In this episode, AJ and Mike discuss the dreaded second book slump, also known as the sophomore slump. They get real about the fears that many published authors feel, what that fear is rooted in, and most importantly, what to do about it. (Because of course, they have a solution, and it’s nothing you’d expect!)
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The Artist’s Way, by Julia Cameron
“Civil Disobedience,” by Henry David Thoreau
AJ Harper, website
AJ’s Socials:
Mike Michalowicz, website
Mike’s Socials:
Ep 62: “Overcoming the Second Book Slump”
Mike Michalowicz: Welcome back to the don't write that book podcast, where you can learn
how to write your bestseller and own your authorship. Follow along with us as we give you
an insider's view of the book industry. Now, here are your hosts, myself, Mike Michalowicz
and AJ Harper. I don't even know why I said, here we go, because we could have just
Actually just started because that's typically what I do and now officially we've just started.
So there you go. You're listening to Don't Write That Book. I'm joining the studio here with
AJ Harper. We were just both venting. It was fun It's important to do that our lives just our
families and our situation
AJ Harper: Specifically young sons under the age of 25.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah, which I still make some teenage I probably said this on some
other episode, but one person said really the judgment of your child is when someone from
the outside who does not know their family comments on your kid and you get the feedback
indirectly.
Just the outside observers. It's so hard to see when you're in the thick of things like what's
going on and you want to help. I don't know. It's just tough to navigate, but it's part of
parenting. It's part of life. Yes. Just like creating a book. And there's slumpy parts. That's fine.
We're going to talk about the second book—
AJ Harper: You know what we haven't done in the last two episodes?
Mike Michalowicz: What's that?
AJ Harper: We really haven't done intros. I kinda, yeah. Kinda in the first one.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. I wonder, with all the bingers, are people getting tired of that? Or
are we just accommodating to the new listener that comes in and hasn't heard an episode yet?
AJ Harper: I mean, we could abbreviate it. Let us know if you like our little intros or not.
Mike Michalowicz: Oh, yeah please. The feedback helps.
AJ Harper: I feel like people need to know that you're Mike Michalowicz and you're the
author of ten business books and one children's book, My Money Bunnies.
Mike Michalowicz: Thank you. Yeah. And you're A. J. Harper, my co-writer for every
single book, except for Money Bunnies, uh, you are also an author of a must-read book called
Write a Must-Read. Isn't that ironic?
AJ Harper: Isn't it?
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. It is the best book. Am I biased? Yeah, I guess. It is the best book
on authorship. It, it, it, it walks you through the formula of writing extraordinary book. If you
don't have that book, just get it. And the nice thing about our readers, AJ is I hear consistently
people are binging our show while reading your book. And I'll tell you, that is the perfect
compliment.
AJ Harper: It is a good compliment.
Mike Michalowicz: So get the two together. Um, okay. So today let's dive into the second
book slump.
AJ Harper: Yeah. I love that you read that just like, I don't know, I'm not sure.
Mike Michalowicz: I don't know if it really exists.
AJ Harper: It does exist, but what's interesting is it doesn't exist for you.
Mike Michalowicz: But I do think it happened on the fourth book, but I wanted to find that.
But why is it the second book? Is it like the sophomore?
AJ Harper: Yeah, it's a sophomore. Is it called the second book Slump or the sophomore
Slump.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah.
AJ Harper: Yeah. It's very common.
Mike Michalowicz: Okay. Why is it common? What is it?
AJ Harper: So it's when the second book is really hard to write, it might take you longer.
It's, it's, it's harder, it's, um, challenges you, uh, it might also be that it's not as great.
Mike Michalowicz: What do you think the reason is behind that?
AJ Harper: Lots of reasons. Um, I think that the, a big one is pressure. So it's especially
prominent if the first book was successful. But it can exist even if it wasn't successful, but if
it is successful, then the pressure is just, knocks you out.
It's just, Oh gosh, I don't know if I can do that again. And so then that pressure, it causes you
all sorts of pain and usually means you're delaying the process and, um, psyching yourself out
quite a bit. But also you might have, um, pressure from professionals around you, agents,
your publisher, maybe you have another deal.
Uh, this happens a lot with authors who have a series, you know, they have, or a multiple,
multiple book deal, is trying to get that next book out is much harder than the first one. You
know, the first one, you might not have a deal yet. You are just writing because you want to
get it. You know, you believe in it, it's, you're compelled to write it and then now you have to
measure the next book based on the first book, success, but also what other people are
wanting from you and so there's a lot of cooks in the kitchen then, or a lot of voices in your
head, besides the inner critic trolls, which are also very, very noisy.
Mike Michalowicz: It reminds me of these one hit wonders when it comes to music. I
wonder if the pressure is the same. You write American Pie. That was Don McLean. Does he
have any other hits? And that was such an epic hit. The standard, the water level, so high.
Can you ever meet that again?
AJ Harper: Yeah, I mean, you have to be willing to, well, we can get into the solution a little
bit later, but there's some other reasons. I think people often end up writing the wrong book.
