanted my opinion. My first thought is that this was typical “the publisher is ripping me off” fodder. But …

Category: Book Business, Contracts, Defense of Traditional Publishing, E-Books, Steve, TrendsTag: Contracts, royalties, Traditional Publishing

Word Trivia

By Steve Laubeon May 11, 2012

Word Trivia

“Stewardesses" and "reverberated" are the two longest (and commonly used) words (12 letters each) that can be typed with only the left hand.

"lollipop" is the longest word typed with your right hand.

The only 15 letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is uncopyrightable.

No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver, or …

Category: Fun Fridays, HumorTag: Fun, Humor, Trivia

News You Can Use – May 8, 2012

By Steve Laubeon May 8, 2012

Traditional Advertising is Truly Dead - Not sure I agree with the over the top headline, but the article does make some excellent points. A quote from the article:
"The equation used to be: money x media = business.
The new equation is: time x media = business.
In other words, every company is a media company."
Microsoft has invested in Barnes & Noble's Nook - But before everyone gets …

Category: Marketing, News You Can UseTag: fiction, Marketing, Twitter

Fun Fridays – May 4, 2012

By Steve Laubeon May 4, 2012

Enjoy this clever three minute book trailer for the new prequel to The Godfather releasing next week (titled The Family Corleone).

No editors were harmed in the filming of this video. At least that we know of.

Watch past the credits.

Category: Fun FridaysTag: book trailer, Humor

News You Can Use – May 1, 2012

By Steve Laubeon May 1, 2012

Amanda Hocking is Happy with her Publisher – An update from the woman whose self-published ebooks garnered a monster traditional deal.

10 Best First Lines in Fiction - Chosen by editors at the Guardian (UK). Do you agree or disagree?

How We Will Read in the Future - An excellent interview with Maria Popova, the curator for the great BrainPickings blog. (The article is about 2,500 words long …

Category: News You Can UseTag: Craft, ebooks, Google Ads, Marketing, Reading

Blood, Guts and Peanuts: What it’s Like Writing with Ted Dekker

By Steve Laubeon April 30, 2012

Guest blog by Tosca Lee

Our guest today is Tosca Lee, author of Demon: A Memoir and Havah: The Story of Eve. She is also the co-author with Ted Dekker of the NYTimes bestseller Forbidden. The next book in that series will be out this Summer. A sought-after speaker and former Mrs. Nebraska, Tosca was a senior consultant for a global consulting firm until turning to writing full-time. She holds a …

Category: Guest Post, Humor, Writing CraftTag: Collaboration, Humor, Ted Dekker, Tosca Lee

Fun Fridays – April 27, 2012

By Steve Laubeon April 27, 2012

How many book characters do you count in this short video? And what are their names?

Category: Fun FridaysTag: Fun