Will a Publisher Consider My Self-published Work?

What do The Shack, Jesus Calling and 50 Shades of Grey all have in common? Their respective commercial trade publishers have sold millions of copies of each, and they all started out as self-published works. So the easy answer to the question, Will a publisher consider my self-published book, is "yes." But you knew it would be more nuanced than that.

We have written previously about how self-publishing might fit as a strategic part of your overall publishing strategy. But the purpose of this post is whether you can transition a trade book from self-published to commercially published. The key to this answer is, you guessed it, platform.

As self-publishing and the online sale of books have significantly increased, the amount of available physical retail space allotted to books has significantly decreased. There was a time when a publisher or retailer could choose a book they absolutely loved and make it a bestseller. When the only place to buy books was in a physical retailer, those books could be positioned in a way to make them successful. But as shopping habits of readers have changed, moving largely online, and available retail space has shrunk, publishers and booksellers have largely lost their power to do this. It's not impossible, but it's significantly harder. So far, there is no digital equivalent to stacking 50 books on the front table of every major bookstore.

The primary reason an author's platform has become so important today is because of this reality: Readers don't follow publishing companies and, outside certain technical fields, don't read every book published in their preferred genre. Discovering good new books is downright impossible in an online environment. Hence, readers follow and pay attention to their favorite authors, or a short list of friends or influencers whose opinion they trust. Your "platform" is the specific audience and channels of influence you have cultivated that will pay attention to your content.

So will a publisher consider your self-published work? Well, what do the sales of your self-published work say about the size and health of your audience? Whatever reason you decided to self-publish, you now have a tangible example of the size of your platform. If you've sold 47 copies, you don't get to blame it on self-publishing and assume a commercial publisher will make you successful. They won't. And they won't consider your self-published work.

But if you've sold tens of thousands of copies of your self-published work or, if you can show significantly increasing sales month over month or year over year of your self-published work, then a commercial publisher will pay attention. 

A commercial publisher can basically do one thing for you as an author. Whatever your personal reach is, they can amplify it. If you have a significant reach, the amplification will be significant as well. If you have a small reach, the amplification will be also. Yes, they bring editorial expertise, and market knowledge, far greater distribution than you can obtain on your own (even through Amazon), marketing and publicity relationships, etc. I'm not downplaying the role of a commercial publisher, but it all amounts to amplification of the audience you already bring to the table.

If you want to know the size of your audience, self-publish a book. You'll know pretty quickly whether you have work to do or not. Commercial publishers will absolutely consider your self-published work if it's successful. They're looking for good bets. But self-publishing doesn't get you off the platform hook. It will just be a tangible example of how successful you've been cultivating an audience for your work.

If you have a question for our Ask an Agent series, you can submit it here.

July Round Up

Authors in the News

Publishers Weekly gave a starred review to Chris Marlow's debut book, Doing Good Is Simple. We're excited about this release next month. As PW stated, "Marlow's practical guide to social charity is a must-read for anyone who wants to be a decent human being." You can read the rest of the review here.

Darling Magazine featured Shauna Niequist's forthcoming Present Over Perfect as one of its essential beach reads. You can read the entire list here. 

More to Life magazine ran an excerpt of Christa Black Gifford's Heart Made Whole on their website. You can read the entire excerpt here.

How Long Does It Take to Find a Publisher?

When discussing the timeframe for securing a publisher, the process can vary greatly from project to project, but below is a basic timeline. My assumption is that you have a complete proposal that your agent is ready to submit. Our agency has occasionally received a new proposal ready to shop right from the beginning, but more often than not, we spend weeks, if not months, with our clients just on the proposal. As we've described before, this is your chance to put your best foot forward and we take it seriously. But once you have a proposal complete, what's the process and how long does it take? 

We work with our clients to establish a list of publishers to submit the finished proposal to. For a typical author without a pre-existing publishing relationship, this process takes a day or two. We always want our authors to be fully aware of who we are presenting their proposal to and why, and so we take the time to share this list, but this obviously isn't a time-consuming process.

