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The Steve Laube Agency

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The Steve Laube Agency

The Steve Laube Agency

Helping to Change the World Word by Word

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Home » Book Proposals

Book Proposals

Query, Proposal, or Complete?

By Tamela Hancock Murrayon June 29, 2022
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When seeking agency representation, how much information should you offer? Should you wade in with one toe, send enough information to tease the agent, or go all in with a proposal accompanied by a complete manuscript? 

First, a note: Before deciding on any form of communication, please refer to the agent’s posted guidelines. While my office will respond to a quick question, such as “Do you represent romance novels?” (Yes.), why not make your communications worthy? A quick visit to a website to find the answers to yes/no questions can save many people–including yourself!–needed time during the business day.

Query. A query letter gauges the agent’s interest in reviewing the writer’s work. 

  1. Advantages: Query letters take less time to compose and send than proposals. Because notes are short, you may receive a response sooner than sending a complete package. Also, consider that some agents don’t open unsolicited attachments. So in choosing to query, I recommend presenting the letter in the body of an email. 
  1. Disadvantages: A well-crafted query letter offers loads of detail in few words. The author has less time to convince the agent to review more materials than if the materials are attached. When querying, bring your best qualifications and talents to the forefront. Make the agent keep reading, so they’ll ask for the proposal.

Proposal. While an author can present a proposal at any stage of their career, I don’t recommend that a new author submit a proposal to an agent until the manuscript is complete. Most new authors are unfamiliar with how their personal book writing process works. Good ideas often fail when the author tries to commit them to a book. Plus, few, if any, significant publishers offer contracts to debut authors without seeing a complete manuscript.

  1. Advantages: A proposal offers enough information about the author and the project for the agent to discern that the project is marketable. The proposal review process provides the experienced author time to gauge interest while continuing to work on the complete manuscript.
  1. Disadvantages: An agent may need the manuscript more quickly than the author can complete the book. While an agent and author together can address this rare dilemma, creating a sudden need to finish a book swiftly can be stressful.

Proposal and Complete. This is the most extensive package an author should submit to an agent and will contain every possible bit of information, along with the entire manuscript, that the agent will need to decide about offering representation.

  1. Advantages. Once an agent and author agree to work together, the author is ahead of the curve and can spend time writing subsequent books while the agent works to market the project. When the contract arrives, the author can look forward to the publisher’s editing process instead of needing to write the book. The availability of a complete book at contract time means the publisher can release the first book sooner, rather than later.
  1. Disadvantages. The author has to spend a tremendous amount of time writing a book, delaying the possibility of receiving an offer of representation. Even worse, because the agent has a great deal of material to review, responses take longer than anyone likes.

As with most decisions in life, the answer here is nuanced. These are simply ideas to help authors who are wondering about their planned approach. If you’ve begun the process of seeking representation and have deviated from the above suggestions, don’t worry. The best agents are skilled at discerning marketable authors and will work with you to formulate the best strategy for your career.

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Category: Book Proposals

4 Ways to Lose Me Quickly

By Bob Hostetleron June 22, 2022
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As a literary agent, I review a lot of book pitches. A lot. And, not to belabor the point, but a lot. Despite the overwhelming volume of submissions demanding my attention, I try to give each one a fair shake. Sure, if the recipient field of your email has a hundred email addresses in it, it makes it easier for me to say, “No thanks.” But, while that may be the quickest way to disinterest me, it …

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Category: Book Proposals, Common Questoins, Pitching

Roundabouts

By Dan Balowon June 15, 2022
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I like metaphors. I like everything about them. Analogies and similes are cool too. Today’s post extinguishes the notion that writer’s block is actually a thing. Every day, topics to write about are screaming at you. Writer’s block is simply a failure to pay attention to them. Almost everything makes me think about something else. In fact, baseball and driving a car in traffic are two general …

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Category: Book Proposals

Hints for a Great Cover Letter

By Steve Laubeon June 13, 2022
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Here are a few suggestions for you to consider when approaching an agent. Remember to use these as hints…do not follow them slavishly as if a literary agent is going to spend their time critiquing your cover letter.

By the way, we make a distinction between a cover letter and a query letter. A cover letter is what goes on top of a longer proposal and sample chapters. The query letter is a …

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Category: Book Proposals, Get Published, Publishing A-Z, Writing CraftTag: book proposals, Cover Letter, Pitching

Publishing in Generalities

By Dan Balowon May 25, 2022
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While agents and publishers accept book proposals because they contain a number of specific things they like, most book proposals are turned down because of a general reason. For example, refer to the “Who We Are,” section of this website. Each agent has a set of filters we use to focus our efforts. The filters reflect our strengths and/or personal preferences. Outside of these, we decline. …

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Category: Book Proposals, Career, Get Published, Inspiration, The Writing Life

Two Mistakes Made in Some Book Proposals

By Steve Laubeon May 2, 2022
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by Steve Laube

Putting together a great book proposal takes a lot of work. I suggest writers look at them as if they were a job application, and they are. You are trying to get someone to pay you to write your book via a stellar "job application" or book proposal.

But every once in a while we get something that is not going to work, for obvious reason. Here are two mistakes:

1. Divine …

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Category: Book Proposals, Get Published, PlatformTag: book proposals, Get Published, Platform

How to Make Me Stop Reading

By Bob Hostetleron April 20, 2022
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Once upon a time, I finished every book I started reading. I had to. I felt an obligation. If I didn’t finish it, it wouldn’t “count” as a book I’d read. Right? Then, maybe ten, maybe twenty years ago, I changed. I think I realized how many books there are in the world that I want to read and how little time I had left in life to read them. And I reasoned that plowing through a book I’d lost (or …

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Category: Book Proposals, Craft, Writing Craft

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

Who and What I’m Looking for in 2022 (Bob Hostetler)

By Bob Hostetleron January 26, 2022
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(Updated 1/26/2022) As the hippie chanteuse sang, “The seasons, they go ‘round and ‘round.” Boy howdy. It’s hard to believe that it’s 2022. I’m still writing 1977 on all my checks. In a few months, I will have been an agent with The Steve Laube Agency for five years. And I’m still learning something new every day—such as which jokes annoy the boss more than which other jokes. But it’s not all …

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Category: Agency, Agents, Book ProposalsTag: Agency, Agents, Get Published

Bring the Books (What Steve Laube Is Looking For)

By Steve Laubeon January 24, 2022
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“Bring the books, especially the parchments,” is a sentence in 2 Timothy 4:13 that has teased readers for 2,000 years. What books did the Apostle Paul want to read while waiting for trial? Theology? History? How-to? (Maybe a little escape reading? Pun intended.)

Another writer chimed in a while ago by saying “Of making many books there is no end.” (Ecclesiastes 12:12) And if we read the …

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Category: Agency, Book Proposals, Creativity, TrendsTag: Agency, book proposals
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