Monday, January 25, 2010

I've read that one...

So I recently discovered that one of my favorite authors writes under a different pen name. Picture me excited! Wow, more books!

Imagine my disappointment when I found them unavailable. I'd read an excerpt from one of them and meant to come back at paycheck time to buy the book. Like so many things in life, I forgot. Now that book isn't available on any site as far as I can tell.

Sigh. So this brings up something I've been meaning to talk about. I know of many authors who write under multiple names. They don't share that information with anyone else. Now once I find an author I like, I tend to track down everything they've written under all the other names they've used. However, if I don't know those other names, then I'm not likely to try books written by new-to-me authors. Money is too short.

There are numerous reasons to write under multiple names. Maybe you have a new name for each genre you write. Maybe the heat level is different for the different pen names. At one time (probably before most of my readers were reading) each publisher required a new pen name. That's fine. Just share that information with your readers! Otherwise, you'll miss out on sales.

This particular author is one I'll follow, hoping those books are eventually released. But hey! Life is short and my memory is shorter so the time may come when I just don't remember about this author. Too bad. I could really use a good book about now.

anny

4 comments:

  1. I write under three names now - who the hell am I? But yeah - it's all to do with heat and giving people a choice....and also screwing with someone's mind...I think you know who I mean...

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  2. I can't keep track of my one pen name, let alone more! LOL ;)

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  3. Were they in print? If so try used bookstores or paperbackswap.com.
    Most authors I follow that use more than one name say so on their websites and usually have a link to that other name's website. But sometimes it is important that they use a pen name. One author I read, her day job coworkers learned about her writing erotica and it caused problems. All her books were unavailable for a period of time while they fised the name on all of them. Luckily, most of her books were still just in ebook. Another author I read has four different names. One for each genre of books written.

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  4. I suppose that's a good reason to not use your own name, huh? That was my choice back when I started.

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