Blog

Fun Fridays – November 3, 2017

By Steve Laubeon November 3, 2017

With the U.S. baseball season finally complete and a new World Series champion crowned, I thought it fitting to post this story of a 99-year-old usher who works the Pittsburgh Pirates games.

Think about it for a second. If he retired at the 65-year mark he has been enjoying his post-career years since 1983.

I started my career in this industry in 1981 as a young college student. In other words, he basically retired when I was dusting shelves in a bookstore!

Next time you think you need to do it All right now and get impatient…think about this man and relax a little.

Beyond the Hook: What Makes Your Reader Care?

By Tamela Hancock Murrayon November 2, 2017

Any book lover who’s made the hobby of reading a lifelong habit can name stories that kept him reading well past anything else – dinner, chores, bedtime… What makes this happen? The Problem Sympathetic characters can help as a start, but while they serve to draw in a reader, the story’s dilemma itself keeps the reader engaged. The reader can’t put the book down until the characters solve the …

Category: Craft, Writing CraftTag: Characters, Craft

Deadlines Are Friends, Not Nemeses

By Bob Hostetleron November 1, 2017

Tweet4

When is your next deadline? What? You don’t have one? Why not? Aren’t you a writer? I know some writers create fine prose or poetry without deadlines—I just don’t know how they do it. “But,” you may protest, “I don’t have a contract yet. How can I have a deadline?” I suggest you always have a deadline, whether a publisher imposes it or not. No one is preventing you from making—and meeting—your own …

Category: Book Business, Contracts, The Writing LifeTag: Book Business, Contracts, Deadlines

A Writer‘s Theses

By Dan Balowon October 31, 2017

Tweet1

Fifteen hundred years after Christ died, resurrected and started the Christian church with a group of rag-tag disciples, the church had become a culturally, politically and socially dominant force, involved in all aspects of life. Prior to the start of the Protestant Reformation, many felt the church had strayed quite a bit from its original roots and needed a course-correction. Martin Luther, a …

Category: The Publishing Life, The Writing Life, Theology

Rumor Control

By Steve Laubeon October 30, 2017

I was talking with an editor this week who asked me, "How are things going? I hear that your agency is barely making ends meet and that you've had to take on other type of work to survive."

I must admit that I was so startled by this rumor that words nearly failed me.

"Where did you hear that?" I exclaimed.

"Oh it was at a recent writers conference and folks were talking, and your name …

Category: Agency, Communication, SteveTag: Gossip, rumors

Fun Fridays – October 27, 2017

By Steve Laubeon October 27, 2017

Today is our grandson’s 2nd birthday. (Hooray Caleb!) Someday he may enjoy math, or science, or business, or the arts, or just rule the world like he does now (hah!). This video is for those who are fascinated by math and statistics. Who would of thought that sorting books could be so hard? (Do you shelf your books by color? Please say no.) In my years as a bookseller we did variations of …

Category: Fun Fridays

Beyond the Hook: Writing Sympathetic Characters

By Tamela Hancock Murrayon October 26, 2017

The first page may be promising. The opening chapters may be engrossing. But a reader might still abandon your book if it doesn’t deliver. How can you keep your readers going? Sympathetic Characters Some writers are talented in creating sympathetic characters from page one. Perhaps Page one occurs during a fire, when the characters have lost everything. Or the heroine has been abandoned by a …

Category: Craft, Creativity, Editing, Romance, Romantic SuspenseTag: Characters, Craft, Reading

Your First Writing Assignment

By Bob Hostetleron October 25, 2017

If your writing doesn’t start with this practice, you’re cheating yourself. Lauren Winner, author of the wonderful memoirs, Girl Meets God and Mudhouse Sabbath, tells about an experience she had when a writing student of hers showed her part of a memoir that was astounding, far better than this student’s usual writing. Winner asked the student what had transformed her writing over the course of …

Category: Career, Faith, The Writing Life, TheologyTag: Faith, Prayer, The Writing Life

An Author Knows They are Having a Bad Day When…

By Dan Balowon October 24, 2017

Tweet2

“I went to sleep with gum in my mouth and now there’s gum in my hair and when I got out of bed this morning I tripped on the skateboard and by mistake I dropped my sweater in the sink while the water was running and I could tell it was going to be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.” (First lines of Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst, Simon & …

Category: Humor, The Writing LifeTag: Authors, Humor, The Writing Life

Variety is the Spice in an Agent’s Inbox

By Steve Laubeon October 23, 2017

The other day a writer asked me, “Describe a typical work day for you.” I choked back a laugh and said, “There is no such thing as ‘typical’ in the day of a literary agent.” There are many things that repeat. Royalty statements, new deal negotiations, contract evaluations, reviewing client proposals, and the unsolicited inquiries. But within those is a constant variety. I wrote down a sample of …

Category: Agency, Agents, Book Business, The Publishing LifeTag: Agency, Agents