You may be wondering why treating your second book like it’s your first is necessary. If you are, you may have had a positive experience surrounding your first book’s release, or you haven’t released your first book yet. This post might then help you in the future should you ever experience a negative response to your work. But if you aren’t wondering, and you’re reading this post to help you overcome a difficult experience after your first book’s release, I’d like to give you a simple answer to do so…

You Have to Push through the Fear

Getting a publishing contract is wonderful. It leaves you feeling giddy for a long time – as well it should. But that feeling can quickly give way to anxiety. To fears that your contract was a fluke, that your writing isn’t good, and that no-one will like it. For your first book, it’s easier to ignore these fears.  You don’t know that people won’t like your book. You can convince yourself that your writing is good enough – you got a publishing contract, didn’t you? So you send out your book to reviewers, despite how terrified you are of what they might say, and you wait for people other than your family to read it.

And the feedback confirms your fears.

For any author, it’s tough to read that people didn’t like your book. (And for some reason, those who don’t seem to shout louder than the rest). But it’s heartbreaking for a debut author. You doubt yourself, and all those fears you chose to ignore the first time around are amplified. It’s so very tempting to give in to them now, to protect yourself and the hard work you put into writing your second book.

But you can’t let that happen.

If you do, you’ll be giving those fears a foundation. They’ll grow and grow, until one day, you won’t know how to get over them. So push through. It will be hard, yes. And the same thing might happen the second time around. But you pushed through it once; you can do it again. You’re strong enough to do it a third time, if it comes to that.

Remember that being published is not only an accomplishment, but a sign of courage. You are courageous. You can do this!

I wrote this post as a pep talk to not only you, but myself, too. So, after I publish this, I’m sending A Marriage Worth Saving to reviewers. Feel free to check up on me regarding this in the comments or on Facebook or Twitter 😉