Querying Under a PenName/Silly Email Address

Query using your legal name. Your pen-name comes later. You can query as "legal name, writing as pen name" but you want agents to focus on your book, not your name, so in my view it's better to deal with that later.

If your email address is unprofessional, I'd change it. Get a more serious-sounding address and use it just for querying.

I set up a separate email account for querying that is my pen name. It's more professional to have a name as your email account. And also that way I can check it only once a day when I'm querying so I'm not jumping when my phone pings. I then sign my queries: [FULL LEGAL NAME], writing as [PEN NAME]."

Couldn't you create an email account for your pen name or is that considered a bad thing for some reason?

Getting a domain is pretty cheap these days, and gives you full control over your email address.

mayqueen said:

And also that way I can check it only once a day when I'm querying so I'm not jumping when my phone pings.

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You're made of sterner stuff than I. When I send out new queries, I check my email roughly 3752 times a day.

You can query using your pen name. There is no need to reveal your real name, unless you want to, until an agent offers representation. Even then, you do not have to reveal your real name. Some authors choose to remain anonymous. All an agent or publisher needs to know is where/how to send a check. When you are ready for thoughts on check cashing, you can set up a DBA, ISP or LLC for your pen name in order to get an EIN for tax purposes. Of course, as with any legal advice, check with your local, state or country laws and get sound legal advice from a legal professional.

As for email, yes, always use a professional looking email, one which matches the name you are using for that query. The name, in some guise, should appear in the email address. So, John Dough can be [email protected], johndough1, jdwriter, etc., but never be [email protected], unless it is the title of your novel. It's been stated by agents that queries with unprofessional emails are not taken seriously.

I have a separate email account for queries in my real name, which is different from the one I use for other business purposes. I have one for my pen name, for queries sent for ms using the pen name.

This allows for my record keeping to be tidy. I know my query account won't be bombarded with emails from tire companies or business associates. I can easily keep track of queries for each round of querying for real name, or pen name projects.

Anything to give you less worries is desirable.

horrorchix89 said:

This is a two part question. I want to publish under a pen name for various reasons. Do I have to include my legal name in the query letter or just the pen name? Should I even mention the pen name?

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You sign off:
Pen Name (pen name for Legal Name)
or
Legal Name (writing as Pen Name)

Your agent is going to have to know your legal name for contracts, as will your publisher.

Also, when they ask for contact information, should I create a brand new email address? My current one isn't really silly and it's basically my name here, but I've had it for a good 7 years and I don't want agents thinking it's childish.

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Get a dedicated email. This is a business relationship. You absolutely DON'T want to use a silly email.

LuckyStar said:

You can query using your pen name. There is no need to reveal your real name, unless you want to, until an agent offers representation. Even then, you do not have to reveal your real name. Some authors choose to remain anonymous. All an agent or publisher needs to know is where/how to send a check. When you are ready for thoughts on check cashing, you can set up a DBA, ISP or LLC for your pen name in order to get an EIN for tax purposes. Of course, as with any legal advice, check with your local, state or country laws and get sound legal advice from a legal professional.

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Bad advice, I'm afraid, LuckyStar.

The relationship between agent and writer has to be one of trust. If a writer doesn't trust their agent enough to tell them who they are then they are unlikely to be able to work together effectively. One has to use one's legal name to sign contracts, too, which makes it even more important to be honest up-front.

As for email, yes, always use a professional looking email, one which matches the name you are using for that query. The name, in some guise, should appear in the email address. So, John Dough can be [email protected], johndough1, jdwriter, etc., but never be [email protected], unless it is the title of your novel. It's been stated by agents that queries with unprofessional emails are not taken seriously.

I have a separate email account for queries in my real name, which is different from the one I use for other business purposes. I have one for my pen name, for queries sent for ms using the pen name.

This allows for my record keeping to be tidy. I know my query account won't be bombarded with emails from tire companies or business associates. I can easily keep track of queries for each round of querying for real name, or pen name projects.

Anything to give you less worries is desirable.

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There's no need at all for an author's name or pseudonym to appear in any form in their email address.

To piggyback on this a little, how literally do you have to take "legal name"? If you're a Robert Smith, who always goes by Rob, is it all right to sign as Rob Smith? If you're like me and use your middle name, is it acceptable to put your first initial, middle name, and last name? I get that obviously you have to have your full legal names on contracts and tax forms, but it seems awkward to sign with a name that you never actually use in other contexts. I've learned with job searching that it can be awkward to have one name on all your communications but then ask people to call you something different.

