sii

A topic I've always wondered about is, when someone is going to submit their work online or to a publisher, anything to help build a name for themself, how many stick with their real name and how many use pen names? In the age of free information it would seem pen names don't provide the shroud of secrecy they once might have, as anybody can look up your real name online if you become an established author, so is it a manner of just not liking one's current name and using one that better reflects the style of their writing?

What are the pros and cons of using pen vs. real names?

MalLowKey

the pen is mightier than the sword

Small-town_Wright

Haven't really thought about it. If you want to be anonomous, Pen names are great. if you want fame from your works, real name.

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lisajane

Pen names are a good idea if you write something away from the genre you normally write, but might be ashamed if people knew it was you (ie, some people and writing graphic sexual stories). Other than that, I wouldn't see a need.

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Dachux

An author's name is important to the author and the author's readers. Stephen King is one of the world's best known writers of fiction. Many people will buy a book just because his name is on the cover. However, he went on to use the name Richard Bachman.

Some say he did this to see if his books would sell without his name, for the sake of the story itself. Something a great author with millions of dollars might do if he was curious about such things. The Backman name developed it's own following until the cat got out the bag and the King fans went looking for the Bachman books.

Even using your own name on a book becomes a challenge. Suppose your name is Chester Daniel Smith (fictional example) do you use that on the story or do you used C D Smith, or Chester D Smith, or C Daniel Smith, or Danny Smith, or Chesty Smith . . . the choice is not easy even when you try to make it easy.

In the 21st century it is difficult to have a name that is too silly to put on a cover, but your name might clash with your genre . . . another remote reason to consider something else.

Whatever you chose, if you are successful, you will develop a following that should grow to look for your name before they'd look for your title.

I hope this helps.

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Dachux

Knightskye

Cough...Mark Twain...

Kamisama

Add a new word to your vocabulary: Pseudonym.

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mammamaia

and: 'nom de plume'

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MichelleWritesStuff

I write under a psuedonym. One of the reasons is because I live in a small town and I write racy. Aside from that, I'm a private person, and would do so even if I wrote children's books.

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Michelle
(Bring Your Own Subtext.)

A dream within a dream

On Stephen King's website it actually answers why he did this:

Topic: Why did you write books as Richard Bachman?
I did that because back in the early days of my career there was a feeling in the publishing business that one book a year was all the public would accept but I think that a number of writers have disproved that by now. I'm one of them and the guy who writes the Along Came the Spider books is another one who's written two or three books a year. Danielle Steel usually publishes two books a year. So the public will accept more than one book from a writer in the course of a year. The thing is, one book is all most writers want to produce or can produce in the course of a year and some of them only publish a book every two years. Ed McBain was another novelist who published multiple books in some years and his original name was Evan Hunter. That's the name he's always published under and he adopted the pen name of Ed McBain for the same reason I adopted Richard Bachman and that was that it made it possible for me to do two books in one year. I just did them under different names and eventually the public got wise to this because you can change your name but you can't really disguise your style. The name Richard Bachman actually came from when they called me and said we're ready to go to press with this novel, what name shall we put on it? And I hadn't really thought about that. Well, I had, but the original name - Gus Pillsbury - had gotten out on the grapevine and I really didn't like it that much anyway, so they said they needed it right away and there was a novel by Richard Stark on my desk so I used the name Richard and that's kind of funny because Richard Stark is in itself a pen name for Donald Westlake and what was playing on the record player was "You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet" by Bachman Turner Overdrive, so I put the two of them together and came up with Richard Bachman. -- Steve

And here is the link: http://www.stephenking.com/cgi-bin/i...=ST;f=96;t=122
Just in case you want to see it for yourself.

Anarkos

Johannes de Silento has nothing on me.

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RaphaelFaunus

Me? Raphael Faunus, the last name being the name of a Roman God of whom ruled over the forest, plains, and fields. It also is a greek word that can generally be translated to "Friendly" or "Being a friend of."
Raphael is just a cool name.

None of that is my real name, though. I hate real names, not enough mystery or thought to them. I am a fantasy writer, I can only imagine my name would be Roman god oriented.
Also, I'm a furry, and that's my furry name.

aspiring

I write under my real name. However, I was approached to do a project that required chicklit writing of the fluffiest, and my agent agreed that I should do that under a pen name as I didn't want to be known for that writing. The project never came off, however.

Mike C

Maybe you should consider Ozymandias?

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Omnisu

Richard Bachman was originally accused of being a 'useless, untalented, Steven King rip-off'.

Ah, irony at it's finest.

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