Learn Writing with Uncle Jim, Volume 1

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smsarber

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There aren't any additional royalties. The author already got paid for that physical copy.

Remember that the number one reason anyone buys and reads a book is because the reader already read and enjoyed another book by that same author. So the author benefits that way -- the creation of another loyal fan.
Fans are where it's at, really, anyway. I want to make money writing, sure, but the gratification from somebody enjoying something I wrote is soooo good!
 

James D. Macdonald

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Pen Names. How do they work, and who decides them--you, the publisher, the agent?

The short answer is: All of the above.

How they work is this: That's the name printed on the front of the book under the word "by."

As to why you might want one:

1) You're writing a series book. The publisher owns the name, and that's the name on all the books in that series. Examples include the Tom Swift novels by Victor Appleton, Hardy Boys books by Franklin W. Dixon, and Nancy Drew books by Carolyn Keene.

2) It simplifies things. When a pair of authors work together, they may have a pseudonym for their joint effort. For example, when Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore wrote together, they published their novels under the name Lewis Padgett.

3) Your name might be confused with some other author's. If your name was Joanne K. Rowling or Stephen King or Dan Brown, your publisher would probably want you to write under a pseudonym.

4) The author may be very prolific, and may not want to go into competition with himself. Say there's an author who writes six novels a year. He may put those out under three different names, so that someone in the bookstore may say, "Wow! A new Charles Collingwood, a new Frederick Fane, and a new Rosa Belinda Coote! I like 'em all! I'll buy 'em all!" rather than saying, "Hmmm... three books by Charles Collingwood. I'll get this one."

5) The author may hate his name. For example, Sherwood Smith's name isn't Sherwood or Smith, but she really loathes the name that's on her driver's license.

6) Genre conventions dictate a particular kind of name on the jacket. Men's action/adventure novels usually have male names on 'em, romances usually have female names on 'em, regardless of the plumbing of the author.

7) The author may want to keep the various genres she writes separate, so that fans of her gritty urban procedurals won't be confused by picking up one of her cozy mysteries. Just as the number one reason someone reads a novel is they read and enjoyed a previous work, if they read and hated a previous work they won't pick up the next one by that same author.

8) The author may not want family/friends/church to know that he's writing steamy bodice-rippers (with a side-order of bodily fluids). Or an academic may not want the tenure committee to know that she's writing charming YA fantasies, lest they think she "isn't serious about academia."

9) The author may be caught in the order-to-net Death Spiral, where the only way out is to change the byline. (This is sometimes referred to as the "DAW Witness Protection Program.")

10) Or, maybe, the ever-popular Other.
 

maestrowork

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In the other column:

The author has an ethnic name and would like to be more universally appealing for a global market or cross-genre demographic. John Smith is easier to remember and more approachable than Sergei Krinzanaski.
 

smsarber

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I stand corrected. Definate case for a pen name if you want to be recognized as a woman;)

But could you imagine her erotica books with the name "Howard O'Brien" on the cover? I don't know much about that genre, but it is my estimation that not many men write erotica. They'd probably be labeled as perverts.

Now here comes the slew of responses to tell me I'm wrong...
 

James D. Macdonald

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Names that are difficult to spell, difficult to pronounce, or embarrassing, are, indeed, other places where you'll see pseuds.

John Shithousen will probably want to have some other name on the dust jacket.
 

Ken Schneider

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But, if you were a Publish America author, fear not. No need to use a fake name, for no one read your book anyway.

I should know.

For some reason or another I'd pick for me, Matt Dolphin.
 

pookel

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What about, you have a unique name, so that a reader who googled you could easily find personal information about you - old blog posts, photos, home address, phone number?

That's the situation I'm in, and I haven't decided yet whether to submit with a pen name when I get to that point. My name is not that long or hard to pronounce (although the surname is slavic) but everyone with my surname is a relative of mine and I'm the only one with this first name in the world, as far as I know.
 

Calliopenjo

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Uncle Jim,

Wasn't there a story called Rosebud? Something about a little old man looking for his favorite book that he loved so much he called it Rosebud? I seem to remember something like that. I tried Googling but all I get are movies and a short story magazine.

The other option is I'm remembering wrong.
 

Cyia

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Not to just jump in... but I thought Rosebud was a sled, not a book? I could be entirely wrong here and jumbling up more than one tale, but that's just my scrambled brain.

Citizen Cane bookends with "Rosebud" at the beginning and the burning of the sled at the end. (No one but Cane knew what the word meant)
 

Ken Schneider

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Uncle Jim,

Wasn't there a story called Rosebud? Something about a little old man looking for his favorite book that he loved so much he called it Rosebud? I seem to remember something like that. I tried Googling but all I get are movies and a short story magazine.

The other option is I'm remembering wrong.


Rosebud was a house/Mansion, and there was a movie about it?
 
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