As for the e-mail question, I think it's a good idea to have a professional-sounding e-mail address, and it's also good to have one with your name in it. And having an author e-mail can be handy for keeping your writing-relared e-mails in one place.

DancingMaenid said:

To piggyback on this a little, how literally do you have to take "legal name"? If you're a Robert Smith, who always goes by Rob, is it all right to sign as Rob Smith? If you're like me and use your middle name, is it acceptable to put your first initial, middle name, and last name? I get that obviously you have to have your full legal names on contracts and tax forms, but it seems awkward to sign with a name that you never actually use in other contexts. I've learned with job searching that it can be awkward to have one name on all your communications but then ask people to call you something different.

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Sign your queries using the name you use in your everyday life. So in your example, Rob is fine. If you use your middle name then again, use that. Just don't pretend to be someone you're not.

As for the e-mail question, I think it's a good idea to have a professional-sounding e-mail address, and it's also good to have one with your name in it. And having an author e-mail can be handy for keeping your writing-relared e-mails in one place.

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A professional-sounding email is useful (I'd say essential). But it doesn't have to use your name: it can use something completely different, so long as it's not embarrassing or foolish.

Old Hack said:

Sign your queries using the name you use in your everyday life. So in your example, Rob is fine. If you use your middle name then again, use that. Just don't pretend to be someone you're not.

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One thing I've always been curious about is how people who want to keep their gender anonymous (at least initially) during the querying process because of possible subconscious bias against their gender for the genre or subgenre they write. Obviously, if one's name is somewhat gender neutral, like Ari or Evan, then it would be less of an issue. But if your name is something like Mary or Steve, then your gender will be pretty clear.

Roxxsmom said:

One thing I've always been curious about is how people who want to keep their gender anonymous (at least initially) during the querying process because of possible subconscious bias against their gender for the genre or subgenre they write. Obviously, if one's name is somewhat gender neutral, like Ari or Evan, then it would be less of an issue. But if your name is something like Mary or Steve, then your gender will be pretty clear.

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This is a really important point, Roxx. The optimist in me says that when querying agents there's no need to worry but I have to admit that I've seen that bias happen (I've only ever seen male agents reject female writers because of this bias: never any other combination, which doesn't mean it doesn't happen). Initials and last name would be a useful combination here: it's the truth, but it still provides that protection.

Well that's depressing. I guess, if an agent was that ignorant or shortsighted, you wouldn't want to work with them anyway.
But still.

That bias works both ways. I saw someone a couple years back talking about how "difficult" (or "out of the box") the novel she was querying was and how none of the women she'd queried would touch it, but she'd gotten requests from male agents - whom she then categorized as bolder and more willing to take risks, and therefore a better judge of content.

*shrugs*

I queried with my author name (A.G. Carpenter) on the MS but my email address had my full name in it, and I signed the queries with my full name. I don't know if it made a difference one way or another - I was querying an SF/F MS, not women's fiction or literary. (Where I've heard those biases are stronger.)

Old Hack said:

This is a really important point, Roxx. The optimist in me says that when querying agents there's no need to worry but I have to admit that I've seen that bias happen (I've only ever seen male agents reject female writers because of this bias: never any other combination, which doesn't mean it doesn't happen). Initials and last name would be a useful combination here: it's the truth, but it still provides that protection.

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I was thinking it might be a factor for men querying romance novels too, but as I write epic fantasy (a genre with many women writing novels that end up mid list but where most of the top-selling names still seem to be male), I worry that subconscious bias (at least) could be a thing in some genres. I know more agents and editors these days are saying they're looking for diverse and underrepresented voices, but if books by diverse and underrepresented authors don't sell as well overall, well, publishing is a business first and foremost.

The thing with using initials is that it sort of screams that you're hiding your gender more than a name associated with the other gender. But many agents want to check out prospective clients' social media and blogs these days too, so unless you're going to hide your gender on those, it seems impossible anyway.

Laurasaurus said:

Well that's depressing. I guess, if an agent was that ignorant or shortsighted, you wouldn't want to work with them anyway.
But still.

