• Skip to main content
  • Skip to after header navigation
  • Skip to site footer

The Steve Laube Agency

Helping to Change the World…Word by Word

The Steve Laube Agency

The Steve Laube Agency

Helping to Change the World Word by Word

  • Home
  • About
    • Who We Are
    • Frequently Asked Questions
    • Interview with Steve Laube
    • Statement of Faith
    • Terms and Conditions
    • Privacy Policy
  • Guidelines
  • Authors
    • Who We Represent
    • Awards and Recognition
  • Resources
    • Recommended Reading
    • Christian Writers Market Guide Online
    • Christian Writers Institute
    • Writers Conferences
    • Freelance Editorial Services
    • Copyright Resources
    • Research Tools
    • Selling What You Write
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • Twitter
  • FaceBook
  • RSS Feed
  • Get Published
  • Book Proposals
  • Book Business
  • Writing Craft
    • Conferences
    • Copyright
    • Craft
    • Creativity
    • Grammar
  • Fun Fridays
Home » Platform » Page 3

Platform

Books, Hooks, and Good Looks

By Bob Hostetleron September 30, 2021
Share
Tweet
12

I love hooks.

As a writer, I work hard on my hooks. When I was a magazine editor, the hook was often the best way for a writer to make a good first impression on me. And now, for me as a literary agent, the hook is the first and one of the most important criteria I use in evaluating a book pitch, proposal, or manuscript. A good book hook will often prompt me to give a project a more careful, hopeful look.

But some people really struggle with hooks. Some don’t even fully understand what a hook is. And that’s often not their fault, as hook is a fairly flexible term in the writing and publishing world. Editors, agents, and writers often use it to refer to several similar but different things.

Briefly, hook can mean:

  • The overall unique appeal of an article or book
  • The short, punchy summary of a book idea in a query or book proposal
  • The first page, paragraph, or sentence of an article, story, or book

So, to illustrate the first definition: You meet a big, fancy, famous editor at a baseball game; and when she finds out you’re working on a book manuscript, she asks, “What’s your hook?” You say, “It’s an Amish romance in which the male protagonist is a zombie.” That’s a hook. It may not be a good one, but it’s a hook.

In the second case, it’s usually only a few sentences (or even a few words) that compellingly crystallize your book. I like it when the hook is at the very beginning of the proposal, and I also like it when it sounds like a movie trailer: “One woman. One man. Unforgiving wilderness.” Okay, so that may be a bit cliché; but you get the idea.

Finally, you read the third kind of hook all the time. For example, the first line of 1984: “It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.” That’s a hook. Or the first paragraph of Annie Dillard’s The Writing Life: “When you write, you lay out a line of words. The line of words is a miner’s pick, a woodcarver’s gouge, a surgeon’s probe. You wield it, and it digs a path you follow. Is it a dead end, or have you located the real subject? You will know tomorrow, or this time next year.”

See? A hook is called a “hook” because it hooks the reader like a fish and reels him or her in. It captures interest and compels him or her to keep reading.

And, for writers who can deliver on the promise of the hook, it often leads to fame and fortune.

Leave a Comment
Category: Book Business, Book Proposals, Career, Get Published, Pitch, Pitching, Platform, Self-Publishing, Social Media, The Writing Life

What if Platform Is the Goal?

By Dan Balowon September 16, 2021
Share
Tweet
40

We’ve been here before on this blog, discussing author platforms and how to get one. It’s a never-ending process, and it has always been a requirement for authors. If you find yourself talking about author platforms and believe “Gone are the days when an author could just write,” you are not completely accurate. Top authors from the “old days” were magazine or newspaper columnists with tens of …

Read moreWhat if Platform Is the Goal?
Category: Platform

A Literary Agent’s Wish List

By Bob Hostetleron May 27, 2021
Share
Tweet
10

People often ask me, “What are you looking for?” It’s a natural question to ask a literary agent, even when the questioner knows that the agent has offered a detailed answer on the agency website (here, for example). After all, something could’ve changed. I may, since updating my interests, have suddenly decided to get bold, branch out, and try to sell a systematic theology in iambic pentameter. …

Read moreA Literary Agent’s Wish List
Category: Agents, Book Proposals, Craft, Grammar, Pitching, Platform, The Publishing Life, The Writing Life

