The Steve Laube Agency

Helping to Change the World…Word by Word

The Steve Laube Agency

Helping to Change the World Word by Word

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Fun Fridays – May 22, 2020

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Today’s video is rather startling to watch. Titled Every Covid-19 Commercial Is Exactly the Same, it speaks a lot to the challenge of cliche vs. creativity.

If you have some thoughts on how you can avoid sounding like the previous proposal in an agent’s stack or like another author in your genre, feel free to weigh in!

This is a reality we agents face when working through proposals, both unsolicited and those from existing clients! How do you say the same thing–but in a different way?

[If you cannot see the embedded video in your newsletter email, please click the headline and go directly to our site to view it.]

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How to Find the Right Books for the Comparables Section of a Proposal

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Recently I received thoughtful questions from a writer about how to find the right comparable titles. Today I will offer my insights. Please note that my examples use classic novels. I recommend comparing your book to current offerings, preferably those released within the past two to three years. The writer asked: Could you elaborate on what types of similarities or level of similarities are …

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Be a Luddite, Not a Lunkhead

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I recently read a letter to the editor in a writers magazine in which an aspiring writer of advanced years bemoaned those publishers who accept only electronic submissions (via email or website). “Surely I am not the only soul who still works with a typewriter,” the correspondent wrote. “Possibly it’s because I’m eighty-eight, but don’t accuse me of being completely out of touch.” Well, no. Not …

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How to Crowdfund a Novel on Kickstarter

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Crowdfunding is a powerful and underused tool in the author’s tool kit. Crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo allow you to see if there is an audience for your book while simultaneously raising funds to help make it happen. How they work: You set a goal of how much money you need to publish your book. Then backers pledge money to help you hit your goal. If you fail to hit it, no one is …

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How to Crowdfund a Novel on Kickstarter

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Crowdfunding is a powerful and underused tool in the author’s tool kit. Crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo allow you to see if there is an audience for your book while simultaneously raising funds to help make it happen. How they work: You set a goal of how much money you need to publish your […]
You can listen to this episode How to Crowdfund a Novel on Kickstarter on Christian …

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He Said. She Said.

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A blog reader recently left an excellent comment on an earlier post:
Tamela, fiction workshop presenters taught me that the best word for “said” is “said”–that others only tend to slow down the reader’s eye. I’d appreciate a discussion on this.
While I don't know the workshop presenters in question, what I can guess they meant is to avoid substituting creative verbs for "said" as a tag. For …

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Instrument (A Writer’s Prayer)

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God, from ancient days to modern times, you have chosen human language to communicate with men and women; in fact, you are a writer yourself, having written your commandments in tablets of stone, my name in the Lamb’s Book of Life, and your Word in my heart. You have also given me a love for the written word, and have indebted me to the writings of many gifted men and women. So, while I am a …

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Writing Fiction With a Powerful Christian Message Without Getting Preachy

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One goal of Christian books is to convey a powerful Christian message through literature. But readers won’t get that message if they are turned off by the writing. One thing that turns potential readers away is heavy-handed preachiness. So how can Christian writers convey a powerful Christian message without being preachy? Our guest to help answer that question is Tim Shoemaker, the author of …

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Writing Fiction With a Powerful Christian Message Without Getting Preachy

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One goal of Christian books is to convey a powerful Christian message through literature. But readers won’t get that message if they are turned off by the writing. One thing that turns potential readers away is heavy-handed preachiness. So how can Christian writers convey a powerful Christian message without being preachy? Our guest to help […]
You can listen to this episode Writing Fiction With a …

Read moreWriting Fiction With a Powerful Christian Message Without Getting Preachy
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