Once the proposal has been on submission, we typically request publishers to provide a substantive response to us within 4-6 weeks. This will vary based on time of year and typical vacation periods within the industry, but your potential publisher needs this time to accomplish the following:

• The editor will review the proposal herself, and may have questions or need additional information from the agent or the author; 
• The editor will prepare their own internal document, which is then shared with colleagues, assuming the editor wants to present the proposal to a larger team for acquisition; 
• The editor will first present the proposal to an editorial committee, typically consisting of other editors and the publisher, which meeting typically occurs 1-4 times per month; 
• If the proposal makes it past the editorial committee, the proposal will then be presented in a meeting to the publishing committee, which will include marketing and sales representatives, and typically takes place once or twice per month; 
• If your proposal makes it past both committees and is approved for acquisition, then your editor needs to obtain sales projections from the sales team, prepare a pro forma of anticipated sales, foreign rights and other licenses (basically all potential income), and obtain approval for a specific offer (the amount of the offer will often dictate additional rounds of approvals); 
• At this point, the editor will submit a formal offer to your agent. 

This entire process usually takes 4-6 weeks, and can occasionally take longer for one or two of the publishers your agent has submitted to, depending on when their meetings take place. 

Once your agent has obtained all initial offers for your proposal, there may be additional rounds of discussion or negotiation with regard to the initial offers, sometimes with multiple publishers at once, sometimes with one specific publisher. But again, because of the approvals process internally, this can often take another 1-2 weeks. 

When you and your agent have decided to formally accept an offer, you then have to negotiate the publishing agreement. The amount of time it takes for the publisher to provide an initial draft of the publishing agreement can vary widely. Some publishers can provide this within 1 week, and others take 4-6 weeks, but this too will often depend on internal schedules and other work at the time. It then can take anywhere from another 2-4 weeks to accomplish the negotiation on your publishing agreement and route the agreement for signatures. 

All told, this can feel like an interminable amount of time. But you should expect this process to take roughly 3-5 months from the first date of submission to actual execution of a publishing agreement with your new publisher, taking into account all of the above. There are always exceptions, but unfortunately those exceptions lie on both sides of the time table. 

What Should Be Included in the Platform Section of a Proposal?

Everybody hates talking about platform. We get it. We do too. But the reality of publishing today is you have to be building one. For reasons we'll tackle in a later post, the ability of a publisher to "make" a bestseller has diminished. The unfortunate reality is that most books are sold to the author's audience. The platform section is where you describe how you intend to reach an audience with your message.

Your starting place is your own, actual platform. How many Facebook fans and friends do you have? How many Twitter followers do you have? How many Instagram followers do you have? Do you have an e-newsletter, and if so, how many subscribers? Started a podcast? How many downloads are you averaging?  Do you speak? How often? What size crowds? Basically, you want to describe in detail every point of contact you have with your audience.

To take this a little further, you should also drill down into audience engagement. What is the typical ratio of engagement with the things you share? Do some analysis into how engaged your audience is with your content. What's the open rate on your e-newsletter? What's the percentage of likes and retweets you receive on average per tweet? How many likes and reposts do you receive on your Instagram posts? A small following with significant engagement is far more valuable than a massive following with no engagement.

Next you want to provide information about the networks of influence you have access to. This is not a place to list every person you wish you could reach, or you hope will lend support. This is supposed to be the list of people you can count on. Provide their name, organization if applicable, and their specific reach.

Finally, where else have you written? Have you published previous books? Which books, what year, what publisher, and how many sales? Have you contributed articles? To what outlets? Have you written a chapter in another book? Which book and chapter. List your prior publishing here. 

The tendency here is to be modest, or to downplay your actual reach. Don't. You want to be as detailed and specific as possible. This is your chance to convince an agent or publisher that you actually can bring an audience to your idea.

Have a question for our Ask An Agent series? You can submit it here.

May Round Up

Client New Releases

Joshua Becker's The More of Less released on May 3, 2016, and debuted on the USA Today #2 in Psychology/Self-Help and #10 in Nonfiction. It also debuted at #15 on the Publisher's Weekly bestseller list.

Upcoming Releases

Christa Black Gifford's latest book, Heart Made Whole, was reviewed in the May/June issue of Homecoming magazine: “Unashamedly transparent, Gifford shares times of trauma, abuse and great loss in her life, admitting that there were broken parts of her heart that were not on friendly terms with God...With personal workbook sections for each chapter, Gifford helps those in pain find their way to healing and freedom by accessing intimacy with God.” She also recently taped an episode of "Joni's Table Talk" to air soon on Daystar Television Network.