Mike Michalowicz: For the second one.
AJ Harper: Yeah. So they give into that pressure. They give into their publisher's ideas
about what it should be.
Mike Michalowicz: Well, what, that means the first book maybe was the right book. So tell
me what you think the framing is, what makes it the right book, what makes it a wrong book
for an author?
AJ Harper: Well, a number of things. If we're talking nonfiction, prescriptive nonfiction,
then it would be, you know, the writing a book because you think it should come next
because somebody gave you the idea that it should come next or you think it just makes good
sense that it should come next. And you know when you're, you know down deep, it's not the
next book, but you make some sort of compromise anytime that you're going to compromise
and go against your gut or go against what your readership needs in order to make money.
Because that's ultimately what's happening. Let's be real. If you decide to write a book,
because it seems like a good idea, business wise, that's about money. And if you, mess with
the creative process like that, where it's really just about money, you're going to end up in a
slump.
Mike Michalowicz: Interesting.
AJ Harper: Yeah. Or you're very likely to end up in a slump. I won't say it in absolutes. And
I don't know that anybody's going to want to read that book either.
Mike Michalowicz: So I went to the first book because you don't have anything to measure it
against. Secondly, you may be writing more from your heart, less strategically.
I wonder if it speaks back to that prior episode, last year, Last week when you're talking
about just do it. Um, don't get trapped by the box and the templates. Find your own rule set.
It's kind of where I heard from last week's episode.
AJ Harper: Yeah, for sure, but it's a problem with the second book is that now you have
other obligations
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah, you start the rules start to apply at a more, at a heavier level.
AJ Harper: You've got business strategy to think about. You've got publishing strategy to
think about. You have expectations from others, you have expectations from readers, from
your family, from the people you work with, from the publisher. And that is overwhelming
and it's harder to make those decisions when you don't have a publisher yet and you're
winging it.
You're just free, free to write the book that you want to write. And I think that we can get
caught up in all of those different expectations and it can free, make us freeze.
Mike Michalowicz: I want to go through some more reasons for the slump, but I want to
interject my own story with the why I think Surge was a slump.
AJ Harper: Which was book...
Mike Michalowicz: Four. Book four, right? So it was Toilet Paper Entrepreneur, Pumpkin
Plan,
AJ Harper: Profit First.
Mike Michalowicz: Okay. Then it has to be, then it was Surge. It was two self-pubs because
Surge was a self-pub also. Then Profit First got bought back. And then,
AJ Harper: Yep. So the fifth book was the revised and expanded edition of Profit First.
Okay. Yeah.
Mike Michalowicz: Right. I do remember in my head saying, We've got this. So Toilet Paper
Entrepreneur was hustle and grind. It was on its path to sell over a hundred thousand books at
that point. Oh, thank you. So I'm trying to make some videos here. So I have my phone in my
hand.
AJ Harper: But he was pointing it at me while he was talking.
Mike Michalowicz: I'm trying to rest my elbow. So Toilet Paper Entrepreneur was on its
path to sell over a hundred thousand books. I was confident. The Pumpkin Plan validated that
you and I were wanted in my heart by a major publisher, Penguin. So it was a dream
validation of a major publisher. Profit First was this retaliatory, “What? They don't want us?”
but it's sound like a mo fo. So we got figured out. And so I, I remember feeling, oh,
ironically, Serge is sitting right there on the shelf. I remember feeling, I've got this. Now I'm
an author. I got this nailed down, just put a book out because it's going to sell because I'm
doing it. The cockiness! I just felt that all the elements were in alignment.
AJ Harper: But, but, was that, that wasn't really a slump though?
Mike Michalowicz: No, well, the triggered, you're right, it wasn't a slump like I give up. It
was, to me, I arrogantly said in my head, oh, you're kind of a Malcolm Gladwell. On a
smaller scale, Mike, but you are. (AJ laughs) And then therefore, is this going to go and it,
that book and its failure just spent me for a spin.
And then this is like the recurring theme in my life. I need to be humbled beyond belief. And
I'm like, okay, get back up and realize you ain't all that.
AJ Harper: You do, that is the pattern for you, right?
Mike Michalowicz: So maybe that's okay. But I slept like there was a time like, am I done?
Our book's not working. Like the Surge was just so, you know, icky in not writing it when it
came out.
It was, it was just kind of flowed. It was too smooth. There was no of this, that book, it felt
like we just flowed through it. There was nothing. We did.
AJ Harper: I barely remember writing it.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. It just, which is probably an indicator of a problem to come. It's a
harbinger.
AJ Harper: No, I don’t think so.
Mike Michalowicz: There was no rule. We had our rules, AJ. It's like, let's follow the rules.
Here's a cheesy acronym. Surge. S stands for separate. U stands for you. You know, it was so
formulaic.
AJ Harper: I think we were. We don't, we don't forget that we had parted ways creatively.
Mike Michalowicz: And we parted ways!
AJ Harper: No, before Surge.
Mike Michalowicz: I know, I know.
