In this short article, I share the emotional rollercoaster that comes right after you publish a book

In summary

When you publish a book, you might expect to feel great once it's out. In my case, it's rather the opposite: I was intellectually proud but emotionally drained. I'll explore three changes to make it an emotionally more positive experience in the future.

A bit of context

I've promised myself that I'll publish five books in the Service Design Principles series until my kid finishes his first year of school. In early 2024, I published the fourth book after about a year of work on it.

For the book launch, I made a public and remote book launch party.

How I felt after the book launch party

Right after the book party, here is how I felt:

• Sad

• Mentally destroyed

• With a loss of direction

Let's explore the emotions

Intellectually sure, launching a new book is an achievement. But the emotions are a bit different for me than what I've been through emotionally.

Why did I have a feeling of sadness?

Reflecting, I think that there is a bit of a rollercoaster moment. During the book launch party, there was a lot of excitement and stress to create a good atmosphere for everyone. Once the party was finished, and because it was a remote party, suddenly I went to a high dose of excitement, lots of people to just being alone in front of my computer.

I imagine that this contrast between lots of people versus alone and high energy vs low energy, is what created that feeling of sadness.

Why did I feel mentally destroyed

Here is a hypothesis I have for why I felt mentally destroyed: several elements made it hard:

• It took me a lot of energy to create that book, and the pressure was released once I felt I was done

• As I'm rather an introvert, spending a lot of time at a party with loads of people may take out a lot of mental energy.

Why did a feel loss

What I might change in the future

These were all valid emotions. Still, there are a few things I could do in the future to make a book launch that is intellectually rewarding and emotionally positive.

Here are a few ideas I might explore for the next book launch:

• Wind-down: Invite one friend for an after-party "wind-down" where we go eat something and celebrate like true introverts.

• Sabbatical: Block some time off from work and family life after the book's launch, a sort of mini 1-2 day sabbatical.

• Make it more of a webinar: the book launch was purposefully made within a Zoom call so that it was more like a party and less like a webinar where people can just interact over the chat. But I suppose this was more overwhelming for me, and therefore, next time, I might do a webinar setup where only the guest speakers can interact with voice and camera, and all others are limited to the chat.