I don't know whether I'm right or wrong, but I've gone with the trad trend.
Any stories that are 'steamy' are published under Ellie Jones, so readers don't get confused. I'd like to hear other peoples take on it, though. I realise it doesn't look as if I have as many books out there.

 

I write in multiple genres and don't use pen names, since I trust readers to be able to look at the cover and read the blurb and determine whether this book is something they want to read or not. And I think it's easier to build a name and a following under one name rather than under multiple names.

When I started writing, I decided that using a pen name was a dealbreaker for me. Everything I publish is under my real name. If I were to see some other person's name on a book I wrote, it would no longer feel like mine. I know it's a personal quirk that other authors don't share. But then, it seems to me as if Americans are less attached to their real names anyway.

I can understand using two different names if you were writing both children's books and erotica, where confusions could be problematic and lead to enraged parents calling for your head. But for crime fiction and SF/fantasy I don't think it's necessary.

 

One bit of advice that should carry lots of weight: Don't use multiple pen names; it doubles/triples/quadruples/etc. the amount of promoting you have to do... so think time, money, frustration.

 

OFF Topic: WHY are there young Asian girls on the bottom of this thread FREAKY to see it on the KB!! Is this NEW? Or have I been gone that long?

 

I started out using my real name for a sci-fi novel and then I decided to use a pen-name for my murder mysteries. I wasn't sure what to do when I wrote a romantic suspense novel but in the end I used the pen-name for that too. In some ways I wanted to use a different pen-name in case readers were confused, but I didn't think I could cope with building up another name from the start.
If I ever finish my re-write of my historical novel, I'll probably publish it under my real name.

 

Meredith, I don't see any.

To the OP, I write in multiple genres and use a pen name for each one. I not only do this to keep from confusing readers, but to also keep my younger audience from reading the more mature novels/short stories. However, I have to say that yes, it takes a lot more promotion. This is why one of the genres I write is on auto-pilot. I do not promotion for it, and thus far, it's done rather well.

I focus on my fantasy as far as an online presence is concerned. You can also post links to your other writing in your author bio if you want to cross-promote.

One downside of lobbing everything together is if you get interviewed by a blogger or write a guest posts. What kind of author do you they you are? The whole point of using our names is so we can brand ourselves. If your brand is thriller, romance and fantasy, bloggers among other things won't know where to promote you.

Another is that if books in one genre flop for you, folks might not be inclined to try some of your other works. Keeping every genre separate under different names can make it easier for you to start over if A) you run out of material, B) you need a break or C) your thrillers aren't doing so well, but your fantasy is.

So, that's what decided it for me. I'm an author who writes fantasy for all ages. So long as it isn't steamy and involves fantastical elements, it goes onto my main site.

 

I've written Young Adult, Horror, and Women's Fiction, all under the same name. I'm working on a YA horror novel, and then will be writing an Adult suspense novel. I trust readers will find the work of mine that they're interested in. I toyed with the idea of creating a few pen names in the beginning, but it just seemed like way too much work!!

 

I write in multiple genres and don't use pen names, since I trust readers to be able to look at the cover and read the blurb and determine whether this book is something they want to read or not. And I think it's easier to build a name and a following under one name rather than under multiple names.

When I started writing, I decided that using a pen name was a dealbreaker for me. Everything I publish is under my real name. If I were to see some other person's name on a book I wrote, it would no longer feel like mine. I know it's a personal quirk that other authors don't share. But then, it seems to me as if Americans are less attached to their real names anyway.

I can understand using two different names if you were writing both children's books and erotica, where confusions could be problematic and lead to enraged parents calling for your head. But for crime fiction and SF/fantasy I don't think it's necessary.

I'm with Cora on this. I write across genres, but there's a style and sensibility to my writing (or my voice, if you will) that is pretty consistent throughout. Therefore, I feel that someone who likes the style of my contemporary fantasy might also enjoy a psychological thriller written by me, too. Also, just as many writers write across genres, many readers read across genres, too - myself being one of them.

 

It is so much work for an Indie to brand one name that I can't see using pen names unless erotica is involved.