AJ Harper: Before Surge, we were, and, um, then it was that we were coming back together
and I think we were happy to be in that creative space together.
So we were just on some sort of little cloud. But that wasn't, it caused you to have a slump.
Mike Michalowicz: Yes, it caused me to have a slump. The, the books we've created since
consistently. are our best output. So I know Fix This Next was a hard one. It's a great book.
Get better, get better... Get Different is better. It got better.
And I was like, this is our best work ever. And then we wrote All In I'm like, Holy... All In.
Feels like the pinnacle of our work to this point. And I know every single book we write, I'm
like, this is better. And this new one we're working on. It feels like it's now trending that way,
too.
AJ Harper: It does feel that way. It feels like it's, um, to me, and I don't want to jinx it, but it
feels almost like it's going to be even bigger.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. It feels like it.
AJ Harper: It feels like it might even be bigger than Profit First.
Mike Michalowicz Yeah. It does feel like it, right?
AJ Harper: I can kind of feel it.
Mike Michalowicz Yeah.
AJ Harper: But you also skipped Clockwork. That was, that was actually before Fix This
Next.
Mike Michalowicz: Clockwork. And that was revised and expanded. So, okay.
AJ Harper: So, but the, the point, the, I don't think you've had a second book slump is what
I'm trying to get at.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah, yeah. And, and I, I hear you and maybe that's why I can't relate to
it. I'm, maybe I'm, I'm grabbing or grasping for something here to say, yeah, I felt it too.
AJ Harper: But that's a good, that's, I think you bring up a really good point that you can
also end up in the slump if you, if the first book didn't go so well. Yeah. So then why bother
writing the second one? So if Surge had been book number one, how would your life be
different?
Mike Michalowicz: May have never, I may have never written any, not made for this.
AJ Harper: Yeah. So I think it's a good story that you shared. I also think the reason that you
haven't had a second book slump is because it's just not in your nature. I don't think that you
get caught up in a lot of the head stuff that people get caught at. Second book slump is all a
head game.
Mike Michalowicz: It is. That's all it is. I was listening to some radio program, and I can't
remember what the topic, or what the genre was, it wasn't about books, but what the space
was. They said the difference between experts and amateurs is experts just don't give up.
AJ Harper: I mean, pretty much. That's it. Yeah.
Mike Michalowicz: They have all the same, they're just, just as human. They have all the
same errors and problems, they just repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat.
AJ Harper: Yeah, so, you know, another thing that can cause a second book slump is, so the
first book is published and that's polished. That book has been just polished into a beautiful
zone and then you've got the blank page again and it is just a hot mess.
So you go from this beautiful book that you hold in your hands, and it's bound and it has a
beautiful cover and everything's gorgeous and then you're facing the blank page and all that
comes out with his blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and you can't. That disparity is jarring and so
you wonder first of all it's a grind. Are you up for it? And then how did you know you start to
feel like did I forget to write? Did I how did I do that? How did I get to that? And I don't
know if I can do it again. So that juxtaposition of A polished book that's sitting on your desk
that you're proud of that you wrote and the blank hot mess Well first it's blank and then it's a
hot mess. It's just, sometimes people just can't get past it.
And so you get stuck there for a long time. Almost like you forgot how, you know, for a
rider, that adage of, um, you know, once you, what is it? Once you know how to ride a bike?
Mike Michalowicz: You never forget.
AJ Harper: You never forget? Yeah. I don't think that's the exact wording. Do you know I
don't know how to ride a bike? I don't.
Mike Michalowicz: Wow. Okay. Well that, that's a whole episode right there.
AJ Harper: Well, I, my mom was nervous. You remember in the 80s and everything was
like Stranger Danger?
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah.
AJ Harper: My mom was nervous for me. I live in Minneapolis in the city. She was scared
that I was going to get abducted. So, I wasn't allowed to go very far and I certainly couldn't
get on a bike where I could go really far
Mike Michalowicz: or speed away from a stranger
AJ Harper: I was still out of the house. I was still out.
Mike Michalowicz: Which is like get out of here get out.
AJ Harper: Yeah.
Mike Michalowicz: No vehicle for escape. You got a run.
AJ Harper: I mean I had the roller skates.
Mike Michalowicz: Oh, the visual.
AJ Harper: Yeah, so I never officially learned to ride a bike. Right, it's it's like riding a bike
is the phrase right because once you know, you always know I don't think that's the case for
writing.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah,
AJ Harper: It's not like riding a bike. It's like you come back to it, you're like, what is this? I
don't know words.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah I never thought about that juxtaposition. I experienced it because
once a book is done as an author you better, you will promptly display that in your home, at
your office. It is such an accomplishment to me.
It's the ultimate manifestation. It's the, it's the creation of a product or something, but it's such
a labor. And you're right. So Profit First sits there and. God forbid I take a sneak peek at that.
I'm like, Oh, can we do this ever again?
AJ Harper: Yeah. And I have, yeah, I won't say, I was going to say something of it.
