Male vs. Female Pen Names

[Jake Marlow]

I am thinking about publishing something under a female pen name to see if there is a bump in sales. I know the conventional wisdom is that romance and erotica sell better when the author appears to be female. I know some people here publish under multiple names. I'd like to know if anyone has found doing something like this has made a big difference.

 

[sr71plt]

My best-selling series is under a female pen name.

(But then, so is my worst-selling series.)

 

[3113]

Hmmm. A male or female pen name.... Hmmm.

I dunno. My inclination would be to go completely neutral just to experiment. Something that no one can tell is male or female. Like, oh, say, a number. But that's just me.....

 

[Stella_Omega]

i was thinking of using"Frank Stella" so as to get both sexes, but someone told me that's been taken

 

[sr71plt]

Hmmm. A male or female pen name.... Hmmm.

I dunno. My inclination would be to go completely neutral just to experiment. Something that no one can tell is male or female. Like, oh, say, a number. But that's just me.....

A name like "habu" maybe. Hmmmm.

 

[SamScribble]

I, too, have been wondering about this little issue, as I'm working on a collection of what might be termed 'raunchy romances'.

Some of my mates have suggested that the solution is to use a pen name with initials - E L Doctorow, J P Donleavy, P D James, J K Rowling, etc. Does anyone have any opinions on - or experience of - this approach? I have to confess that, personally, the first time I heard the names P D James and J K Rowling I thought they were probably blokes. (And, no, my friends would certainly not describe me as an MCP.)

Any thoughts or opinions will be appreciated.

Sam

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Most Romance publishers think you're more marketable if you have a female name, and I know of several outfits who specifically state in their author guidelines that the story should be told from a female POV, or at least focus on a female character as the main protagonist.

The huge boom in erotiporn publishing over the last 15-20 years was entirely caused by the surging female market. Something like 90-95% of porn these days is bought by women. A few factors supposedly contributed to the boom--changes in female attitudes toward sex and the anonymity and more open attitude of the internet--but I think most mainstream publishers still feel that modern erotiporn is an offshoot of the female-dominated Romance market, and there's a pretty strong mindset in the business that women want their sex written by other women.

Previous to the modern boom, porn was written almost entirely by men and for men, and tended to be light on story and romance and emotion and heavy on straight graphic sex, and most women didn't care for it. I think the prejudice still exists that men will write that kind of porn and that the female market will stay away from it.

I think this is changing, albeit very slowly. (Publishing is a very conservative business.) I think women are intensely curious about the ways men experience love and sex, but men are also notoriously inept when it comes to expressing the very emotions and feelings that women want to read about, and so the anti-male prejudice stays in place.

 

[soflabbwlvr]

Several months ago I read a story in the Lesbian Sex section that I enjoyed. The author's pen name was inconclusive as to gender, so I clicked on the profile to find out more. The bigraphy page contained a statement which said:

"My main objective on Literotica was to see if a male author of erotica is discriminated against simply because of his gender. After two years of testing, all I can say is: MISSION ACCOMPLISHED! Like just about everything else in the world today, I AM AN ASSHOLE just because I'm a man! Well, I got a little surprise for you: [name deleted] is actually a woman. "

I'm not sure what this experiment proved, but it seems to provide anecdotal support for the OP's proposition.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Several months ago I read a story in the Lesbian Sex section that I enjoyed. The author's pen name was inconclusive as to gender, so I clicked on the profile to find out more. The bigraphy page contained a statement which said:

"My main objective on Literotica was to see if a male author of erotica is discriminated against simply because of his gender. After two years of testing, all I can say is: MISSION ACCOMPLISHED! Like just about everything else in the world today, I AM AN ASSHOLE just because I'm a man! Well, I got a little surprise for you: [name deleted] is actually a woman. "

I'm not sure what this experiment proved, but it seems to provide anecdotal support for the OP's proposition.

Or, it proves that not every woman has what it takes to write good porn.

I've come across plenty of women who write simplistic, reductive sex scenes missing context and plot. What we've come to consider "typically male" porn.

I've also come across a few female named writers who write poorly in that way-- and turn out to be men.

I guess what I'm saying here is that taking a female pen name isn't enough on its own.

 

[TE999]

Short version: Female readers, in the main, prefer affection in their porn, men just want fucking, period.

Granted, there are exceptions, so vive la difference.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

One of my grad school professors publishes romance novels for cripples. hahahahahahahahahahaha

 

[Stella_Omega]

Short version: Female readers, in the main, prefer affection in their porn, men just want fucking, period.

Granted, there are exceptions, so vive la difference.

Not necessarily affection. Female readers, in the main, want context. Some women crave angst, some get off on hate fucks, or the play of BDSM power, or pure sensory description. Very often the sex scene explains something about the characters-- and that, too, is context.

You'd be amazed at how many women don't prefer affection. But I am never amazed at how many men crave it

 

[Belegon]

At my first Romantic Times Convention, five years ago, one of the most common pieces of advice to me was to develop a female pseudonym. I decided against it, deciding I would rather try and fight the current.

I have little doubt at this point that my gender costs me sales. I have never published anything under a female name, but I am playing with the idea, simply to see if there is a sales difference.

