I am in awe that this week marks twenty years since I made the decision to open The Steve Laube Agency. Serving in this capacity in such a vibrant industry has been a privilege.
The numbers are staggering. Through the grace of God, the agency has helped secure contracts for over 2,500 new books. The ones published so far have sold over 35,000,000 copies. Think of all those people whose lives have been touched by the words of faithful writers!
Twenty years ago, the world was a little different. In 2004, for those of you who remember, a little operation called “The Facebook” was launched by Mark Zuckerberg. The Summer Olympics were held in Athens. Israel and Hamas were battling each other in Gaza. Tom Brady’s New England Patriots won the Super Bowl. The Boston Red Sox won the World Series of Baseball (first time in 86 years). The top movies at the box office were Shrek 2, Spiderman 2, and The Passion of the Christ. The bestselling books of the year were The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown), The Five People You Meet in Heaven (Mitch Albom), and The Last Juror (John Grisham). In the Christian book market, Thomas Nelson Publishers released a little devotional titled Jesus Calling by Sarah Young. Motorola’s RAZR V3 was the #1 cell phone (the iPhone had not yet been released).
Now I’m feeling old.
Gratefully, the agency has survived many changes: multiple industry mergers and purges, a couple of national economic crises, a pandemic, five U.S. presidential elections, the introduction of ebooks, the music industry being reinvented into digital streaming, the disruption and rise of Amazon.com, audiobooks becoming a growing category, and the collapse of the Christian bookstore industry. But through it all, the good news of the Gospel has been proclaimed through the written word.
It has been exciting to add Tamela Hancock Murray, Bob Hostetler, Dan Balow, Megan Brown, and Lynette Eason to the team. They each bring such extraordinary strengths to the table that we all benefit from one another’s insights. We also enjoyed having Karen Ball and Thomas Umstattd Jr. as agents for a time. I cannot express my unending thankfulness for working alongside such great people.
We are honored to represent some of the finest writers in the industry (nearly 300 of them!). Each one is tremendously gifted and has a unique message or story to tell. We love our clients, and it is a measure of realization that we all look forward to each workday. There is always something new, fresh, and exciting from our authors. When pundits claim that books aren’t selling and that no one reads anymore, we have but to look at our authors and say, “Not from where I’m sitting!”
Providentially, we were presented with some strategic opportunities over the last ten years. In 2014, I purchased Marcher Lord Press and re-formed it into Enclave Publishing, which has produced over 100 new books. In 2016, I brought The Christian Writers Institute into a new existence and took over the annual production of The Christian Writers Market Guide. The Institute has helped thousands take classes and increase their understanding of the industry and the writing process. In 2017, the agency purchased the Les Stobbe Agency and integrated many new clients in that transition. And in 2023, we took over the annual Write to Publish conference, which will be held again in three weeks in Wheaton, Illinois.
In addition, this blog was started fifteen years ago, and I want to thank each of you for following and reading us. With over 3,100 posts and 50,000 comments, we hope each day brings you a little more help as you navigate this publishing journey.
I cannot wait to see what God has for us during the next twenty years!