I don't want to reveal about the, the new book. Um, but that also, it can, you know, the feeling
like you lost your mojo is an adjunct to that as an offshoot of that. So, yeah. When you often
when you're writing the first draft, it's kind of a lot of it's not good and it's just flat. So you
think that means you're you don't have any juice and it's not true. You just forgot that there's a
process to this and it's gonna click.
So you just lose total confidence that it can ever happen again But another thing is, you
know, for fiction writers, they often have sequels, right? So a romance or very often a sci fi or
fantasy series will there'll be many books in a series And I see this with those authors a lot
that they, that second book or that third book, especially the second book, is really, really
hard to write in the series because you're carrying those same characters forward.
And so even in non-fiction, writing a series can also be hard to do because you're talking
about the same themes. So how, how, what's interesting about this? How is this fresh? What's
the, um, big source of conflict? What's, how is this any different? So I can see how that can
also be a factor in the second book's slump.
Mike Michalowicz: I have a fiction question for you, and this is, This is almost embarrassing
how ignorant this is, but I've always been curious about this. I'm watching a TV show called
Better Call Saul.
AJ Harper: Oh yeah. I haven't seen it, but I know of it.
Mike Michalowicz: It's excellent. It's excellent. So the predecessor, predecessing TV show
was called, uh, um, Breaking Bad, which I enjoyed. And this is like a spinoff. And in books, I
see the same thing as a book will come out and then they'll do these spinoffs where they take
a... Was that planned? Like, when creating a fiction story, do you plan the characters so
much that you can do these spinoffs? Is that something you have to prepare for? Or, is your
book a hit and then you say, I gotta build a backstory for this character because I wanna now
explore that. How's that work?
AJ Harper: I mean, most often it's, it happens with the success of the book. Especially when
you hear from readers and they love a certain character. So, you know, I'm a massive
Bridgerton fan. Does your wife watch it?
Mike Michalowicz: No, I'm like blanking, I never even heard of it.
AJ Harper: You what?
Mike Michalowicz: I can't, I cannot think of Bridgerton. Is that a British?
AJ Harper: It's on, it's on Netflix.
Mike Michalowicz: Okay, thanks for, thanks for that clue.
AJ Harper: Krista doesn't watch it?
Mike Michalowicz: She watches everything. She'll be like, Oh, I love that show. She
watches so much. I have no idea.
AJ Harper: Okay.
Mike Michalowicz: What's Bridgerton?
AJ Harper: Uh, it's based on a series of romance novels, Regency romance. I have not read
the novels to be clear. I'm not really a fan of that, but I enjoy the Netflix series, which is
probably one of the most watched Netflix series ever. So the fact that you don't know about it
is fascinating.
Mike Michalowicz: That is fascinating. She's definitely, she hasn't seen it.
AJ Harper: I'm sure she's seen it. I know the author. Now, again, I haven't read these, but
I've done some research on the series and so forth. The author did create, there's a character
that's the mother of all these siblings that all have the love stories, did create a little, uh, I
think it might be a novella or a short story, or I can't remember the Exact if it's a full on novel
about the mother and her own backstory that wouldn't have happened if the series wasn't a
success and people weren't wanting to know about her own love story this she was a Side
character.
I mean an important side character, the mother. But she wasn't it wasn't intended for her to
have one of one of the love stories and then you read or you hear from readers, and they want
to know and so then she, that's the... You want to know about her so then she has her own
book.
Mike Michalowicz: It's interesting that, to some degree, is how Profit First came into being.
AJ Harper: Yes.
Mike Michalowicz: Toilet Paper Entrepreneur. It's one or two lines.
AJ Harper: Profit First is just like Violet Bridgerton.
Mike Michalowicz: Hey, what about the slump that can be triggered by a review? Like, have
you ever witnessed an author that got a trade review that just slams the book or maybe even
just a simple Amazon review, a public review, and they, they throw their hands up and I've
definitely,
AJ Harper: yeah, I've definitely seen, uh, fiction writers who got a bad trade review and
that, well, uh, when I had my publishing company, I, a couple of them, we never got another
book out of them.
Mike Michalowicz: Wow.
Yeah, it can be really hard. What's worse, here, not worse, what's also terrible is that that, it's
like they don't want to market that anymore. They get the bad review and then they don't even
want to talk about it. They don't want to sell the book. They don't, they just want to wipe it
off. And so, what is the publisher supposed to do?
And then, it's probably a really good book because remember that all reviews are subjective.
It's a person writing it who maybe just didn't like it, but it doesn't mean that it's the truth. It
doesn't mean that everyone thinks that, but writers, you know, I've had, I've had, I cannot tell
you, and this is true, I cannot even count the number of times some of my, my students have
emailed a review to me and said, I just got a bad review. I'm disappointed in my review.
I read the review. It's freaking awesome. I'm like, look at this gorgeousness. They just, I don't
know, our brains translate it differently. And, um, I have to convince them to share it. Get this
out. This is a good review, man. And, um, So imagine if you got a just scathing review, an
actual scathing review. It could really kill it for you. It did for me. I talked on the writer's
block episode about how I went years not writing. It wasn't the second book slump, but I
went years not writing because of a bad review of one of my plays and I don't take any of that
to heart anymore. Um, at all because I will never let anybody take that from me again.