 

Even though I have a variety of genres (mainstream short stories, scifi novellas, and a fantasy series coming up) I'm posting them all under one name. I'm tempted by pen names, and I can see E.S. Lark's reasoning, so I won't completely rule it out. But I've already gone pretty far with my various genres as Emily Ann Ward, so it's kind of be hard now.

My goal is to try to publish more than one book in each genre for people who enjoyed something. Like I only have one scifi novella, and if someone who enjoyed it doesn't read fantasy or short stories, I've lost that reader's sales. So I have a goal to put out another similar book. I'm sure most people already have done that, I'm just catching up and trying to put more than 3 books up!

 

My first published books were children's books and I used Janet Hurst-Nicholson. But when I overheard a woman say that her husband won't read books written by a woman I decided to use the gender neutral Jan Hurst-Nicholson for my novels. My novels are different genres (humour, family saga, YA action adventure) but I didn't want to use yet another name so I wrote them all under Jan Hurst-Nicholson. It can get very complicated to market yourself if you have several names (It can also cause problems if someone sends you a cheque in your pen name  )

Some trad publishers now try to cover both by having the cover say 'by Joe Bloggs, writing as Fred Smith' so that readers know who the author is, but also realise that the author is writing in a different style or genre.

 

I'll go a step further than the excellent advice given to you by E.S Lark

Don't write in multiple genres.

Writing in multiple genres under one name actually breaks your brand - it's like McDonald's saying that half the time they'll sell hamburgers and the other half they'll sell vegetarian options. All it does is confuse people and make them ask, "What is he again?" It ends up doing the exact opposite of what branding is supposed to do, which is to make your name synonymous with one "aspect" (it's up to you to decide what that aspect is.)

However, the posters are absolutely correct in that promoting multiple pen names (especially as an indie author) is near impossible.

What I advise is just write in one genre and really build up your name and your backlist in that genre. Once you are a well-known name you can start *slowly* branching out of that genre while keeping it under your original name. By then people will be familiar enough with you that they'll be willing to follow you in other writing territories.

I wrote a blog series on branding. While I do not claim to be the ultimate expert, hopefully some things said there might help you define for yourself where you want to proceed as it relates to branding yourself.

http://www.castlesandguns.com/search/label/Branding

 

Personally, I probably wouldn't bother. I think it'd be a pain to keep up with. It's hard work to get a following; do you really want to have to do that every time you release something in a new or different sub genre?

If you were writing, say, Erotica and YA, then I might consider it, but that would be my personal choice. There are authors--even some mid/big name ones--who write hot and write YA, so... I don't think there's really any hard, fast rule about this, unless you have no other choice.

I'll have a hard enough time promoting one name, let alone 2 or more.

 

Don't write in multiple genres.

Or combine them. Scary ray gun wielding dragons in love.

 

Or combine them. Scary ray gun wielding dragons in love.

But that sounds so cool!

 

I thought about using a Pen name for my switch over to hard-boiled detective from fantasy, I even had a name picked out, Raymond Warren (my grandfather's first and middle names) but desided that it wasn't true to me to hid behind a fake name so I went ahead and will release everything as myself.

Also I would have had to get Killing to Know's cover redone which would have been a pain.

 

I'm in the single name camp on this.  I write in literary fiction and also in literary humor, and I keep it all under T.R. Hull.  It's impossible to get ONE name recognized.  Getting my real name and a pen name recognized would be double impossible.  I thought briefly of using the pen name Opie Thomas (long story behind that) but I decided it would sound a little frivolous when the Nobel committee announces the prize in literature someday.  What if William Faulkner had written under a pseudonym?  "And the prize in literature goes to Bucky Johnson."

 

I really don't see it as necessary to have different pen names unless you're varying the age range of your intended audience. As someone else mentioned, if you were going to publish erotica and YA then it would make sense to have different names. Otherwise you're just multiplying your work.

 

I don't know whether I'm right or wrong, but I've gone with the trad trend.
Any stories that are 'steamy' are published under Ellie Jones, so readers don't get confused. I'd like to hear other peoples take on it, though. I realise it doesn't look as if I have as many books out there.

