I`ll begin by telling you that my own second novel was a total disaster. I had published my first - apprentice work but not bad - when I was 19 and it got a lot of attention for that reason. Then came the second. It was a dire novel. It got no attention at all and it died. I wrote the next which was turned down. I remember nothing about it but I`m sure they were right. It was 6 years before I started all over again, having found my style and a way of writing which worked, in the meantime and so began the long haul back. But it was a new long haul. No quarter given.

Nothing much has changed since 1963 though everyone assumes it is much harder. But second novels remain hard. Hard to write. Harder still if there has been success/hype the first time. They are all waiting to pounce now. 'Follow that' they say, arms folded, expressions and challenging. If the first novel has done reasonably well - i.e. sold more than 1,000 copies, been reviewed a bit and the second is as good or better, publishers will often - not always but often - take another punt. If the first has not done well - and many first novels sell fewer than 1,000  and indeed, fewer than 500 copies - and the second is not stunningly good, the publishers will not take another risk. It is always said that nowadays they are only in it to make money and are answerable primarily to their finance people. Yes indeed. THEY ALWAYS WERE. 

So one swallow and all that. If you have had your first novel published you may think you are home and dry and have a career ahead of you. Not so. You need to make your second book much, much, much better than your first. And so on and so on. Every book has to make its way, there is no automatic right to have a novel published just because you have already done so once. 

This is going to be the hardest year on the street for publishers for a very long time.  It will be even tougher to have your book taken on, first novel, second, fifty second.

Advice ? Sure. Make it as good as you can and then drop everything and make it 1,000 times better. Because publishers will still be hungry for the best, the most exciting, the most promising fiction. Perhaps even hungrier. But no one is taking prisoners.