But I've seen it happen more times than I can count.
Mike Michalowicz: Have you seen, it's a wonderful, I mean I know you've seen it, It's a
Wonderful Life.
AJ Harper: It's my favorite Christmas movie.
Mike Michalowicz: Oh, us too.
AJ Harper: I was, this morning I was thinking, how am I going to get my kid to watch. To
watch that with me. I thought maybe I could tell him that's all I want for Christmas.
Mike Michalowicz: Is to watch It's a Wonderful Life?
AJ Harper: I mean, it's really long.
Mike Michalowicz: You and Jack sitting there.
AJ Harper: I don't think he'll make it, but I would love for him to because it's, it's so
important to me and I watched it with my dad. And that's like a dad memory. It's my favorite
Christmas movie.
Mike Michalowicz: Us too.
AJ Harper: Do you watch it every year?
Mike Michalowicz: We watch it every year. It's a tradition. We watch it Christmas day.
AJ Harper: Do you watch the black and white or the colorized version?
Mike Michalowicz: Oh, I didn't even know there was colorized. Oh, good. Okay. That
sounds sacrilegious.
AJ Harper: Okay, we can still be friends.
Mike Michalowicz: So, I don't know if you know this, it was a flop coming out. It was
considered, it was critically—
AJ Harper: I think I heard that.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah, it was criticized of being whatever. It was a flop. The only reason
that it's such a success today is some network picked it up because it was on the discount rack
effectively and played it repeatedly and people saw it. So this is the best movie ever. Now,
how can something that sucks by some reviewers and critics and get squashed then have this
explosion?
And here's my theory. There is a pre framing. If you've never seen, It's a Wonderful Life. I
will pre frame you by saying. It's a really good movie about transformation and it is a classic
in the protagonist antagonist scenario. It's a family movie. So I'll give you all the elements I
want you to look for. And then you watch movies say this is great. If I said back in 1950 or
61 was created.
This is a category defining movie for the... its time age or whatever. I may have pre framed it
wrong And the movie could collapse. I wonder if a book that gets this bad review, if the
author has the courage to frame it for the audience in a different way, if there's critical
reviews that are appropriate, could the author market the book, explain the book in a way that
frames it better? Maybe they’re not framing it right. Because if you're receiving it, if you're
prepared to receive it one way and there's a discordance with how you receive it, maybe that's
a problem.
AJ Harper: Yeah, it definitely is. Yeah. You can't take, but you can't take any of that stuff to
heart.
Mike Michalowicz: So, so if your book sales suck, that could trigger a slump.
AJ Harper: Book sales slump, book sales suck. Um, people don't respond the way you want
them to respond. You don't get the reviews you want to get. You don't get enough reviews.
You don't like the reviews. You get obsessed over, you know, a one-star, two-star, three-star
review.
Mike Michalowicz: That could be a trigger. Just try a different way.
AJ Harper: It could. That's how you think. And that's what makes you a successful author.
I'm telling you, you're a little bit of a unicorn and that it doesn't even occur to you to quit.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah.
AJ Harper: You're just not like that. But it's very real for a lot of people who get, you know,
stuck in their head. I mean, authorship is just a head game.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah.
AJ Harper: If you've got to be able to manage all that noise.
Mike Michalowicz: Do you have some hacks or solutions for getting out of this lump?
AJ Harper: Yeah, so, you know, obviously, um, you might, the number one thing is it's okay
if you have to let go of the book. And you kind of need, you kind of need to think about that
first. Maybe you're writing the wrong book.
Maybe it's not the book of your heart. Maybe you think that, um, you're just not interested
anymore. That's something that happened to me. We talked about that earlier this year. Yeah,
Mike Michalowicz: 21 years. Or that is
AJ Harper: Well, no, no. It was my, the nonfiction book that I was supposed to, I had the
contract to write, and I killed it.
Mike Michalowicz: Oh, that one. The editing one?
AJ Harper: No, it was, uh, Test Drive Your Content. And I had already written a bunch of it
and it was just boring the crap out of me.
Mike Michalowicz Okay, I do remember that, yes.
AJ Harper: Yeah. So that was, I was in a slump, for sure. But I handled it. I handled it by
saying, I don't It would be worse if I just kept going and just trying to trudge through.
If you know instinctively this is wrong. It's one thing if it's a slog and you still wanna write it.
A slog is not a sign that maybe you shouldn't write the book because a lot of writing is a slog.
But if you're just bored out of your freaking skull, like how I was, and you just feel like, ugh,
I don't think, I am even going to want to promote this, like I'm going to be, I can't sustain, you
know, I had to, I had to let it go.
So you have to be willing to say from the get, do I need to let this book go?
Is there a different book that I should be writing, is, I would say the number one thing. To
start.
Mike Michalowicz: Okay.