And I do know of some male authors writing under female names... some quite successfully and undetected for years.

I did experiment here at Lit with a female name a few years back... and never received a comment or feedback suspecting or at least voicing any suspicion that I was male. Mind you, I didn't participate in the forums much with that name. Less than a hundred posts, I think. Just posted stories.

 

[Stella_Omega]

At my first Romantic Times Convention, five years ago, one of the most common pieces of advice to me was to develop a female pseudonym. I decided against it, deciding I would rather try and fight the current.

I have little doubt at this point that my gender costs me sales. I have never published anything under a female name, but I am playing with the idea, simply to see if there is a sales difference.

And I do know of some male authors writing under female names... some quite successfully and undetected for years.

I did experiment here at Lit with a female name a few years back... and never received a comment or feedback suspecting or at least voicing any suspicion that I was male. Mind you, I didn't participate in the forums much with that name. Less than a hundred posts, I think. Just posted stories.

I'm not surprised. I think I would suspect you to be a female writer with a male pseudonym, half the time.

 

[Belegon]

I'm not surprised. I think I would suspect you to be a female writer with a male pseudonym, half the time.

I will take that as a compliment, which I think you intended it to be anyway. Thank you, dear.

 

[lovecraft68]

Not necessarily affection. Female readers, in the main, want context. Some women crave angst, some get off on hate fucks, or the play of BDSM power, or pure sensory description. Very often the sex scene explains something about the characters-- and that, too, is context.

You'd be amazed at how many women don't prefer affection. But I am never amazed at how many men crave it

When I started here I had the misconception that female readers would avoid non consent and incest like the plague. I am finding out many women read as well as write non consent-don't get it but okay- and many enjoy incest tales especially if there is a bit of romance.

It's not about male and female it is about individual tastes. But on the topic of the thread I have chosen a female name for my publishing for two reasons:

One supposedly women feel more comfortable buying porn written by a female and men (I can vouch for this one anyway) get more turned on thinking that it is a woman writing this nasty shit.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

When I started here I had the misconception that female readers would avoid non consent and incest like the plague. I am finding out many women read as well as write non consent-don't get it but okay- and many enjoy incest tales especially if there is a bit of romance.

It's not about male and female it is about individual tastes. But on the topic of the thread I have chosen a female name for my publishing for two reasons:

One supposedly women feel more comfortable buying porn written by a female and men (I can vouch for this one anyway) get more turned on thinking that it is a woman writing this nasty shit.

I believe the distinction between "male" and "female" porn is useful in a descriptive way, but it in no way means that one gender can't enjoy (and write) in the other's style. Women especially are very eclectic in their tastes, which range from soft, fuzzy romance that men wouldn't touch to sex scenes so raw and raunchy that they often take me by surprise, in the, "Wow! I never would have thought of doing that!" sense.

The big difference as I see it, is that male porn tends to typically be very visual and physically descriptive and lacking in internal life and character. It focuses on the physical act of sex and external appearances. If a story makes a point of mentioning her bra size or his penis length, it's probably written by a man.

Female porn is generally more concerned with emotion than physicality. As Stella says, that emotion doesn't have to be affection. It can just as easily be contempt or disdain or whatever (remember, The Story of O was written by a woman), but women's sexuality is a lot more emotionally-determined than men's.

Women are also much more interested in the social context of the sex, in the relative social status and relationship of the lovers. After all, before romance fiction became sexually explicit, the hugely popular romance genre was entirely based on stories involving status and relationship conflicts between lovers. Penis length and breast size weren't much of a factor.

There's another difference, and I expect I'll get some shit about this, but in general, women seem to have a sense of shame about sex, and most men don't. There certainly are erotic heroines who have no shame or reservation about being promiscuous, but they're pretty rare, and they all come off as suspiciously mannish. Women struggle with their desire for sex versus their sense of shame and reputation, and that gives almost every erotic heroine a built-in character conflict that's the source of most of the erotic tension in any porn story. How is she going to reconcile her desires with her sense of self-respect? Is she going to be won over by a romantic hero, or is she just going to be forced into sex as an innocent victim? That's why women like non-consent stories. They're a solution to that dilemma.

This internal conflict is why I find female sexuality so much more interesting than the male variety, which to me is pretty boring. Men will basically stick their dicks into anything. Women, though, have these internal conflicts along with that heightened emotional and social awareness that makes their responses a lot more complex and interesting to explore.

But even though I love writing from the female POV, I have no desire to try and pass myself off as a female author. The days when women would only discuss sexual matters with other women are long gone (witness what gos on here), and I'd much rather be known as a male author who can tell the male side of the story in a way that women can relate to. I don't think there's a lot of men working that angle at present, and that seems to be where I have most of my success.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Excellent observations, Doc.

One big flaw in much amateur women's writing-- I see it in slash fiction very often-- is that they will graft all of those conflicts onto the men they write. It's simply ridiculous to write a man having a conflict about a blowjob, or about a spanking. And they will make that conflict the plot point.

Or have men break down in a rain of tears. Or be timid and afraid because they admire their love interest so much.

But you know-- they aren't writing about men at all in those cases. Not really...