Contented sigh.
I've finally gone and done it. I started yet another genre, and have finished my first short story in it. It's a hottie, and a fun read. Now I have to decide something on a more serious note.
Do I develope yet another pen name to cover this genre?
What say ye who hold many pens? Does it truly help to divide your genres? Do your readers cross-over anyway? If they do, do you find it is still appreciated that you keep your works seperated?
Does it help having different pen names if you let everyone know it's still you?
Do you feel it weakens your marketing ability to have so many different pen-names, where you could be building one on a stronger level using all your tools to create that one rather than several?
Whew, okay lots of questions for a Saturday morning, but something that is very important to me at this time. So I truly appreciate any and all help, and suggestions.
18 comments:
I write erotic, so any genre that is under that umbrella would go under my pen name, Skylar Sinclair. Now, if I wrote non-erotic works, then I would pen under a different name because my readers expect Skylar to write heated tales that cross all the genres.
Just my humble two cents worth,
Skylar Sinclair.
www.skylarsinclair.com
I'm still in debate over pen or not. I use my own name even though I write erotic. If family & friends don't like it, too bad. But I have wondered if I might not like to use a different name just for the fun of it. I love naming my characters.
I plan to finish a children's story, and while I think maybe I'll use a different name, I wonder what the benefit would be.
People shop by categories online and in stores. And several times I've seen books by whom I thought was the same author under two different genres, only to find out they are two different writers with the same name. Leading me to belief if I were to use a pen name, I'd probably pick one that I didn't know someone else used.
Buyers are the ones that should stay informed as to what they're buying, so I'll probably keep my one name unless it becomes an unforeseeable problem.
Everyone has their reasons for using different names. Mine is simple.
"If you're name is famous, but it's not your name, how do you expect to prove you are the author?"
Brenda
www.BrendaWilliamson.com
Well, I write Romance under Kendra, Erotica under Tigra-Luna and F/F, M/M etc under Remmy! and if I decided to write like mystery or something like that i would use my real name...I dont know...I guess i just have a thing for names!
I have been looking at the use of a pen name.. for an erotica story I am writing with someone else.. I think that you should do what you have to do. After all, it is either fun or necessary to protect your identity. Personally, it seems like good fun.. and might add a little spice to sales. =)
If everyone knows it's you, why use another name?
Someone - a publisher or an editor - did a piece not long ago how publishers were getting upset about authors publishing with several houses and were beginning to put exclusivity clauses in their contracts. Well, that makes me upset!
When a house can contract that they will buy and publish and promote my books at a level that assures me a decent living, they have the right to ask for exclusivity.
If they won't, why should I restrict myself? No one is looking out for me but me, so why should a publishing house dictate what and where I should be able to sell?
Isn't it hard enough and time consuming enough to market one name?
As far as crossing ratings and genres, wouldn't the publisher have it listed or rated?
Should the level of kink in a book or type of pairing (m/m or m/f or m/m/f) etc really come as a surprise in a book?
If you talk about your different pennames or if you will be cross-listing links and whatnot in the hopes of getting cross-over readers why not make it easier for them by keeping the same name.
Well, this is the way to do things isn't it? Ask a question and then leave for the day. :)
Sorry guys, but at the same time, thanks for so much imput to this puzzling issue.
It's great if your readers just accept every genre you write, Skylar. I really think that's how it should be. The real issue started for me when I branched off from mainstream romance and took off into erotica. That's when I adopted my first pen.
I didn't hide under it, I simply let folks know that 'this name writes romance and womens fic, and that name writes erotica' and I was comfortable with that.
I liked feeling like no one was going to pick something up and be shocked by its content if it wasn't what they were used to from Tami Parrington.
That's a good point Brenda... and like I said up above, why I first chose a pen. Not that it's nearly as dramatic as shifting from erotic to childrens, THAT would really be a shocker to some teen (they probably would like it, but that's another story altogether). My kids high-school has all of my previous romances... I'm pretty sure it's a good thing that I seperated my erotica with a different pen name, just for that situation. LOL
Anonymous--there is that too, the different names can be fun.
Yep, Ella-when you write hot stuff, sometimes there's a big benefit to a pen name.
Veldane- Hi there and big hugs for venturing over and answering. The spike to the sales is one of the issues I had concerning this though. After working hard to build an audience for one new name, now going off and having to re-build again with another can be trying, and lead to a longer time between sales picking up.
Kay, you did answer my email, and I have it 'starred' and archived, and etched in my brain (that hurt by the way). You know how much I treasure your opinions.
I'm not really sure I 'NEED' to keep the names unknown. For me that would be kind of difficult. Why, I don't know--a good Gemini girl like myself should be able to juggle many without problem. Vanity... maybe that's it. LOL Nah, but really, it's more a matter of not really wanting to have to rebuild 'totally', yet wanting a seperation of genres, or in the case of erotica and homoerotica, the subgenres.
