Avoiding “Author’s First Book Blues”

JaiChai
3 min readJan 31, 2020

Image Source

source

Many years ago as a new author, I experienced firsthand that phenomenon called “Author’s First Book Blues”.

Since then, I repeatedly witness new writers experiencing it every year.

What is “Author’s First Book Blues”?

Imagine this.

You are a budding, new author and are totally stoked about finally completing your first book.

source

BUT…

Oftentimes, the first book is your “Spectacular Underachieving Baby”.

source

So much passion, sweat and pain; especially when you can’t even give it away to your relatives!

source

After massaging the bruises on your ass, the second book is usually much more successful.

source

Why?

Because the first book was “author-centric”;

source

…while the second book is ‘reader-centric”.

source

That’s why many authors bomb on their first book and bounce back on their second or third.

Just remember this:

If an author’s writing continues to be more about self-gratification and less about an enjoyable reader experience, he will still encounter “Author’s First Blues” — no matter what number book it is.

By JaiChai

About the Author

Source

Believing that school was too boring, he dropped out of High School early; only to earn an AA, BS and MBA in less than 4 years much later in life — while working full-time as a Navy/Marine Corps Medic.

In spite of a fear of heights and deep water, he performed high altitude, free-fall parachute jumps and hazardous diving ops in deep, open ocean water.

Source

After 24 years of active duty, he retired in Asia.

Since then, he’s been a full-time, single papa and actively pursuing his varied passions (Writing, Disruptive Technology, Computer Science and Cryptocurrency — plus more hobbies too boring or bizarre for most folk).

He lives on an island paradise with his teenage daughter, log term girlfriend and two dogs.

Source

“My mind was a terrible thing to waste.”

Originally published at https://steemit.com on January 31, 2020.

--

--

JaiChai

I'm retired (U.S. military) and living on an island paradise with my girlfriend, teenage daughter and two dogs.