Paul Morrison's Blog

The difficult second album is one of those often repeated sayings, but what is the reality. Is it an urban myth, or an incontrovertible fact and if it is true, does this mean that it applies to books and authors as well?

As ever when carrying out research, you need to make sure it is accurate and from peer reviewed academic journals, so obviously I used Google to look into the issue. I immediately realised that it even has a proper scientific name ‘second album syndrome.’ I may even qualify for a grant for this investigation at this rate......

to read more go to http://www.paulmorrison.co.uk/the-dif...

I hope you enjoy it

The difficult second album is one of those often repeated sayings, but what is the reality.  Is it an urban myth, or an incontrovertible fact and if it is true, does this mean that it applies to books and authors as well?

As ever when carrying out research, you need to make sure it is accurate and from peer reviewed academic journals, so obviously I used Google to look into the issue.  I immediately realised that it even has a proper scientific name ‘second album syndrome.’  I may even qualify for a grant for this investigation at this rate.

To give an idea of the scale of the problem, Duffy’s debut album sold 2.2m units, whereas her follow up only shifted  200,000, (which is a massive 90% reduction) and there are numerous other examples of huge reductions in numbers of sales, (Glasvegas and The Klaxons for example)

Why does this happen though?  Often these bands have had years honing and perfecting their best 10 songs, and are desperate for the record to succeed, they usually have less control themselves on some of the technical aspects.  However once the album is out, often the record company are pushing for a follow up in a short time frame.  What do they do, go back for some of the old songs that didn’t make the grade, or try to write new ones quickly.  Once they are in the studio as the next big thing, they have more say, and realise that everything that they spend eats into their profits, so do they need a producer, when they can do it themselves.

There is help to hand though, as with any ‘syndrome’ you can get expert advice though, and some of their stating the obvious / expert advice includes don’t put all your best songs on your first album, hold some back for the follow up and don’t scare people off keep an essence of who you are even if you are moving forward.

Bringing this back to writing though, there are some crossovers, it can be difficult to come up with one killer story, but you may have spent ages refining and shaping it, just giving it little tweaks, then all of a sudden everybody is desperate for the next one and you just don’t have the time.  Also if people like the first book they are probably expecting the second book to be in a similar genre, so if you lose your first audience without finding a new one you are going to struggle.

In terms of my own expert advice/ talking out of the back of my head, as I am just starting to write my second book, I can only suggest two things; firstly make sure that you sell millions of your first book, so that the 90% reduction still gives you respectable sales, and finally look on the bright side there are an awful lot of writers and bands who are desperate to be considered one hit wonders.

Or you could just do what Harper Lee did and write one perfect novel, that captures a generation and the spirit of a place on the edge of so much change.

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Having just started work on the second instalment of the Johnny Jordan series, I sat down and had a chat with my wife to bounce ideas for the new story. One of our first ‘discussions’ was around what is the best way to come up with the story? Do you start with a group of characters, a setting or better still a general storyline (the chicken) or do you work out a devilishly complicated murder and then work back to devise a story that will fit around the outcome (the egg).

So what should come first the chicken or the egg? Now taking the obvious caveat, as a given, that both parts need to be good, it made us think, and the answer I suppose depends on the type of book, even in a mystery. There are the so called locked room stories, where the murder is so much at the heart of the story requiring quite precise things to occur to allow the plot to hang together so that it makes sense. At the other end of the spectrum, there are those studies into the mind of the murderers, the ‘whydunnits,’ where the murder, although essential, is somewhat extraneous to the story that is being told.

With the Johnny Jordan Mysteries, I feel that the story comes together around the murder with the whole book being geared towards the big reveal. We felt that we needed to think about this, as this was an important aspect, but the advantage of bouncing ideas back and forth is that I was able to marry one of my endings with one of my thoughts of a story.

So in this case the chicken and egg both came at the same time, just the small matter of the fifty thousand words to write now…

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You spend months sat in front of a computer screen, carefully crafting every phrase and word in an attempt to make your book perfect, it becomes like your baby, and like all parents you can get a bit paranoid about viruses (computer) and theft, but you have to school yourself because soon it will be out in the big bad world, but then once it is finally finished you then have to get somebody who doesn’t know its subtleties or personality to give them an American pageant style makeover or as it is otherwise known in the publishing world, your book needs a front cover.
You then realise that based on the couple of paragraphs that you have sent through to so is the key to any possible chance of success.  At this point you start to feel guilty for all those snap judgements and dismissive comments that you have made about other peoples books and probably their babies & kids too, but you realise that people will be making the same comments about your book based on its cover without even reading the free first chapter inside, although I am sure that all those comments from other people about how cute our babies looked were genuine though.
So what do you do, the book is a whodunit, so do you go for the standard dark eerie photograph, or maybe something with guns and bodies.  The advantage of this is that people know the genre straight away, so if they are looking for a mystery they may click on yours to look at it in more detail.  Or do you go for something a bit more quirky and individual, something that you would like to look at.  Well I’ve just ordered mine, and like my odd personality i think i am going go a bit quirky (my mum has promised to buy one whatever it looks like).
So please bear with me, and I will unveil the design shortly, but just remember to say ‘oh what a bonny baby it is’, ‘luckily it takes after its mum not its dad’, and most importantly, that cover is so darn good that I am going to buy the book…

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Well it is finally here folks! After a number of months in the a making The White Swan will be available in a few weeks! Please make sure you like/follow/bookmark and I’ll let you know the release date as soon as I have it myself!

Paul

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Johnny Jordan is a lovable psychic entertainer, wowing audiences whilst boosting his own ever growing ego! When a grieving family, in his home town of York, contact him to speak with their murdered loved one from beyond the grave he can’t help but get involved. Way over his head lacking any psychic ability and facing the biggest performance of his career, he wades in believing he can solve the murder that has baffled the police for over a year. Risking not only himself but also his young, but far more able, cousin, the mystery holds a twist that neither of them could predict leaving Johnny Jordan in mortal danger.

This is a light hearted modern day mystery written in a traditional style.

Here are some of the reviews…..

‘well I’d never heard of this author, but liked the idea of the storyline, and it was a good price, so I went for it – and didn’t regret it! The story twists and turns, keeps the interest levels high and is very well written – so much so I searched for other novels available by the same author but couldn’t find any – will wait eagerly for any follow up books!’

‘I would highly recommend this book – it’s on Amazon Kindle store and I finished it today – sooo good. Completely gripping and although he’s a bit of a rogue, I love Johnny Jordan – can’t wait to read his next exploits!’

‘Great read! Quirky story with nice detail, keeps you guessing to the end. Can’t wait for the next installment : )’

 ’I can highly recommend it. Introducing Johnny Jordan in this first novel set in York. I am really looking forward to further installments – please write more Paul!’