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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

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Home » Writing Craft » Book Business » Page 6

Book Business

Welcome Back, Dan Balow!

By Steve Laubeon January 18, 2021
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I am very excited to announce that Dan Balow has rejoined our agency as a literary agent. Some of you may recall that he was with us for five years until leaving in 2018 to launch a new publishing venture. While they were able to create some incredible products, market forces and funding issues caused him to suspend that company.

That loss becomes our gain … and yours. I have known Dan for over 23 years now, and he is an amazing man of God. As a 38-year veteran of the Christian publishing industry, his strengths include a savvy understanding of book marketing and how all the pieces of the publishing “puzzle” fit together.

You may remember that he was the director of marketing for Tyndale House Publishers, working with authors Francine Rivers, James Dobson, Josh McDowell, Charles Colson, and many others. Starting in 1995, Dan led the marketing team for the immensely successful Left Behind series by Jerry Jenkins and Tim LaHaye. At its peak, the series was selling over two million copies of various products per month on its way to over 70 million copies to date.

Later he worked as publisher for two audio publishing companies and as a consultant with ministries and publishers on their publishing programs.

Dan has served on the executive board of ECPA (Evangelical Christian Publishers Association), the trade association for Christian publishers. In addition, he is a founding member of the advisory board of the Christy Awards and continues to be involved in training and mentoring Christian publishers around the world. He has been a presenter multiple times at the LittWorld conference held in different countries. (Here is a link to a video of Dan speaking on the basics of marketing at LittWorld in Nairobi.)

Dan is a graduate of Wheaton College with a degree in communications, is married to Carol, and they have four grown children. He works from his office in Wheaton, IL.

We will be adjusting our blog-post schedule starting this week.

I will continue to post every Monday. Every other Tuesday will be an episode of The Christian Publishing Show podcast hosted by Thomas Umstattd, Jr. On Wednesdays and Thursdays, Tamela, Bob, and Dan will rotate their posts. Fun Fridays will continue to post on … Fridays (?!).

The next four blog posts will have each of us revisit the question “What am I looking for?”

I am so very excited to have Dan with us again. We have an incredible team with expertise in all facets of the industry: writer, bookseller, editor, marketer, agent, executive management, and publisher.

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Category: Agency, Book BusinessTag: Agency, Dan Balow

Are You High Maintenance?

By Steve Laubeon November 16, 2020
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by Steve Laube

Last week I was asked to define what is meant when an author is deemed "high maintenance" by an agent or a publisher. The more I thought about this the more I realized how difficult it is to quantify. Any attempt to do so is fraught with potential misunderstanding because most people are looking for specific rules to follow.

Normally "high maintenance" is a description of …

Read moreAre You High Maintenance?
Category: Agents, Book Business, Get Published, The Writing LifeTag: Agents, Editors, high maintenance, publishers

Ten Commandments for Working with Your Agent

By Steve Laubeon November 9, 2020
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By request, here are my ten commandments for working with your agent. Break them at your own peril. Thou shalt vent only to thine agent and never directly to thy publisher or editor. Thou shalt not get whipped into a frenzy by the industry rumor mill fomented by the Internet. Asketh thy agent if what you’ve heard is true. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s success. Be content with …

Read moreTen Commandments for Working with Your Agent
Category: Agency, Book Business, Get PublishedTag: Book Business, Contracts, Copyright, Facebook, Get Published, Internet Usage, Marketing

What if You Get a Book Deal on Your Own and Then Want an Agent?

By Steve Laubeon October 12, 2020
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One of our readers asked this via the green “Ask us a question” button.
What happens if you get a book contract before you have an agent? What if, by some miracle, an editor sees your work and wants to publish it? (1) would having a publisher interested in my work make an agent much more likely to represent me, and (2) would it be appropriate to try to find an agent at that point (when a …

Read moreWhat if You Get a Book Deal on Your Own and Then Want an Agent?
Category: Agents, Book Business, Conferences, Contracts, Get Published, SteveTag: Agent, Conferences, Contracts, negotiations, publishers

Learn the Lingo

By Bob Hostetleron September 16, 2020
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The opening scene of the Meredith Wilson musical The Music Man begins on a train, as a bunch of salesmen debate the best sales techniques. One salesman, however, insists repeatedly, “You gotta know the territory.” That applies not only to selling “the noggins, and the piggins, and the firkins,” but also to writing for publication. So I asked a number of my writing friends and clients what …

Read moreLearn the Lingo
Category: Book Business, Contracts, The Publishing Life

Don’t Know Much About Editors

By Bob Hostetleron August 26, 2020
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A literary agent is not an editor–or a publicist. That may seem obvious to some, since the words are all spelled quite differently. But I occasionally get a submission from an aspiring writer who wants me to act as one or the other. I have been an editor (of both magazines and books), but an agent has a different role from those people. So I thought I’d try to clarify the various kinds of …

Read moreDon’t Know Much About Editors
Category: Book Business, Editing, The Publishing Life

Barriers to Effective Communication

By Steve Laubeon June 8, 2020
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By Steve Laube

It has been said that ninety percent of all problems in the universe are failures in communication. And the other ten percent are failures to understand the failure in communication. In the publishing business, or any business for that matter, this is so true. There are a couple common barriers to effective communication, assumption and expectation.

But I Assumed

Often …

Read moreBarriers to Effective Communication
Category: Book Business, Career, Communication, Writing CraftTag: Communication, e-mail, Gossip, Internet Usage

Do You Have a Backup Plan?

By Steve Laubeon May 11, 2020
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by Steve Laube

The question is not if your hard drive will fail, it is a question of when. At least twice a year I have a client who has lost their hard drive to equipment failure. There was a recent story of an editor at Wired magazine who got hacked via a security hole in his Amazon and Apple accounts. He not only lost data, he lost all the digital pictures of his baby girl. He wrote the …

Read moreDo You Have a Backup Plan?
Category: Book Business, Book Business, TechnologyTag: Backup, Technology

Three Questions About Agents

By Tamela Hancock Murrayon May 7, 2020
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In meeting with writers on the cusp of their careers or flush with new success, we find that three big questions come to the forefront. Today, Tamela shares her answers:

How do I find a literary agent?
1)      First and foremost, visit the Agency web sites to see which ones are actively seeking the type of work you write.
2)      Talk to your agented friends to learn about their agents. …

Read moreThree Questions About Agents
Category: Agency, Agents, Book Business, Get PublishedTag: Agents, Book Business, Pitching, Proposals, Tamela

How Can You Manage So Many Clients?

By Steve Laubeon March 23, 2020
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by Steve Laube

I am frequently asked this question. It is perfectly understandable as many agencies carry a sizeable list of clients. A prospective client or even an existing one wonders, “Will this agent or agency have time for me?”

We post a list of our clients on the web site because we are honored to work with so many gifted people. Not every agency makes their client list public. It …

Read moreHow Can You Manage So Many Clients?
Category: Agency, Book Business, CommunicationTag: Authors, Clients, Communication, Too many clients?
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