AJ Harper: And the answer might be yes, and the answer might be no, but it's kind of like,
you know, that game, like pick one, right? You can't make a decision. And this hand is one
decision. And then over here is the other decision. Just pick one. Yeah. And then you get the
answer. Oh, I didn't want that one. That's how you know.
Mike Michalowicz: I love that. Right. Yeah.
AJ Harper: Then it was the other one. It's kind of like, be willing to say, what if I let it go?
Would it be the worst thing? Um, I also think, um, just maybe taking a break from it to write
something for fun.
So, because part of what's happening with the second book slump, if you're a published
author, this really only applies if you're published, by the way. I should have clarified that to
begin with. If you're toiling away and you haven't been published yet, second book, you're
golden. You're just writing to write. You're just writing for yourself.
Let yourself write something that may not be ever consumed by anybody. It's just fun for
you. Give yourself an assignment. One thing I used to do is take a class, just a little class,
something that was just weird, you know, oh, I'm gonna learn essay writing, or I'm gonna
learn this weird kind of, you know, uh, poetry, or whatever, and just for this, let me do this
four week class, or whatever, just get it, just so that you're doing something different. You're
doing something for fun. There's nothing, nothing at stake. Take the stakes out. Take the
stakes out and then free yourself up and then come back to the project and you might feel
really differently about it.
Mike Michalowicz: Do you have the discipline not to get back into your project while you're
in that fun zone or out of your comfort zone? Because I would have the natural tendency to
get back to work.
AJ Harper: I know that's your way.
Mike Michalowicz: So do you have a, do you encourage our listeners to be disciplined? And
when you're trying to break out of the comfort zone, intentionally do not allow yourself back
in. It's like a---
AJ Harper: You’re not really trying to break out of your comfort zone. You're trying to
reignite a spark because the slump means that you are having trouble finishing it. So if during
the four, let's say you took a weird class on like, I don't know, writing from, you know,
writing from the childhood memories or what, I don't know, whatever. And it's four weeks.
And let's say in week two, all of a sudden, you're like, Oh my gosh, I know what I want to do
with my book.
You should follow that! Anytime, anytime it wakes up. Because the slump is not feeling
excited about the book, not being able to write the book, that sort of thing. Um, and then
definitely, uh, I, the comfort zone piece does come in with sometimes when you push
yourself to do something that you think is hard, like writing something you would never
normally attempt because we tell ourselves what kind of writer we are.
Mike Michalowicz: Yes.
AJ Harper: So, you know, if I said to you, Mike, let's write, let's write a novel together.
Mike Michalowicz: Oh God.
AJ Harper: God, that would be...
Mike Michalowicz: we should!
AJ Harper: That would be really tough, actually.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah, that would be.
AJ Harper: but you would think, see how you just reacted. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But if for two
weeks you said, I'm writing a novel, just going to work on a novel for two weeks, just to say
and made yourself do it.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah.
AJ Harper: I think that pushing can also trigger the spark. You're not going to stay with it.
Mike Michalowicz: No.
AJ Harper: It's just, let's get, let's, let's shake it
Mike Michalowicz: Shake it up.
AJ Harper: Let's shake it up.
Mike Michalowicz: And my mind went to, okay, how are we going to pull this off? I
actually started processing it.
AJ Harper: Of course. You, you like a challenge.
Mike Michalowicz: I like that. Yeah.
AJ Harper: Um, and then switch up writing practice.
This is a major one. So I writing practices, what is your practice of regular writing? So for
me, it's Monday through Friday right now, since I'm behind, it's seven days a week, pretty
much, which is fine, but normally it's Monday through Friday. Um, I would then, and in the
morning, so then maybe I would switch that up and I'd say, I'm going to go do a little writing
vacay for a weekend and write, write differently. Or I'm going to make myself right in the
afternoon or whatever. I'm going to put myself into 10-minute sprints. Just do something
different. You can see the theme here. Just get out of the rut that you're in because the second
book slump is a rut.
Mike Michalowicz: Do you modify deadlines ever for yourself, for the team, if you're
working with a team?
AJ Harper: Um, yeah, of course.
Mike Michalowicz: But how can that be received? So I, I think when you did Write a Must-
Read that I think the deadlines—
AJ Harper: Oh, I had to push it back twice.
Mike Michalowicz: How's that received though? So, me, just the thought of that, my heart
starts racing. I make commitments. These people are depending on me.
AJ Harper: Well, you have to understand how publishing is.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah.
AJ Harper: We are used to that.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah.
AJ Harper: It's a creative process. And most authors need more time.
Mike Michalowicz: We have a Penned With Purpose author who has pushed back the
deadline. I think three or four iterations, but here's what was interesting. The manuscript is, is
now getting really good.
AJ Harper: Yeah. That's the thing.
Mike Michalowicz: It went from, we were kind of talking about this before. I can't
remember what episode this was, but moved from the technical, the author got it, explanation,
to now the reader gets it explanation.
AJ Harper: Yes.
