Six tips for authors who might be considering writing under a pen name.
Crime writer, Frances di Plino puts forward the good, the bad and the ugly points.
The
Good
- If you write in more than one genre, you can build a fan base for each without confusing or disappointing your readers.
- You can develop each persona into a strong brand with an easily recognisable style.
The
Bad
- Initially, no one will know who the author is, so even if you have a good fan base as Me Writer, it’s going to be hard to get Also Writer known.
- Unless you link your pseudonym with your own name (which kind of defeats the purpose), how would anyone be able to search online for your pen name?
The
Ugly
- Keeping the genres and personas separate means creating a secondary online persona and trying to remember who you’re supposed to be.
- You will need to spend twice as long promoting, tweeting, linking, liking and commenting.
Frances
di Plino is the pseudonym chosen by author, editor, columnist and writing tutor Lorraine Mace, under which she writes crime. Her highly acclaimed novel Bad Moon Rising and
a book of short crime stories Wish You Were (Not) Here can be downloaded from Amazon. Visit her page HERE.
3 comments:
So given all of that would you use a pseudonym if you were starting all over again?
If I could turn back the clock I would have gone with my real name for Bad Moon Rising and used a pseudonym if and when I got a book deal for my children’s novels.
However, having made the decision, I quite like having this split personality. I can always be mean to my husband as Frances and nice as Lorraine. Not knowing who I am from moment to moment keeps him on his toes.
The last time I used a pseudonym, the police called it fraud ;-)
Great post, Lo. I've run into the same problems as David Shaw, but I've reached an agreement with CC and we're reissuing under my real name.
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