Hi Guys,
Sorry I'm late on this month's posting. I spent last week with my mom and sister's and I'm moving household this week. UGH! If I ever have to move again, I'm hiring someone else to do it for me.
Anyway, on to my writing topic for this month.
A lot has been said for the use of pen names especially since a teacher was fired because parents found out she wrote erotic romance and they felt she shouldn't be around their children.
Personally, I don't use a pen name, but then again, all my children are grown and I don't need to hide my true identity from anyone. I haven't been persecuted by my town or anyone either, over the fact that I write erotic romance. I can certainly see the give and take of using one even if you don't have children or whatever. I've thought about using a pen name, but now that I have so many books out in my real name, it would be like starting over with a fan base and I'm not sure I want to do that.
What about pen names for different genres? I've heard pro's and con's of that, too. I write everything under one name and I figured hopefully the posting of the genre within the description would make them different enough, the readers who don't like paranormal won't read those and anyone who doesn't like cowboys, won't read those. Of course, who doesn't like cowboys? Mmm...not me! LOL
So there is my take on pen names. Some use them and some don't. What's your thoughts?
Until next month
~ Sandy
Sandy,
ReplyDeleteI was going through this quandry a while back because there were so many people out there with the name Sandra K. Marshall. I use Google alerts to tell me if anything shows up about me, but I get all these other people, too.
Finally, I decided with the help of friends not to. For one thing, if I changed my name I would need a new website and a blog. Thinking of all the work that involved made me cringe. lol
I'm sticking with my name.
The other Sandy
I use two because I really didn't want my teenagers reading adult content. And now Kenzie has four covers while I only have 2 (mild pout, lol!) But then again, things will even out soon, I hope:)
ReplyDeleteI use two pen names too. One my family or friends know nothing about because they may disown me. And the other because my real name is usually mispronounced, and my hubby wanted privacy!!
ReplyDeleteDoesn't matter to me whether a person uses them or not, or what their day job is. Seems like a personal decision based upon what each individual author wants.
I hadn't heard she'd been fired. That's just awful. And scary that such a thing could happen to a fellow author.
I write under three names, Bobbye Terry, Daryn Cross and Terry Campbell. The last one is a co-written pen name, I'm Terry and she's Campbell. The distinction between my real name and Daryn Cross is Bobbye writes suspense and contemporary romance(mostly comedy)and Daryn writes the fantasy and science fiction. Does it help to have separate ones? In some ways. It also makes it more difficult because I have to promote both lines as relatively new authors. Most people know who Terry Campbell is by now.
ReplyDeleteBobbye
Hard enough to promo one name, and admire those with the stamina for two. My children are adult, but they at first were honestly shocked at some of my sex scenes. Now they think it's funny mama writes such stuff, but my DIL won't let my 13 year old granddaughter read my books yet.
ReplyDeleteFor those of you with numerous pen names - do you have different websites/blogs for each? That must be a tremendous amount of work.
ReplyDeleteKenzie has her own blog, which I blog at least once a week, and post info on writing/publishing updates.
ReplyDeleteShe also has her own page on my website, and as soon as I can, I'll be launching her own website. I'm also trying to keep things as simple as possible, so on social media, I split it: MD on Facebook, KM on Twitter. Almost everyone knows me as 'Molly', and when on chats, I use both names.
I have a blog and website for each. For Bobbye I have two websites, one for mystery and one for contemporary romance mainly because my website was www.BobbyeTerry-MysteryHappens.com and when I introduced my new novella series, The Lipstick Girls, it didn't fit. Bobbye is on Facebook and Daryn is on Twitter.
ReplyDeleteGreat question today.
ReplyDeleteI had a real estate career prior to writing, and I thought I'd use my real name more as a shock factor. "Do you know what she's doing now?" sort of thing, because I'd had been very successful.
There's been a little backlash (as you can imagine) with my daughter and husband, who still are in the RE business, but not something we can't live with, and they are great when it comes up.
If my SEAL stories get bought, I'm wondering on the real name thing. I have a pen name Angela Love for the erotic. That was a no-brainer. But don't want to cast clouds for my son, so have to think about that one. Anyone have thoughts?