Resting on Your Laurels? Hardly!

Resting on Your Laurels? Hardly!

Once you've finished and published a book, the temptation is to bask in the glory of being a Published Author.

Don't.

If you want to be a writer, write. It's that simple, and that difficult. As you wind up one book, you should be thinking ahead to the next. I have more Jim Dallas novels in the pipeline - but first I want to write a couple of other, shorter things.

Friend of mine made something of a splash with his first novel. Hardcover, two printings, major press. He had the idea for a sequel, but he explained to me that his strategy was to wait until he had a paperback sale for the first novel before writing the second book.

So he waited...and waited...

Nearly ten years later, someone finally brought out his first novel in paperback. The hardcover publisher was no longer interested in the sequel. Everyone had forgotten about the original, and the paperback didn't sell nearly as well as the hardcover had.

So the writer's career stalled for years. Bad strategy. If he had turned in the manuscript when the hardcover publisher was saying, "Wow, this is going into a second printing - great for a first novel!" I think he would have sold the sequel.

And with two connected books out, a paperback sale would surely have come along.

When you have momentum going, don't lie back and take a rest. Your career will coast to a stop. Keep going. Write another book, and write it better than you did your first one (you should learn with every book).

That's the way careers are built.