Lisa Sharon Harper's latest book, The Very Good Gospel, received a starred review from Publisher's Weekly. As PW says, "Harper provides detailed history, statistics, and vibrant stories that reveal the possibility of America's redemption."

Charles Martin's Long Way Gone, releasing October 4, 2016, continues to be on sale in Kindle for just $4.99 leading up to publication. For a limited time, you can also grab his bestselling Wrapped In Rain for just $1.99.

Shauna Niequist's latest, Present Over Perfect (releasing August, 9, 2016), is now available for pre-order as a signed edition. Get yours here before they run out!

Authors in the News

Rob Bell was recently featured in the Los Angeles Times regarding his ongoing work as a writer, speaker and host of the popular The RobCast. 

Candice Curry was featured in the May issue of Beauty Revived Magazine as part of their 50 Most Beautiful Mothers feature.

Upcoming Conferences

Our agents will be attending the following conference this spring. Will we see you there?

The Frederick Buechner Writer's Workshop at Princeton - June 7-10

How Important Are My Title and Subtitle On My Proposal?

You know the old adage, "Never judge a book by its cover." But all surveys on this topic point to the fact that book buyers do, in fact, do this. In a physical setting, the average buyer's first impression is the cover, followed quickly by the title and subtitle, then they typically turn the book over and read the back cover copy, and if they're still interested, they'll open the book and look at the table of contents.

The digital space is causing somewhat of a shift, but in a way that is making a book's title all the more important. The thumbnail size of your cover in most digital shopping spaces is too small for the artwork to significantly influence buying decisions. This moves your title and subtitle to the top of the list. 

Typically, your book proposal is not going to include a cover for obvious reasons. But in my experience, acquisitions editors go through a pretty similar review process. This means your title and subtitle are paramount. 

Your title and subtitle are the lenses your prospective agent or editor puts on and sees the rest of your proposal through. 

One way to think of your title and subtitle is your book's promise and premise. You are communicating right up front what the main take away from the book will be for your reader, and how you will deliver on that promise. The same is true in your proposal. The remainder of your proposal will be evaluated based on how well you are delivering on the promise and premise in your title and subtitle.

Now, having said all of this, I'd recommend holding your title and subtitle lightly. They often change from proposal to publication. But do not let this knowledge excuse your work on this. You want to come up with the very best title and subtitle you can because of the impact it will have on the evaluation of the rest of your proposal. 

The above applies to non-fiction. Fiction is a different animal. I'm not aware of any real hard and fast rules in fiction titling other than you want something compelling. You want to engage the emotion of the reader in some visceral way, and this is an art form. But when it comes to non-fiction, I also often get questions about more obscure titles. What about successful books like Blue Like Jazz or Velvet Elvis? All I can tell you is, sometimes they work, most of the time they don't. Unless you are an established author with a ready audience waiting for your next work, you need to broadcast clearly what your book is about, and your title and subtitle are where you do that.

 Have a question for our Ask An Agent series? You can submit it here.

How Do I Query An Agent?

"How do I query an agent?" is a common question I hear from prospective authors. It is one of the easiest to find the answer to and, to the frustration of many agents, something most authors completely ignore.

A query is simply a request to a prospective agent to consider you and your work for representation. It universally entails a single-paged letter and often includes a proposal for your work. Beyond that, the specific agent or agency you are sending your request to often, but not always, has additional information they would like you to submit as well. For an example of this, you can review our Submissions page.

How you craft a query letter is pretty straightforward and a simple Google search of "how to query an agent" will lead you to a multitude of examples. Some of the best, in our opinion, are here, here and here.

Your proposal, likewise, will follow an almost universally agreed upon format. The reason for this is that the majority of publishers your potential agent will work with all require the same information for purposes of considering a project for their publishing program. Hence, regardless of your agent, they will be required to submit the same basic information for the publishers to consider your work, and will require the same from you. Again, this has been covered in a multitude of places, both for free (here, here and here), as well as through highly valuable and worthwhile paid guides (here and here).

