When people talk about creating a pseudonym for their writing, most existing writers fall into two camps…the “no, never” camp that thinks it’s better for people to find you as easily as possible and the “well, what if you write in different genres” camp where people are afraid your reader will pick up your book expecting your traditional Western and get your erotic thriller instead, and presumably be unhappy. Or vica versa. (As an aside, there’s something strangely amusing about the reader looking for an erotic thriller and getting a Western instead while thinking, “What’s going to happen with the horse?”, but I digress.)

I confess that on occasion I have thought of pushing out some fiction under a different name. Mostly because I love the idea of writing anonymously for fiction. It would feel a bit subversive to me, almost clandestine. I have this illusion of seeing someone I know reading my book but having no idea that I wrote it. But that’s just a fanciful dream, at least until I ever get around to finishing anything fiction-related. But when ThePassiveVoice shared an article from Nail Your Novel, I had to click.

The article runs through the basics early on:

• The “pseudo-excitement’ of using initials;
• Gender-specific names depending on the genre;
• Trying to sound like a specific nationality (or alternatively not);
• Having multiple identities for separate markets (like genres or fiction/non-fiction);
• Separating writing from other employment roles;

It talks though too about the ability to keep your real name separate (with a good link to Kristen Lamb’s post too):

But these days… is there anywhere to hide?

… Read the rest