You've spent months, even years, working on your book. You've invested your time, your money and your emotions into your manuscript. It's your baby: at least, you love it nearly as much as your own children.

You send it away to a publisher, or even hit 'publish' yourself, and sit back with a sigh of relief, and a tingling sense of anticipation: what are your family and friends going to think when they read it?

Um, sorry to burst your bubble. Those family and those friends? They almost certainly aren't going to read it.

They'll congratulate you, sure. They'll say, "Oh well done - great work on the book," when they see you at family functions, and then, "So, when's lunch?"

Or they might do this: "So, how's your book going?" Listen for approximately 2.5 seconds and then cut in: "I've been writing something too... let me tell you about it." Or, "I've got plans to write a book one day. I've got the story in my mind. It's going to be really, really good."

Generally, what they won't do is read your book. I've heard it time and time again, and I've experienced it myself. So if you're looking to your family and your friends to be your biggest writing fans, you're going to be sorely disappointed.

Why won't they read it?

Why is it so very difficult for our friends and family to be keen about our work? There are a few reasons. A simple one may be that they just don't like books or reading, or they don't enjoy the genre you're writing. They might only read a thriller or a sci-fi murder mystery, and never YA romance or memoir, or whatever the style of book is that you've poured your heart into.

A more complicated reason may be that they are nervous. There's a risk involved whenever someone we know does something out of the box. What if we don't like it? What are we going to say then? There's nothing more embarrassing than picking up your friend's book, finding out that they can't write for beans, and then having to pretend to be nice about it.

Even more complicated is getting past the tricky dynamics that make up every relationship and family system. Subconsciously we all know our place in our social setting, and we know the place of the other people in it too. When people do something unexpected, like suddenly excel, or achieve a new level, or come to the forefront of people's attention, it can upset our social balance. We don't know how to manage the new dynamics, and so we find it easier to completely ignore the achievement - or, sometimes, even talk it down.

If you've written a memoir, family and friends might perhaps be more likely to read it, but only because they're curious about what you've said about them. The rest will (probably) be about judging the way you perceive the world.

What are you supposed to do?

If your friends and family don't read your book - and they almost certainly won't - you can waste a lot of energy getting worried about it, becoming bitter and resentful, and creating barriers that don't need to be there.

Simply accepting that the vast majority of your family and acquaintances will never, ever read your book is the smartest and most peaceful way to live your writerly life. You get to focus on your writing rather than picking fights, and when someone does read your work, and tells you they like it, it's like having chocolate cake for breakfast... absolutely fantastic.

Here's the take home message: don't look to the people you know to affirm your writing or your abilities as a writer. They won't. Sometimes, they can't. Instead, accept yourself as a writer, and enjoy it when you find an audience who appreciates your work. (Also, when your writing takes off and people start to read it, your family and friends will quickly jump on that bandwagon, and you'll be able to smugly say in your mind, 'See? You should have read it first.')