The absolute quickest and surest way to entice an agent to reject your query is to ignore the basic guidelines of a good query and proposal, or to ignore the agent or agency's specific guidelines as laid out on their website. A recent query to our agency involved a hard-copy mailing (even though our submission guidelines clearly indicate that only submissions through our email process will be considered) of a completed manuscript (even though our submission guidelines clearly indicate what to provide, and a completed manuscript is not on the list). The author did include a query letter, wherein they stated that "submitting a small segment of [the manuscript] via e-mail would not provide a proper exposition of its thematic presentation."

Here's the deal: All agents face an almost insurmountable "slush pile" of unsolicited author queries. We are all in this business because we love books, we love authors, and we love finding fantastic new ones. But we simply cannot read a complete manuscript from every author who might submit one, even if we wanted to. What's more, we can't simply submit a completed manuscript to potential publishers for acquisition. The proposal process is so well defined because it is used by everybody, agents and publishers alike. If you as a potential author cannot adequately describe your manuscript in a proposal, we can't represent it or sell it.

So if you want to be taken seriously at the query stage, follow the agent or agency's submission guidelines. Otherwise, you have an almost 100% chance of being completely ignored.

Have a question for our Ask An Agent series? You can submit it here.

April Round Up

Client New Releases

Both September Vaudrey's Colors of Goodbye and Leeana Tankersley's Brazen released on April 5.

Upcoming Releases

Joshua Becker's The More of Less was reviewed by Publisher's Weekly here. Joshua also announced his West Coast book tour. Find out more here.

Christa Black Gifford's Heart Made Whole launches June 7, 2016, and she's just announced her preorder freebies here. Christa is also recruiting people for her book launch team who are enthusiastic about having a whole heart and want to spread the word. Find out more here.

Upcoming Conferences

Our agents will be attending a few conferences this spring. Will we see you there?

Book Expo America in Chicago, IL - May 11-13

The Frederick Buechner Writer's Workshop at Princeton - June 7-10

Available Now: The More of Less by Joshua Becker

Most of us know we own too much stuff. We feel the burden of our clutter. We tire of cleaning and managing and organizing. Our toy rooms are messy, our drawers won’t close, our closets are filled, and we can’t fit our cars in our garages. The evidence of clutter is all around us. Meanwhile, this constant accumulation of stuff slowly begins robbing us of life. It redirects our God-given passions. It steals our greatest potential. It consumes our limited resources. And it distracts us from the very life we wish we were living.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.

In The More of Less, Joshua Becker, popular blogger at becomingminimalist.com helps you …

•          recognize the life-giving benefits of owning less

•          realize how all the stuff you own is keeping you from pursuing your dreams

•          craft a personal, practical approach to decluttering your home and life

•          discover greater contentment, less envy, and more joy

•          recognize why you buy more than you need

•          experience the joys of generosity

•          learn why the best part of minimalism isn’t a clean house, it’s a full life

It’s time to own your possessions instead of letting them own you. After all, the beauty of minimalism isn’t in what it takes away. It’s in what it gives. You won't want to miss this must read resource from Joshua.

How to Pitch an Agent/Editor in 15 Minutes or Less

Often times when you attend a writers conference, you have an opportunity to sit down, speed dating style, for 3-15 minutes with various editors and agents. A common question is, what do I have to do to convince someone in a short pitch to represent or publish my work?

The short answer is, you can't. Except for exceedingly rare circumstances, no editor or agent worth their salt is going to make a snap decision in that setting. You have to realize that the agents and editors are trying to provide a service more than they're expecting to actually find a diamond in the rough. They're going to give you pointers, what's working, what isn't, and talk to you about your big idea or try and help you figure out how to explain it if you even have one. They're not really expecting to meet new clients or authors. It happens, but again, that's not the expectation.

But before you get discouraged and decide to blow off the meetings, let me tell you why I think this actually opens the door for you to get serious attention.

If an author sits down in front of you, has actually done their homework, polished their pitch, and presents a compelling idea, that won't be the norm. You have a chance to stand out from the crowd by being prepared to do your very best. If you accomplish this, then the editor or agent may actually invite you to formally submit your material for consideration. So what do you need to do?

Whatever you do, do not bring a 50 page document with the expectation that the editor or agent is going to take this from you. They may be polite, but it will not make it out of the hotel room. You should have a 1-3 page, easy-to-read and cleanly styled document with your name, contact information, a short bio, the title of your work, a 2-3 sentence hook, and 5-6 paragraph description of your main thesis or idea. And that's it. If you do a good job in the pitch, they will take this document from you and it will have the information they need to follow up with you. If you cannot boil down your idea to a compelling presentation in this format, you're not ready to present your idea.

