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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 » Career » Page 30

Career

What About Medium Stuff?

By Dan Balowon April 8, 2014
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Asphalt Road

Today I stand in support of medium stuff.

There is no argument that big important things deserve our undivided attention. There seems to be some disagreement over small stuff…do we sweat it or not? According to the Stan Jantz and Bruce Bickel’s book, God is in the Small Stuff, we probably need to be paying close attention to those things.

I am concerned with those things in the middle…the medium stuff. There are no books or seminars on medium stuff. In fact, if there were books and seminars on medium stuff, no one would buy or attend. That’s the problem with medium stuff, it’s boring.

In an automobile wheel, there is the “big stuff” tire, which gets all the glory and has blimps named for it and TV commercials touting it’s virtues and then there is the air inside the tire (small stuff) which is checked frequently to make sure it is doing OK and there is just the right amount of it. (Air actually has it’s own alarm light in newer cars, making it think it is really big stuff)

But it is the medium stuff…the axle and rim without which a wheel is not a wheel.

For people, businesses and ministries, focusing only on small details can be distracting or at best counter-productive. In publishing, this could be comparable to thinking that if the grammar in a manuscript were correct, it will sell well.

Likewise, big stuff can be made our focal point to such an extent that we forget the small things. Like a great book (big stuff) released without proofreading (small stuff).

The medium stuff is the fabric that keeps it all together.

It’s the printing press that prints the books. It’s the truck that carries large barrels of ink to the printer. It’s the chemical plant that manufactures ink. It’s the paper plant that manufactures the paper for books. It’s the computer servers in who-knows-where that send eBook files to anywhere on the planet. It’s the metadata coordinator entering information into the spreadsheet and uploading to customer computers. It’s the book buyer for a retailer or reseller who makes a decision to purchase a book for the store.

These are medium things. No fanfare. They are just there, making things happen.

Editors are medium stuff. They might get a mention in an acknowledgement page, but no parades.

So what is my purpose today with this tribute to medium stuff?

I was thinking of some ministries and those friends who work for them. Ministries like Media Associates International (littworld.org) who organize training and mentoring for Christian publishers around the world. Or Mission Aviation Fellowship (maf.org) who fly people and supplies to places to do ministry. Or ESL teachers living in China and rights and licensing professionals orchestrating publishing of content from one language to another.

Medium stuff. It takes their commitment behind the scenes to make something better. Like Aaron and Hur holding up Moses’ arms.

A problem for medium stuff ministries is they don’t get the financial support as much as the big stuff. Training, education, transportation and logistics aren’t very glamorous pursuits.

So, for all those medium things in the world, I honor you today.

Okay, medium stuff, stop reading this blog and get back to work, you are important and we can’t live without you.

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Category: Book Business, Career, Dan, The Publishing LifeTag: Book Business, publishing, The Publishing Life

Should I Respond to a One-Star Review?

By Tamela Hancock Murrayon March 27, 2014
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    Have you ever received a one-star review? Or do you dread the day that might happen? Or perhaps you are hoping to be published so you can get a review. Any review. When you start receiving reviews, some of them might not be as stellar as you had hoped. So what, if anything, should you do? Good, Bad, Indifferent? When I look at reviews of sites such as Amazon, I think it’s healthy to …

Read moreShould I Respond to a One-Star Review?
Category: Career, Marketing, TamelaTag: Career, reviews

Don’t Just Do It

By Dan Balowon March 25, 2014
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I don’t like the word “just”. Don’t get me wrong, “just” is a fine word, especially when used in a triple-word space in Scrabble.  It has all sorts of good uses and meanings…even used to fill time when we are thinking, along with the other great words and phrases of our culture, such as “like”, ”um”, “I mean” and ”you know.”  I simply do not like the word “just” when it is used to place limits on …

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Category: Career, Creativity, Dan, PlatformTag: Attitude, Career

How to Be A Reader’s Favorite Author

By Dan Balowon March 18, 2014
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Last week in this space, I wrote about how you could become a publisher’s favorite author (other than selling millions of books).  Today, we’ll go a little different direction and talk about what you would need to do to become a favorite author to your readers. A key difference between how you relate to a publisher and how you relate to a reader is that one is business and one is personal.  An …

Read moreHow to Be A Reader’s Favorite Author
Category: Branding, Career, Communication, Craft, Creativity, Dan, Marketing, PlatformTag: Authors, Career, readers

Two Important Ingredients for Success

By Karen Ballon March 12, 2014
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  I’ll never forget the day, just after church, when a friend pulled me aside and said, “My son can’t find a job and he needs to make some money fast. So he’s going to write a book. Any advice for him?” Yeah, well, the advice I had wasn’t for him, it was for her: “Don’t ever say anything like that to me again.” Whatever gave people the impression that writing was a get-rich quick …

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Category: Book Business, Career, Creativity, Karen, PlatformTag: Career, perseverance, Success

How to Be A Publisher’s Favorite Author

By Dan Balowon March 11, 2014
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Three years ago, Seth Godin published his book Linchpin.  Since I follow Seth’s books and blog as a personal and professional challenge, I read it and was inspired by it’s concepts. In it, Godin speaks about some of the new realities in business relationships.  There used to be management and those who were managed.  But now, he says, there is a third group…linchpins.  These are people who make …

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Category: Book Business, Branding, Career, Dan, PlatformTag: Authors, Career, publishing

The Pessimist’s Guide to Things That Will Never Work

By Dan Balowon March 4, 2014
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This is the first in a three-part series on attitudes toward work, specifically for people in publishing.

Today, I am writing about pessimism.  If there were a book glorifying its virtues, it would be the title above.  It would be a thousand pages long with an updated and expanded edition published annually.

Full disclosure…I became a baseball fan of the Chicago Cubs in 1966, a year when …

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Category: Career, Dan, The Publishing LifeTag: Career

What Will You Give Up for Lent?

By Karen Ballon February 26, 2014
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Believe it or not, Easter is just around the corner. Which means something else is almost upon us:

Lent.

I love the idea of a 40-day preparation for Easter, of refocusing our hearts and minds to spend more time in prayer and contemplation of what Christ has done for us. And I’ve always been intrigued by the idea of “giving up” something for those 40 days. Even more intriguing—and sometimes …

Read moreWhat Will You Give Up for Lent?
Category: Career, Christian, Faith, Karen, Personal, TheologyTag: Career, Faith, lent

Basketball and Writing

By Dan Balowon February 25, 2014
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Next week is March and that means basketball “March Madness” around the country.  From high school to college, teams will compete in tournaments where excitement is at its peak.  

One of my hobbies is to work as the official scorer for the Wheaton College (Illinois) men’s and women’s home basketball games.  I started doing this back in the late 70’s, took some time away from it when our kids …

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Category: Book Business, Career, Creativity, Dan, The Publishing Life, Writing CraftTag: Basketball, publishing, Writing Craft

Spring is Here!

By Karen Ballon February 19, 2014
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A picture of a beautiful flower I took this morning in our garden.

It started two weeks ago. Little green sprouts poking up through the frozen, barren ground. Ground that, thanks to a winter of record-breaking cold, was so hard just a month ago that not even my shovel made a dent in it. So you can imagine my delight when I spotted those bits of green pushing their way through that same, dead …

Read moreSpring is Here!
Category: Career, Craft, Karen, Personal, The Writing LifeTag: Career, Spring, The Writing Life
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