Actually I just can't see Tammy Lee writing anything nearly as dark and hot as 'Love Sucks'. I have to think of an alter ego to fit this new personality split of mine. Muuuuahahaha
Anonymous #2--Harlequin did that for a long time. It's an old trick that most publishers can't get away with any more. Not even ones like Harlequin. (They weren't the only one, but they got the most heat for it a few years back.)
Partly I can see why they'd do it from a business standpoint--but it's still not fair to the authors and I'm glad we (as a whole) got the balls to stand up and cry foul on that issue.
Thanks again everyone for all the food for thought. I'm pretty sure I'm going to select a new pseudo for the new genre, and now pretty sure that I won't even bother to hide it.
Big hugs.
Writers I admire, like Elizabeth Peters, Lois McMasters Bujold, and Aaron Elkins, write several different lines of fiction under the same name. (Peters is a pseudo, I think Elkins is his real name, Bujold definitely is.) But none of them are writing steamy sex.
I'm using Lee Rowan for erotic romance because at this point that's all I've written. I'd like to go into mainstream mysteries and will probably use a different name for that. If I did a kids' book, (and I've actually got an idea for one,) I'd use my real name.
As far as different sorts of romance... Somebody said awhile back, on one of the lists, that 'market research says' different names for different genres = more sales. I suppose that's because somebody who picked up a book with too much (or too little) sex isn't going to try the same author again. I do that to some degree, but it's generally based on excerpts... if the characters catch my interest, and how well the writer can write.
Go with your gut instinct. If it feels right to use a new name, then do so. If not, then don't. Your internal writer won't steer you wrong. The trouble is that few writers truly listen to it.
Why would you need a pen name?
When I write, I don't care what the subject material will cover, just so long as the plot is strong, the characters are interesting and solid, and there is enough there to hold the reader's interest.
And when all is said and done, the book had damned well better have my NAME on the front cover! lol
Having a pen name just "weakens" your ability to properly pitch your work--unless you're a well known author (Stephen King for example).
But this is my opinion and shouldn't be taken all that seriously.
Sky
See, that's how I feel, Rowan.
You got that right, Zinnia. I think sometimes we think too hard, and don't listen to that voice way enough.
Schyler, I can see your point, and never think your opinion doesn't matter. All are valued here. I wouldn't have asked otherwise.
It's a funny kind of thing though when those genres get so wide... and where in some cases there might be folks who would take offense. I don't care personally, I love whatever I do, that's why I do it, and in a perfect world it shouldn't matter a hill of beans, and no one should take offense...
this isn't a perfect world though.
Really, I don't want to 'trick' people. And in some ways I can see someone who's read, and enjoyed one of the 'sweet' romances feeling duped into buying a hot and heavy sex story if my name is on it thinking it would be in the same vein as the other.
The thing too though is that one a different board where I asked, one of the responders said she hated pens because she'd lost track of several favorite authors that way and had a much harder time tracking down their work--my main reason for not hiding the names.
Hot and dark homoerotica?
Give, give, GIVE!!! Where can I get it? Huh?
Oh, you're such a tease...
:-)
For me, pseudonyms are just convenient markers that delineate the different types of work I do. I don't care if no one ever knows it's "me" somewhere in those pages, as long as it gets read and (hopefully) enjoyed.
Besides, with a lot of the stuff I write, if it ever gets "big" I would rather people not know where I live... (G)
LOL, good point Sonya. Actually I'd rather people not no where I live in any case. I've had some seriously 'stalker' fans even with my mainstream. It's scary enough online.
Of course, not like they could actually find me if they did know my address. One benefit to living in one of those, go to the big rock on Booker hill and turn at the dirt road that runs along the crik. When you see the beehive in Tallywagger field you're almost there, type places. LOL
As for where to get the hot, dark, homoerotica... stay tuned for further information. Its been submitted. Cross your fingers for me. :)
I'd go with Ella's. IMHO, you only need 2 names: one for mainstream and one for adult material (let it be erotic, m/m, w/w/, or any other combination).
Of course, you might also have your real name to cash the checks! lol.
J.H. Bográn said...
I'd go with Ella's. IMHO, you only need 2 names: one for mainstream and one for adult material (let it be erotic, m/m, w/w/, or any other combination).
That's my thinking precisely!
I use my same pen name for everything right now, but if I ever move into a purely mainstream mode with a novel or series, I would differentiate. I don't agree with many of the attitudes in the U.S. not the tactics of those that hold to them...but I have to deal with them...
Okay, beter late than never. I developed Sapphire Phelan since the erotic stuff was way different than normal horror, scifi and fantasy. I do have two erotic dark fantasies coming out in an anthology by Coyote Moon Publications this eyars by pamela K. Kinney, but this was way before I decided to add this other pen name. Another author had a concern about writing erotica over her regular romance and made a pen name for that. Some days I think I'm a two-faced person amnd right now no seperate website for Sapphire--can't afford it. If psuh comes to show and I get famous enough under thata nd publishers ask, then yeah. But I know who I am, and honestly Kinney is my maiden name that i published poetry long ago and wanted to keep that and not use my married name. They even call my hubby Mr. Kinney-LOL. And that's not his last name.
Do what you want--it's your decision in the long run.
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