You should also prepare a ninety-second pitch that you are going to deliver verbally. When you first sit down, you'll introduce yourself, the agent or editor will do the same, and there may be some small talk. But the whole point is for you to make your pitch. Be prepared. Again, if you can't tell me in 90 seconds or less what your big idea is, why it's important, and why you're the right person to write it, you're not ready to present your idea. 

If you really want to stand out, research the editor(s) or agent(s) you're going to be meeting with. If your opening ice breaker is a statement about why you are excited to meet with this person because you know they work with a specific author or have published a specific book or set of books that are similar to you or what you're working on, you'll have their undivided attention. Again, be prepared. This isn't a must, but it will go a long way toward helping you stand out. If you begin this way, nail your 90-second pitch, and have a solid 1-3 page document you can leave behind that is equally compelling, you will get positive feedback, and just might land yourself an editor or agent. 

Finally, I'd practice your pitch and let a few friends read and respond to your document. Let them ask you questions, poke holes in your presentation, press you a little bit. An editor or agent asking you questions and engaging you with your idea can't rattle you. You need to be prepared to answer questions. Think through specific questions someone might have about your project. Some obvious questions you should be able to respond to: Are there other books similar to yours already in the market? If so, what is your unique contribution to the topic? What other writing have you done similar to this? Have you built an audience and is this the type of work they'd expect from you?

I've said it a few times now, but I can't over stress this: Be prepared. If you follow the above advice, you will be ready to make the most of your short window of time, and you will leave a good impression. That's the most you can hope for from these meetings. Most editors and agents will be happy to meet with one person that is worth following up with. This will help you be that person. 

Good luck! 

Have a question for our Ask An Agent series? Submit your question here.

Available Now: Colors of Goodbye by September Vaudrey

We all suffer pain and loss in different ways, but I've yet to meet a mother whose greatest fear isn't losing a child. On May 31, 2008, September Vaudrey had to face that fear head on. When her daughter Katie was just 19, September and her family had to say goodbye all too soon.

But while the loss of Katie is the springboard and backdrop for September's memoir, her book is so much more. It starts off right in the middle of the terrible drama that unfolded for the Vaudrey family, but then deftly leads the reader on a journey from pain to healing, from loss to hope, all the while providing a true and gritty look at a faith journey strong enough to withstand the hardest thing a mother can imagine.

Colors of Goodbye is simply beautiful, and that isn't just true of the writing. September's publisher, Tyndale Momentum, did a fantastic job of weaving Katie's art as well as pictures of Katie and the family throughout the book in a truly honoring way. We hope you'll check out this fantastic debut memoir. As Publisher's Weekly said in its starred review, "Exquisitely balanced between sadness and joy, this sensitive account of a mother's loss will leave ripples."

March Round Up

Client New Releases

David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons' Good Faith released on March 1, and Gabe and Dave went on a two-week tour all over the country. Publisher's Weekly reviewed it here. 

Rob Bell's How To Be Here released on March 8, and he's also been hitting the road to promote his message. You can check him out in a city near you, and the Publisher's Weekly review here.

Jennifer Grant, with Margot Starbuck, has released an ebook entitled Writing Nonfiction Book Proposals That Shine: A Brief But Essential Guide. We highly recommend you check this out!

Margaret Feinberg's third adult coloring book in the Live series, Live Fearless, released March 29. These have been well received and are great for just taking some time to meditate on God's word and engage the creative side of your brain for a bit.

Upcoming Releases

Joshua Becker's The More of Less launches May 3, 2016, but Joshua kicked off his pre-sale campaign on March 15 and it quickly became an Amazon #1 bestseller in multiple categories as well as climbing into the top 100 on BN.com. Looking forward to this one!

September Vaudrey's Colors of Goodbye received a starred review from Publisher's Weekly, and we could not be more excited about the release of this book.  This memoir of loss and love is both heartbreaking and hopeful. 

Charles Martin's latest novel, Long Way Gone, is currently available on Amazon for pre-order at $4.99. This one is special, and one of his most emotive stories since Where the River Ends.

Upcoming Conferences

Our agents will be attending a few conferences this spring. Will we see you there?

