BOSTON – Gov. Deval Patrick is planning to write a second book, this one on the state of politics in America.

The Massachusetts Democrat spent Thursday in New York City shopping the book around to publishers. In an email to political supporters, Patrick said the book will focus on what he calls “the politics of conviction.”

Patrick said he wants to highlight examples from Massachusetts and across the country that he says demonstrate ways to strengthen local communities and inspire the next generation of citzens.

The decision to extend his writing career could open up Patrick to criticism that his attention is drifting away from his day job. Patrick, the state’s first black governor, has already begun spending time campaigning out of state for President Obama.

Patrick said the inspiration for the new book came in part from his time on the road for Obama and the national Democratic Party, most recently in New Hampshire where he headlined the state Democratic Party’s annual Jefferson Jackson dinner and celebrated the opening of the Obama for America campaign field office in Portsmouth.

“I do it for the benefit of the president and of the cause,” Patrick wrote in his email. “I believe it is more important than ever in America that we resolve to campaign and to govern from a set of values-based convictions.”

In his first book, “A Reason to Believe: Lessons from an Improbable Life,” Patrick told his version of the American rags-to-riches story, chronicling his rise from poverty on Chicago’s South Side to the upper echelons of American politics.

Much of the book focused on how Patrick learned to navigate between the crowded, urban and largely black neighborhood of his youth and the privileged, largely white world he entered when he won a scholarship to the prestigious Milton Academy at age 14.