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.