Using a pen name on Amaon, B&N, and Smashwords

For something like Smashwords, you'd probably want to create a second account, with which you would have the pen name. However, I believe with any of the accounts in which you are selling/buying a product, those will have your real name linked to them for payment reasons. How easy it is to actually link those from outside of the accounts, I'm not sure.

SBibb said:

For something like Smashwords, you'd probably want to create a second account, with which you would have the pen name. However, I believe with any of the accounts in which you are selling/buying a product, those will have your real name linked to them for payment reasons. How easy it is to actually link those from outside of the accounts, I'm not sure.

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Smashwords does require the pen name to be the account name. Your payment information will still be in your real name.

For Amazon, B&N and Kobo, I created accounts in a 'publisher' name, use my pen name as the author name and my real name still goes in the payment field. That was the best way I could figure out how to do it.

Alan Moore has written some pretty graphic erotica and used his name. I don't think you really need to be ashamed of your work.

neilfriske said:

Alan Moore has written some pretty graphic erotica and used his name. I don't think you really need to be ashamed of your work.

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It's fabulous someone as renowned as Alan Moore can write erotica and use his name*. Some of us aren't so lucky.

Sometimes it's not about us but about the people in our lives who can be adversely affected. My mother works in a politically sensitive office in a very small community. So it's not me being ashamed of writing erotica but about how it could fall back on her and make things harder for her if it's in my real name.

Hence, the pseudonym.

*and I'd love to get my hands on his erotica

neilfriske said:

Alan Moore has written some pretty graphic erotica and used his name. I don't think you really need to be ashamed of your work.

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It's often not a matter of "being ashamed". Someone who writes in different genres may not want their erotica to show up when a reader in the non-erotic genre looks for more book titles.

As an extreme example if you wrote erotica and childrens books you probably would want a pen name for one of those genres!

Bill