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Nice, professional people can still have subconscious biases, though. I think we all do to some extent. And if novels by women don't tend to sell as well in some genres, then a person who really does support diversity but makes their own living from 15% of their authors' royalties and advances might be faced with an unpleasant business decision. Though once they pick an author up, they might simply suggest that the author pick a gender-neutral pen name (though in this era when authors are expected to have a social media presence and hustle their own novels, hiding one's gender from anything but casual scrutiny would be really hard).

Old Hack said:

Bad advice, I'm afraid, LuckyStar.

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You mean, bad advice, Janet Reid:

http://jetreidliterary.blogspot.com/2017/01/querying-t-but-pre-everything.html

http://jetreidliterary.blogspot.com/2009/03/you-think-im-tough-meet-my-spam-filter.html

http://jetreidliterary.blogspot.com/2010/01/what-you-need-before-you-query.html

Janet has spoken about these topics numerous times.

You can search online to find more about pen names and professional email addresses.

LuckyStar said:

You mean, bad advice, Janet Reid:

http://jetreidliterary.blogspot.com/2017/01/querying-t-but-pre-everything.html

http://jetreidliterary.blogspot.com/2009/03/you-think-im-tough-meet-my-spam-filter.html

http://jetreidliterary.blogspot.com/2010/01/what-you-need-before-you-query.html

Janet has spoken about these topics numerous times.

You can search online to find more about pen names and professional email addresses.

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The only one of these three links where she actually says it's a good idea to query under a different name from the one you've been using for everyday life up until now is the case where the person who was asking is transgender and in the process of transitioning and legally changing his name. In this case, I think she'd suggest that his e-mail and the name he's using in the query should still match. She also suggested that the queryer tell the agent that he is transgender in the housekeeping part of the letter.

The second link says that her spam filter will block your query if your e-mail name doesn't match your send name. This would imply that it's a bad idea to use a pseudonym when querying, unless your e-mail also has that name in it. It also means that if you're a woman who has recently married (or divorced), or that you've changed your name recently for another reason, that e-mail that still has your maiden or previous married name isn't a good choice to use, unless your settings allow you to change it to the name you're actually querying under.

This suggests that Reid's answer to the OP would be, no, you should not query agents with a silly e-mail address that isn't the name you're querying as, which is essentially what Old Hack was saying too. Some may not care or notice, but some might, and some (like Janet Reid) won't even see your query at all, because it will end up in their spam bucket.

The third one doesn't (from my skim of it) mention this issue at all, but is a list enumerating the different requirements for queries for novels, memoirs and non fiction.

Roxxsmom said:

The only one of these three links where she actually says it's a good idea to query under a different name from the one you've been using for everyday life up until now is the case where the person who was asking is transgender and in the process of transitioning and legally changing his name. In this case, I think she'd suggest that his e-mail and the name he's using in the query should still match. She also suggested that the queryer tell the agent that he is transgender in the housekeeping part of the letter.

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Yeah, that's a little different than just using a pen name. I'm non-binary, and not wanting to be misgendered is the main reason I wouldn't want to use my legal first name on correspondence. I would still use a name that I go by, whether that happens to be a name that I write under or not.

Not to derail, LuckyStar, but...

Janet Reid has a lot of great advice on her blog, but she is a single agent. When I was getting ready to query one thing the folks over here in Query Letter Hell told me was that "Log-lines have no place in a query letter." They were adamant. They said Janet Reid was the source for that rule, that she hated log-lines in query letters.

And then, while I was querying I used a cut down version of my query that replaced the three paragraph summary of the book with a three sentence log-line. I got just as many requests (percentage-wise) as I had with the longer letter. Including a request from the agent I would sign with a few weeks later who referred to it as an excellent query.

Some pieces of advice are widespread. Some have more or less a single source but are repeated so much we take them as "industry wisdom". Be careful about taking something you see on a single agent's blog as gospel truth because some things are just individual preference. Especially when contradicting other industry professionals.

I was merely using Janet Reid as a quick example, since I notice people use her as a reference.
Anyone who has questions about the business of writing, or writing in general, should research widely. That would also go for anything someone wishes to endeavor, not just writing.

I've been in the publishing business for over 30 years, long before bloggers and forums doling out writing advice on a daily basis. I don't use Janet Reid, or anyone else as a bible. I do read her blog, among many others, to keep up with what is current.

Writing is a business. A professional email address makes sense. That is my opinion, and that is my advice to anyone asking the question.

Others may not agree, but it is not "bad advice."