Not sure the multiple pen names issue holds much weight in traditional publishing anymore. George R.R. Martin seems to be doing quite fine writing both YA and adult fantasy books. Personally, I never understood the fascination with using multiple pen names. But I can see why author who wrote childrens books and erotica would consider it.

 

I like my multiple pen names - they distinguish the different parts of my personality from each other when I'm writing "as" one of them rather than under my own name (my pen names are all "me"...it's not like I feel separate from them or anything). My voice is similar, but different for each genre, and I find it easier to get "into" the correct voice I need on any given day when I know I'm writing as one of my pseudonyms. Because my writing is so different across genre, I do think it helps readers to know that depending on which name one of my books is under, they'll get a specific type of experience - no guessing. I don't hide my pen names, so readers who want to cross over can do so easily, and readers who don't can easily avoid the books of mine they know they won't enjoy. Conversely, people who may not like my real name titles might be more likely to give the other names a try.

Personally, I don't care for it when I know an author I like to read writes multiple genres under one name, and I have to pay closer attention when looking at the blurb to decide whether that particular book is one I might like. Call me lazy, but I'm more likely to just skip it if I think it even might be something other than the genre I like the author for - I do read across genres, but I don't just blindly follow an author into a new one just because their name is on it.

But I'm a person who likes everything very neatly delineated too...and pen names make that easier for me, both as a reader & a writer. And I'm not a heavy promoter either - I'm of the school of thought that more books will equal more visibility better than anything else, so aside from the basic blog/FB/Twitter, I do very little promotion for any of my names. So it's not all that much more work for me, personally. If you're big into promotion and selling a lot right away, yeah, it would definitely be a lot more work to have more names.

 

I stewed over this as well, but decided to go with just the one pen name. As other people have said, it can make promotion a lot more difficult if you have a lot of different pseudonyms. Also, most of what I write is romance, only in different sub-genres -- paranormal, SF, steampunk, etc. -- so I'm hoping if people like one of my romances, they might give another one a try even if it's SF romance as opposed to paranormal, or what-have-you.

 

I have this problem, as you see from below. Even if I had separate pseudonyms for the HistRoms and Fantasy, what do I do about the non-fiction? I need a backlist to give credence to its contents.

Then there's the timescale of bringing a book to launch. I'm a one-a-year sorta gal, not a one-a-month. I just don't work that fast.

However, I have a rights-reverted Western in the offing - and I do mean Western, not Western Romance - so what would you have me do with that? I'm putting it out under the pseudonym I had to use for the print edition. Who wants to read a 'drag 'em out, hang 'em high' Western by some woman called Linda Acaster? LOL! But it will live or wither with very little promotion, at least for the foreseeable future. Hey ho....

 

I've been pondering this question for some time now and have decided to use a pen name for anything erotic or sexually explicit. Anything else is going under my own name.

 

Writing in multiple genres under one name actually breaks your brand -

Hi Danielle - thanks for writing back. I understand the intuitive power of what you're suggesting here--it's why I asked the question, after all--but have you actually experienced this yourself or seen authors who have lost readers entirely because of polluting/diluting their single-genre brand?

I ask because I wonder if our brave new world of epublishing works by different rules, now...and that readers buying their books electronically are smart enough to jump genres with us if we make it clear in our packaging.

 

I'm currently pondering this too. I've written historical romance under CJ Archer so far (a pen name) but have a YA historical paranormal romance trilogy in the pipeline. Since the adult HRs have sex in them, I wonder if I should clearly distinguish between the 2 genres with a different name without making a secret of the fact I write both. The HRs are not erotica by any means but a YA reader may not want to read anything of that nature. But I REALLY don't want to promote under another name. On the other hand I'd love to write under my own name and I don't want to dilute my brand...

That was a very unhelpful post, sorry Mathew.    I think if you (a) like the name you're writing under, (b) think readers will cross genres with you, and (c) can write prolifically in both genres so as not to annoy the readers of one genre who think you're forgetting about them in favour of your other readers/genre, then you should keep all books under 1 name.  Just my take and I can see the points on both sides.