Calvin Festival of Faith and Writing - April 14-16

The Frederick Buechner Writer's Workshop at Princeton - June 7-10

Can I Make a Living as a Writer?

This question is a common one. Especially for people new to writing and wondering if there's any real money in it. Unfortunately, to truly answer this question, there are all kinds of other issues that come into play that agents can't speak to, such as, what is your standard of living? How much do you really need to earn to support yourself or your family?

But there is some basic information we can provide to help people understand how money works in the industry. First, publishers do typically pay authors an advance in exchange for the publishing rights to their book. This amount can vary widely, but is typically based on the publisher's estimate of how many copies they could sell of your book in the first 9-12 months of publication. Obviously, the more reason they have to believe they will sell a lot of copies, the higher this number will be.

This advance amount is typically broken up into two, and sometimes as many as four, payments. You get a percentage on signing the agreement, and then a percentage on the publisher's acceptance of the manuscript for your book. If the advance is broken up into additional payments, typically at higher dollar levels, then a third payment would be made on the publication of your book, and a fourth anywhere between 6-12 months following the publication of your book. So even if you were to be offered a significant amount of money for your book, it's likely you would be paid that money over the course of 1-3 years. After that and assuming your book sells really well, any additional royalty amounts are paid by the publishers on a quarterly or semi-annual basis.

In short, even if you're a successful author, you need to have good cash flow and money management skills.

But there are other ways to supplement income besides authoring your own books. Many of our clients also speak, write for other people, provide proposal coaching, write for news outlets, offer workshops and consulting services, or have developed a significant enough blog following to earn income from advertising and the sale of resources off their website.

In short, there is a small percentage of people who are successful enough to truly earn a living simply by authoring their own books. But there are ample opportunities to make a living as a writer if you're willing to look for those opportunities, practice your craft in multiple ways and work hard.

Have a question you want us to consider for our Ask An Agent series? Submit your question here.

How Do I Find An Agent?

Whenever I am speaking at any form of writer's event, be it a Learning Community during the Q Conference, at Writer's Boot Camp or the Frederick Buechner Writer's Workshop at Princeton Seminary, one question is asked more than any other.

How do I find an agent?

We'll be answering questions throughout this series on how you approach an agent, but assuming you're all ready to go, here are some ideas on how you might go about actually finding one.

Agents are a lot like publishers, in that each has their own unique approach to the business. They have certain genres they represent authors in and others they don't. There are certain types of voices and projects they're drawn to and others they're not. The number one thing you can do to advance your cause of successfully finding an agent to represent you is to do your research.

There are a number of ways to accomplish this. First, go to the bookstore or library and find books similar to the genre your writing in. Often times the author's agent is thanked in the acknowledgments or listed on the copyright page. Find authors similar to you and check who their agent is. Websites like Writer's Digest are all over the internet with agent information you can find through a simple search. There are books such as the Guide to Literary Agents, which has tons of information about the agencies working in the business and the types of projects they're acquiring.

If you're willing to spend a little money, you can subscribe to a site like Publisher's Marketplace. This site not only has contact information for agents and publishers, but also has comprehensive deal reporting where you can track the projects specific agents have actually sold and get a feel for the types of projects that agent is working with and the publishers they do business with.

But once you've compiled a list of potential agents, do a little more digging. Most agents list their clients on their website or have specific submissions guidelines. Even with an agency like ours where we've intentionally left a list of our clients off the site, we post agency news and blogs about what our clients are up to. You can find out a lot about who we represent and the books we work on by doing a little digging. When you ultimately query an agent, anything you can do to personalize your query by telling the agent why you think you'd be a fit based on their previous work will go a LONG way.

My last piece of advice? You have to persevere. I often tell my clients and prospective clients that this is a business of rejection. Even when I am representing a well established author to publishers, I hear "no" more often than yes. You don't need every agent banging down your door asking to represent you. You just need one. And doing your research will get you a lot closer to finding the right one.

Have a question you want us to consider for our Ask An Agent series? Submit your question here.

How To Be Here Available Now!

We're so excited for the launch of Rob Bell's latest book, How To Be Here. Rob is the New York Times bestselling author of Love Wins, What We Talk About When We Talk About God and The Zimzum of Love.

