Real Name or Pen Name

[gordo12]

If you have books offered for sale out in the marketplace do you use your real name or a pen name for your writings?

If you're selling books in more than 1 genre are you using multiple pen names or do you group them all under one? IE sci-fi and erotic.

If you use only one pen name how do fans react to finding out you write both erotic and sci fi? (examples only genres could be any combo) Any blowback?

I'm not talking about here in the author's forum but out in the real world.

 

[oggbashan]

When, decades ago, I used to write technical text books they were either under my real name or under my departmental title - which led people to the real me.

The only difference was that ones as me were all my own work; the ones with my departmental title were collaborations with me as the major author.

 

[gordo12]

Ogg: If you were going to offer all those stories you've written out into the market would you use your own name or a pen name? Given that they're erotic.

 

[KeithD]

Both real name and multiple pen names across multiple publishers.

 

[TxRad]

In the mainstream, I have four pen names. Two are male and two are female. It wasn't my idea, it was my publishers. One male for my original racing stories. Another for my scifi stuff. Both the female names are attached to two different series of YA stories. None are my real name.

Here at Lit, I have two pen names. This one and a female alter ego. She's never been on the forums so she has far fewer trolls than I do.

 

[gordo12]

She's never been on the forums so she has far fewer trolls than I do.

LOL, so are you really you?

 

[gordo12]

Both real name and multiple pen names across multiple publishers.

So does having so many create a marketing problem for your books? Or are the names categorized by genre to prevent that blowback I asked about?

 

[oggbashan]

Ogg: If you were going to offer all those stories you've written out into the market would you use your own name or a pen name? Given that they're erotic.

I would NEVER use my real name.

Not only is my surname very distinctive and rare - everyone one in the UK with it is a relative - but it has a major online presence which could be compromised by association with oggbashan.

But now I have effectively retired from the roles as the real me, the impact might be minimal.

 

[KeithD]

So does having so many create a marketing problem for your books? Or are the names categorized by genre to prevent that blowback I asked about?

They are categorized by genre. The only effect is that some are more popular than others and that determination sometimes influence what name is used for what book. For instance, I just changed the name on a coming book because that author's name has been dormant longer than the original name I used and there's no real genre issue involved.

I keep my erotica strictly separate from my mainstream works. But even my mainstream works are in separate enough genres that I have pen names separate there from my real name. I write espionage and mystery, both fiction and nonfiction in my real name, and I keep that separate from everything else I write.

 

[ElectricBlue]

If you have books offered for sale out in the marketplace do you use your real name or a pen name for your writings?

I have a pen name, and would never use my real name for erotica. Not that it makes a jot of difference to who buys it, which is virtually no-one but some loyal fans here. And a few who found me in an on-line book store.

 

[gordo12]

I did a search for my real name and it didn't come up in the top hundred. That's a change; years ago I'd have been in the top two or three. A win for internet privacy in my books.

There are literally hundreds of men with the same name as me so I'm starting to wonder why I don't use my real name. No one would know it's me. But then there's the wide variety of genres, including fetish, I have going. Some which will never see the light of day.

That seems to demand multiple names and if that's the case why bother with mine?

 

[TxRad]

LOL, so are you really you?

As far as I know but maybe I need to look closer.

 

[KeithD]

LOL, so are you really you?

I sat on a panel at a book festival under one of my mainstream female pen names. They were amused at the book festival, but one of them outed me on Amazon, so I guess she wasn't that amused she was reading light lesbian by a male writer. It's still my best-selling pen name in the marketplace.

 

[Handley_Page]

I would NEVER use my real name.

I quite agree.
Keep it all separate.

 

[KeithD]

I quite agree.
Keep it all separate.

For anything or just for erotica? I would think a goal of a writer would be to write in and be known for her/his own name.

 

[ChloeTzang]

I have a pen name, and would never use my real name for erotica. Not that it makes a jot of difference to who buys it, which is virtually no-one but some loyal fans here. And a few who found me in an on-line book store.