Mike Michalowicz: And it was, yeah, but it required pushing at the deadline. The, uh,
Publisher didn't seem to be as frustrated as I expected.
AJ Harper: No! I'm tired to tell you, the publishing industry is used to this.
Mike Michalowicz: It's so hard for me to compute.
AJ Harper: But the main thing is that you let them know well in advance. And they can
handle it. They're you, they, I promise you, they have, they have systems built in for this
because it is so common.
Mike Michalowicz: How far in advance do you tell them?
AJ Harper: As soon as you know, as soon as you know, I think is frustrating is when I was a
publisher, we would sometimes find out the day before the manuscript was due, “I'm not
going to be able to turn it in.” And you know, here's the thing. Publishers are usually also
behind the eight ball. So, have you ever noticed how sometimes it takes five weeks to get our
edits back and sometimes it takes two weeks? That's because they're in that weird rotation
and they might also, they all might also be behind the eight ball.
Mike Michalowicz: Clear.
AJ Harper: So sometimes when you tell them that you have to switch your deadline, it's
actually not bad because it means they are
Mike Michalowicz: Thank God.
AJ Harper: Yes. Yeah. Especially with a really small publisher. I know it's foreign to you
because you're in a business mindset, but the publishing industry has baked in a lot of time
and space for this type of thing.
Mike Michalowicz: Interesting. What are some other solutions, if you will, for the slump?
AJ Harper: Oh, there's a big one. I'm I've mentioned this in the podcast before, but I'm a big
believer in Julia Cameron's advice about artist states. She wrote, um, The Artist's Way and
many derivatives of the artist's way. The two practices that I keep from that book are.
Actually, I don't do morning pages anymore, but artist dates, I still do. And it's just putting
your, getting yourself out there, doing something different, taking yourself out to consume
some sort of nature or art or history or something that you wouldn't normally look at. Just to
get, again, let's spark something.
Let's get out of the rut and it can be really really helpful If you do that, and it doesn't it could
just be an afternoon. It doesn't have to be complicated
Mike Michalowicz: You know one thing that's inherent to public speaking. Oh, and this is
this also speaks to authorship I just got my biggest speaking gig yesterday, meaning
monetarily. (Congratulations.) Thank you.
Thank you. I'm blown away. I'm excited. It also points to, we're in this now for 15 years, 15,
16 years, that a book, when you write your greatest book you can, it can cause this cascade,
but also this kind of building wave, it doesn't, there's this longevity to it, I don't know, it's just
an acknowledgement, I saw the contract come across, I was like, holy cow, I can't imagine
this on day one, or even day, year 10, and as I'm signing, countersigning the contract, I'm
like, it's, a contract, it's the books. It was, uh, it was Profit First.
AJ Harper: Yeah.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. Other, and it's, so I was gonna say is, because of speaking, I travel
constantly and I'm already sharing this too. It's like, just, just break out of the pattern if you
can, Mike. So I do this. I was down in Rhome, Texas and just took in Texas and it is, A
different culture than it is in New Jersey, and it's beautiful.
Like, there's so much to observe and learn and participate in. And then I went over to Topeka,
Kansas, which is radically different than Texas. And then I shot over to Orlando, and that's I
don't know, all these things and then you get outside and you just observe, I can't think of a
little vignette now, but I just observed little things like, Oh, that's really interesting.
It's something I haven't seen before. Yeah.
AJ Harper: And go to the, go to the weird stuff. Go to the little dinky museums for
something that you never knew needed a museum.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah.
AJ Harper: You know, go, go to the, go to the local history museum. Go look at the art, go
look at the art on the street.
Mike Michalowicz: There's stories there.
AJ Harper: Yeah.
Mike Michalowicz: That reminds me. Yeah. So I was. In England, from London, driving up
to Bath or Bahth, England.
AJ Harper: They say Bahth?
Mike Michalowicz: They say Bahth, yeah.
AJ Harper: Oh gosh.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah, so when I'm like, oh, are we going to Bath? The guy's like, uh,
yeah, we're going to Bahth.
AJ Harper: Pained, pained expression.
Mike Michalowicz: And I, I was embarrassed by my accent. And, uh, we're driving and
halfway, it's a long drive. Halfway, we stop and there's this little restaurant that's Michelin
rated in the middle, I don't remember the name of the town, it had a straw roof, you know,
and I'm like, wow, entrepreneurship, I just remember going in there, like, entrepreneurship
can, can grow anywhere. Um, the, the chef, a woman came out, who was from New Jersey,
yeah, and came out, to share the story of the business and was not enamored that I was from
New Jersey.
I'm like, I'm from New Jersey. And it's like, yeah, so let me tell you about the food we're
serving. Um, but to your point, like those little stories, those experiences, those observations,
what's important to her wasn't important to me. Like I don't know, just lessons come out of
those moments and they would never present themselves unless you go off the beaten path.
AJ Harper: Yeah. And it's, it's just, there's something completely out there, though. Not, it
doesn't have to even seem to connect here. In fact, it shouldn't, seem to connect to the book
you're writing Just go do something odd that you wouldn't normally do. Yeah.