How to Be Here lays out concrete steps we can use to define and follow our dreams, interweaving engaging stories, lessons from biblical figures, insights gleaned from Rob’s personal experience, and practical advice. Rob gives you the support and insight you need to silence your critics, move from idea to action, take the first step, find joy in the work, persevere through hard times, and surrender to the outcome.

And if you want to spend a day with Rob learning to take the ideas in How To Be Here even further, check out the How To Be Here Experience, coming to a city near you through June!

February Round Up

Client New Releases

Live Free released from Margaret Feinberg on February 2, 2016. You can read more about it here.

Remarkable! released from Randy Ross and David Salyers on February 16, 2016. It quickly shot up to #11 in overall books on Amazon. You can read more about it here.

Upcoming Releases

Rob Bell's new book, How To Be Here, received a fantastic review from Publishers Weekly. It releases on March 8, 2016.

Shauna Niequist recently announced on Facebook the availability of her new book, Present Over Perfect, for presale and it quickly climbed in to the top 50 selling books on Amazon and became the #1 Best Seller in Christian Spiritual Growth. Not bad for a book that doesn't release until August 9, 2016!

Upcoming Conferences

Our agents will be attending a few conferences this spring. Will we see you there?

Catalyst West - March 3-4

Calvin Festival of Faith and Writing - April 14-16

Good Faith from Gabe Lyons and David Kinnaman

Back in October 2007, Gabe Lyons, Founder of Q, and David Kinnaman, President of Barna Group, partnered on a book entitled unChristian. At the time, Gabe and David had a growing sense that the public perception of Christians and Christianity had shifted, and a research project by the Barna Group bore this out. unChristian presented this research to Church leaders in a compelling way, presenting a sobering look at how Christians were perceived by many outside the Church. That book became a bestseller and must-read for Christians everywhere seeking to understand what the public perception about them was.

Almost ten years later, Gabe and David have partnered again on Good Faith. Many Christians today feel overwhelmed as they try to live faithfully in a culture that seems increasingly hostile to their beliefs. Politics, marriage, sexuality, religious freedom--with an ever-growing list of contentious issues, believers find it harder than ever to hold on to their convictions while treating their friends, neighbors, coworkers, and even family members who disagree with respect and compassion. Good Faith seeks to offer a way forward.

We're excited about the release of Good Faith today and hope you'll check it out.

Launching Ask an Agent Blog Series

This year our desire is to regularly post articles not only about what's going on with the Agency, but also information that is helpful and useful to you. To that end, we're launching a new "Ask an Agent" series.

While we have a number of topics we'll be talking about over the coming weeks, we want to make sure we address what you want to know, so we've created a Contact form where you can submit your questions. You'll also see an Ask an Agent button at the top right of our website that will also take you to this form. In addition, Angela and Jana have a lot of experience as editors and working in publicity, respectively, and we want to provide an opportunity to address questions directly geared toward those topics as well. In the Contact form you'll have an opportunity to choose the topic for your question.

We look forward to hearing from you! What do you want to hear from us?

Become Part of the Remarkable! Movement

Our clients Randy Ross and David Salyers have just released their new book, Remarkable!, an entertaining and enlightening business parable that has the power to turn any team around. But they're up to so much more.

Randy Ross is a master of cultural transformation, with a unique understanding of employee engagement. As a professional consultant and coach, he offers practical solutions for increasing both the morale and performance of your teams. David Salyers is the VP of National and Regional Marketing for Chick-fil-A. As a passionate student of life and business, he has spent over thirty years seeing the principles in this book play out corporately and in over 1,600 Chick-fil-A restaurants across the country. Together, they've launched the Remarkable! Movement.

Check out the book, and join the movement.

Live Free from Margaret Feinberg

Margaret Feinberg is not only an incredible writer, but a savvy marketer. When she approached me about doing some adult coloring books, I'll confess I was scratching my head. But she simply saw what was happening in the marketplace, and knew she could bring her own special brand of Bible teaching to the hottest trend in publishing.

Live Free released last week and quickly become a #1 bestseller in devotionals. This is the second in a 3-book series. Live Loved was published last November and has sold incredibly well. The final installment, Live Fearless, will be out this April.

Do yourself a favor and check these out. And if you're wondering what all of the hoopla over adult coloring books is, you can check out The New Yorker's thoughts here.