Yep, I have two pen names on Literotica, Chloe and Unity (Unity for my more extreme stuff that doesn’t gel with Chloe). I’m thinking about a third for something more mainstream that I’m working on. I’d never use my real name for any of them tho. I like my privacy.

 

[gordo12]

For anything or just for erotica? I would think a goal of a writer would be to write in and be known for her/his own name.

And that's exactly the thought that spurred this post. I really like writing erotica and Westerns. It turns out I can also do fetish, some very weird stuff I'm not sure I ever want to publish. Even if I could find a place.

But I also had an idea last week for my first mainstream kind of novel. I'm thinking down the road for marketing with all this.

Thinking about all your posts reminds me of an author on Amazon. I was scrolling through his list of stories when I ran into a heavy duty medical tome. Now all of a sudden his credentials like MD or PHD showed up.

I remember thinking WTF and I automatically downgraded my opinion of him. He ranked higher just writing porn! Go figure!

But then marketing multiple genre channels seems like a snake pit.

 

[gordo12]

For anything or just for erotica? I would think a goal of a writer would be to write in and be known for her/his own name.

So did you just focus on one particular genre when you started out until that was going well and then branch out?

 

[Wifetheif]

If you have books offered for sale out in the marketplace do you use your real name or a pen name for your writings?

If you're selling books in more than 1 genre are you using multiple pen names or do you group them all under one? IE sci-fi and erotic.

If you use only one pen name how do fans react to finding out you write both erotic and sci fi? (examples only genres could be any combo) Any blowback?

I'm not talking about here in the author's forum but out in the real world.

I have an entire other persona that does not mix with my Lit.com ID. My alter-ego is making a nice bit of change on Amazon in an erotic category I am not at liberty to reveal. I learned a great deal about writing on L.com before I created my alias.

 

[KeithD]

Thinking about all your posts reminds me of an author on Amazon. I was scrolling through his list of stories when I ran into a heavy duty medical tome. Now all of a sudden his credentials like MD or PHD showed up.
.

I have everything from a Bible study to literary anthologies to espionage mysteries to a diplomatic memoir to heavy-duty tomes on terrorism and strategic arms limitation in the mainstream in my true name. Gay male erotica and light lesbian mysteries wouldn't enhance those listings. But I write them as well. I'm setting up a bisexual romp twisting the tail of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf this evening for a publisher--in yet a different pen name from all the rest.

There are different writing worlds, and I try my best to keep them distant.

 

[KeithD]

So did you just focus on one particular genre when you started out until that was going well and then branch out?

I started out writing only foreign affairs topics for government analysis. In the early nineties I was hired to write a series of resort beach read novels by a foreign country's tourist ministry on espionage themes that would survive the collapse of the Cold War (e.g., terrorism, international counterfeiting, drugs for arms trafficking, human trafficking, spy cleanup). That led me into international mysteries, and I found writing fiction freeing after so much fact-based nonfiction. As I've noted on the board before, one day I was writing a scene in a crime mystery that got out of hand into graphic gay male sex (now found in chapter one of sr71plt's House on Park. https://www.literotica.com/s/house-on-park-ch-01). And, although I had to cut that out of that book, that writing went off in it's own direction--under pen names.

 

[litfan10]

Out in the real world I use my own name and always have regardless of if it is journalistic, short story or novel (also regardless of genre.) My publishers have never had a problem with that. My accountant is very happy with that.

Erotica I've only written for fun here only under one pen name (Litfan10.) I did mention to one of my favorite publishers/editors the thought of publishing hardcore erotica, and she had a hissy fit. I guess I won't mix business with pleasure.

 

[Handley_Page]

A pen-name is a known tool.
After all, it did Samuel Clements no harm, did it ?

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Yep, pen-name. I have one her at lit. two out in the publishing world. One for my erotic works and one for my non-erotic works.

I rarely use my real name for anything on the net.

 

[eroticstoryspinner]

If you have books offered for sale out in the marketplace do you use your real name or a pen name for your writings?

.

As has been posted earlier, pen names often are good to separate genre. That protects your marketing. For example if you write YA or children's books along with erotica, then you probably want separate pen names