Platform Planning

By Dan Balowon May 26, 2021
Share
Tweet
11

The never-ending struggle of an aspiring author to meet the requirement of publishers for a big enough “platform” can be frustrating at best, or worse, discourage someone from writing at all. Platforms are always built on content, not the container. Social media doesn’t give you a platform; it is the content that causes it to grow–or not. All medias are simply channels to people, and using …

Read morePlatform Planning
Category: Branding, Marketing, Platform

Every Book Doesn’t Need to Shake the Earth

By Dan Balowon March 11, 2021
Share
Tweet
14

If you look at any list of best-selling books expecting every one of them to be a literary masterpiece, you are probably setting yourself up for disappointment. “Are you kidding me? A book about famous racehorses of the 20th century is a bestseller? People bought that instead of my 1,200-page book on linguistic anomalies in Hebrew and Greek biblical texts? For Pete’s sake, half of the horse book …

Read moreEvery Book Doesn’t Need to Shake the Earth
Category: Encouragement, Inspiration, Pitching, Platform

Free Webinar on Building Your Author Platform

By Steve Laubeon October 19, 2020
Share
Tweet
13

Why write a book no one will read? I have a theory that a book has no impact unless the book is read. But a book won’t be read until it is purchased. Even if it was given to you, someone bought it. Thus the power of your words begin at the point of sale. In today’s world, that means the book has to be discovered. No matter how good your book is, if someone doesn’t know about it, …

Read moreFree Webinar on Building Your Author Platform
Category: PlatformTag: Author Platform, Platform, Webinar

Writing in Multiple Genres, Okay? Not Okay?

By Tamela Hancock Murrayon September 17, 2020
Share
Tweet
33

The “Your Questions Answered” Series __________ In a recent Q & A, Steve Laube talked about how writers will pitch different projects to him in the same meeting:  a novel, a nonfiction, a devotional, etc.  He said that writers need to decide “what they want to be when they grow up.”  I’d like some clarity on why writing in different genres is discouraged.  As ideas come to …

Read moreWriting in Multiple Genres, Okay? Not Okay?
Category: Agents, Genre, Pitching, Platform, Your Questions Answered Series

How Big Should an Author’s Platform Be?

By Tamela Hancock Murrayon August 13, 2020
Share
Tweet
15

The “Your Questions Answered” Series __________ PLATFORM. I read a lot of conflicting ideas about the importance of having a substantial platform: (1) It used to matter more but its importance is declining, but also that (2) a writer must have at least 5k followers on social media to even be considered for agent representation, and (3) some kinds of social media “count” more than …

Read moreHow Big Should an Author’s Platform Be?
Category: Platform, Your Questions Answered Series

12 Steps to Publication

By Steve Laubeon August 10, 2020
Share
Tweet
22

It takes 12 strikes to achieve a perfect game in bowling. (See last Friday’s video.) It made me think there are 12 things that need to happen in the publication process. Each must knock down all the pins to achieve publishing success. With that simplistic idea in mind, I came up with the following: Idea – A book has to start somewhere Write chapter – if not the whole book …

Read more12 Steps to Publication
Category: Book Proposals, Common Questoins, Editing, Get Published, Marketing, Pitching, Platform

I Have Plans to Write That Book

By Tamela Hancock Murrayon November 7, 2019
Share
Tweet
17

Last week, I talked about a few reasons why I don’t plan to write a nonfiction book on style, mainly because I have no desire to develop a presence or platform as an expert on style. But what if you want to write a nonfiction book about a topic you know and love? Let’s look at the list, revised from last week, to help you decide if you should: Are you well-known outside of your immediate circle of …

Read moreI Have Plans to Write That Book
Category: Book Proposals, Branding, Marketing, Pitching, Platform, The Writing Life
  • Previous
  • Page 1
  • Page 2
  • Page 3
  • Page 4
  • Page 5
  • Interim pages omitted …
  • Page 12
  • Next
  • Home
  • About
    • Who We Are
    • Frequently Asked Questions
    • Interview with Steve Laube
    • Statement of Faith
    • Terms and Conditions
    • Privacy Policy
  • Guidelines
  • Authors
    • Who We Represent
    • Awards and Recognition
  • Resources
    • Recommended Reading
    • Christian Writers Market Guide Online
    • Christian Writers Institute
    • Writers Conferences
    • Freelance Editorial Services
    • Copyright Resources
    • Research Tools
    • Selling What You Write
  • Blog
  • Contact

Copyright © 2025 · The Steve Laube Agency · All Rights Reserved · Website by Stormhill Media