Mike Michalowicz: It's a great way to break out.
AJ Harper: You can also buddy up with someone. That's another you know, just getting
somebody to be accountable to yeah, I think it's helpful.
Mike Michalowicz: That's built into our relationship.
AJ Harper: Yeah, 100 percent
Mike Michalowicz: and I like how our working style is now you send over the the work in
progress for chapter 3. And I got a job to do now and I send it back and there's, I don't know,
there's this kind of like flow of, of sending information back and it builds this accountability.
AJ Harper: For sure. And even if you aren't co-writing, you can still check in with each
other. And, I know that, I remember Laura Stone and she's written her fourth novel and is
currently seeking representation for that novel, and it's so good, and before, I think for this
novel, she had a friend who they would turn in work to each other and I don't know that they
were actually reading it, but I think sometimes they were, but they had to turn it in by a
certain.
Mike Michalowicz: Oh, that's great.
AJ Harper: So just sending it, you know,
Mike Michalowicz: That's great.
AJ Harper: I think that can also really help you get out. But then I think ultimately, You
need to ask yourself the question, what if it's better?
Mike Michalowicz What if it's better?
AJ Harper: So you're, you're sitting here going, it's not going to be as good, but you need to
ask, what if it's better?
Mike Michalowicz Yeah.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. I love that.
Mike Michalowicz I love that.
Mike Michalowicz: You end on these really good one liners. You did it last, a couple of
weeks ago, too.
AJ Harper: I mean, I teach all the time, so it's—
Mike Michalowicz: Is that how you end a class? And then you just like, No. And then you
click leaving meeting and zoom and it drops everybody?
AJ Harper: I'm going to tell you how I ended the class. This might be helpful, actually,
today. I hadn't planned to say this, but last week we ended the class. It's pretty emotional for
my students because I've, you know, it's like boot camp. And they aren't the same, they're
confident in ways that they didn't imagine they would be. Um, and I shared, I usually do the
Jack, um, my call to greatness from my book and I read it aloud, but I realized that they didn't
need it because they already saw themselves as authors.
‘Cause that's what that call to greatness is to do is, you know, the book is Write a Must-Read
is, you come in and the promise is you'll learn how to write a must-read, but in the call to
greatness, I'm calling on you to be an author. to write the, you know, the next one and the
next one. And I realized, they're good.
They don't need me to do this. You know, plus they already read my book, listened to my
book, all that. So, uh, I did a little exercise about sales goals, and I did some stuff, but then I
talked about, um, I talked about, uh, Dr. King and how he read On Civil Disobedience when
he was, I think, still a teenager. And it was the first time that he had ever read anything about
nonviolent resistance. And I said, well, what if he hadn't read it? How would our entire world
be different now? And then I equated it to my mom also reading On Civil Disobedience and
then she ended up working for Dr. King's Poor People's Campaign and devoted much of her
early life to activism and how her life would be different and the people she touched, to
inspire them to think, “What if you don't write it?”
Like, what are we losing? And I think maybe that's something else to consider when you're in
the second book slump. What if it's better? But also, what is the world missing out on because
you're caught in this head game? So I leave you with that.
Mike Michalowicz: That's amazing. I feel compelled to, when I go back to my office, I'm
going to write that down.
What's, what's the consequence or what's the cost if they don't read this? Thank you, AJ.
Wow. What an amazing episode. Next week, we're going to talk about using research in your
book. Uh, I do want to ask something bold of our audience right now. This is an ask. I hope
you're getting tons of value out of all of our episodes.
We're on episode 62 now. And hopefully it's cost you nothing and only contributed to you. I
want you to make an investment in AJ's book. It's right. I must read. And I want to ask you to
get three copies. So if you would honor me and honor AJ, get three copies of Write A Must-
Read, give it to three authors, you know, aspiring authors and get out of the slump together.
Go through the process together. Use this book as your guide. It is a really, really dollar for
dollar. Amazing, amazing investment. And it serves AJ. It's such a great way. So would you
honor AJ and me by getting three copies? Your choice, your call. Also go to dwtbpodcast.
com. We have free materials for there.
You can email me and AJ at hello at dwtbpodcast. com. I have this crazy aspiration of us
doing a live show. I think it's coming. We're at two people, it hasn't budged in a month and a
half now, AJ, but it's coming. If you want to come to a live show of Don't Write That Book,
we're going to do it on stage.
We need 500 people saying they're in so we can get an audience of, you know, 150 to 200
people to show. And then, and my commitment, my goal is to get Steven Pressfield as our
first ever guest there. I know it's crazy, but that's, now that's a dream of mine. Check out AJ's
got going on at ajharper.com. You can also check out, we got a, uh, a imprint now through
page two called simplified.
We are looking for the right author. Maybe it's you. So you can email us at hello at
dwtbpodcast. com. We can start a dialogue. Thanks for joining us for this episode. We'll see
you next week on episode 62. As always, you know, the rules do not, do not, do not write that
book, right? The greatest book you ever, ever possibly could.