Pros & Cons of Writing Under A Pen Name

hi everyone Alexa done here and today I am going over the pros and cons of using a pen name or a pseudonym you'll hear it use both ways but I say pen name because it is easier to spell so first off you might not know this but now you do I use a pen name Alexa Dunn is not my IRL legal name it is my pen name now I've got a whole video and why I decided to use a pen name and specifically Alexa Dunn and I will link that down below if it is already up if it goes up before this one but if it doesn't look for it very very soon you are like right inside the mind of like a youtuber who films videos ahead of time and then figures out their schedule but back to pen names so let's start with the pros which are essentially some reasons that people might decide to use a pen name so one Pro is that you can pick something that is appropriate for your genre so what I mean by that is if you look at books and it's a bigger deal in some genres versus others you might start to see name trends probably the best example of this is romance have you noticed that all romance names kind of have like this like almost like sensational sexy you know feminine mysterious tone almost that there's there's a ring to the names they'll have really feminine and almost very enticing first names and then short sweet or punny last names and for this reason a lot of romance writers a lot of those authors are pen names because most people are just not born with names like Danielle Steel and I will have to look up whether that is her real name or if it was a pen name I don't know it off the top of my head but that's a great example of a romance name or like Tess Adair that's an amazing romance name and that is a pen name I do know that so romance is a really great example another you know genre where you see it is kid lit middle grade nya and in these you'll see things like JK rowling for example that's an example of someone who purposefully obscured their gender for their pen name in order to be more broadly appealing to boys which we will talk more about in just a minute I'm not throwing that under the pros column but under the kind of neutral column because I do have a middle ground between pros and cons ie reasons you might use a pen name that are a little bit sticky but coming back to that so you'll notice this trend when you're looking at certain genres and if you're planning to write in a genre you'll have a sense of whether or not your real name is going to work in that genre now regardless even if you have a real name that will work you might have some other reasons you might want to use a pen name so other pros so to tie in with the whole genre thing or preferences by choosing a pen name you can control your branding another thing that dovetails with this another Pro is you can pick a name that does not RT that isn't already taken essentially there's no authors with either the exact name or a similar name or really any person or personality with the same or similar name so you can get the URL that you want this will enable you to get alexa.com that one's mine and while my IRL name I could have gotten the URL for it in fact I do own the URL for it that's not the reason I used a pen name again you can watch my whole video on it but let's say your name is Jane Smith you are not going to be able to get Jane Smith comm you might not even be able to get Jane Smith author or Jane Smith books com if there is an author or writer who already has that name this comes up with certain names that are simply a bit more common or you might end up like what if you have a name that's really really similar to someone who's super famous either in the book world or outside of it you may elect to have a pen name another pro choosing a pen name is simply protecting your real identity sometimes you want to you don't want people to be able to kill you or throw you into another search engine and come up with your real job or your real street address there's so many reasons to use a pen name and one big one is protecting yourself you can do this for specific reasons maybe you're writing in a genre where you don't want everyone to know I know this happens and comes up often with romance and Beyond romance erotica there's good reason to be sure your identity in those cases not because there's any shame in the genres by the way I love those genres but I don't think it takes too much to jump to why someone might want to use a pen name in those cases it might also just be that you want to keep your writing career separate in private that's that's a perfectly good reason to use a pen name and about controlling braining and the genre thing so sometimes you want to you want to in need to pick something that does fit into the genre because if you don't fit in in some cases it's just gonna be off to readers and it can hurt your career to have the wrong name oh god that sounds so prescriptive you don't have to change your name if you don't have like the perfect romance name but it is recommended another Pro kind of a minor Pro you might have heard this you might have not and that is that it is not advised when you sign books that you use your legal signature because of concern about possible identity theft people cloning your signature so it's generally advised that an author sign differently when they're signing a book and if you use a pen name your signature is definitely not gonna match your legal signature so that's just like a micro Pro if you happen to choose to use a pen name I wouldn't use that as a reason to use your pen name because it's with your IRL name it's as simple as changing the way you do signatures for books it's not that hard but just wanted to throw that in there another pro to using a pen name is that in controlling your branding part of that will be choosing a name that is unique easy to spell and easy to remember tes Adair is easy to spell unique and easy to remember it is a great pen name frankly so is JK Rowling I mean obviously she sticks for us because she's mega famous of course she isn't Joanne Rowling would have been a perfectly fine pen name well real name as well but I don't know certain names just have a good ring to them and they don't sound like anyone else and so authors will go ah that is so-and-so and it's just a really easy way to be memorable now about easy to spell and pronounce this is gonna bring us into our neutral area as well because this kind of brings up the question of if you have let's say culturally specific name this is when it most often it comes up shouldn't you change your name should you use a pen name to make it easier for other people now I think the answer is no most of the time especially if you know that's your name you like your name you are proud of your culture and you don't think there's any you know you don't think it's that hard and frankly people should break out of their bubbles and their biases and learn to pronounce things correctly I fall in that camp actually I a lot of names that people say oh that's hard I don't find hard to pronounce at all and so I fully support authors who you know stick to their guns and don't use a pen name just to make it easier for other people but also circling back to choosing a pen name is always going to be a personal choice and if it is your personal choice to use a pen name because you do have a trickier last name and you know you know that people are gonna butcher it and spell it wrong it is completely fine to make the choice to use appending you are not insulting your culture or spitting in people's faces if you make that personal choice but on the same token don't enforce that idea on to other people I think that people should always have the free will you know they shouldn't be asked by their agents or their editors or you know pressured by friends or readers to change their name just because it's difficult I and I fall on the side of I did make the personal choice of having a more difficult last name that I don't actually think is difficult it's in my video I did make the personal choice though to pick something that was short sweet easier to spell and pronounce though I had other reasons as well but meaning I understand both sides I I made the decision myself but I also fully support my friends who are keeping their real names or even purposely electing you can do this to purposely electing to use a pen name that reflects and represents your culture I fully support that and I actually think we should do more and more of that in order to challenge what readers but also just people in general especially in the u.s. because I think it's about darn time we get out of our comfort zone and start getting more you know start getting used to having to learn about other people's breaking cultures a nomenclature and learn how to pronounce people's names correctly I think it's insulting in a cop out so that's the natural area of pen names or real names and them being difficult to spell or pronounce it is a personal choice but in the prose column if it is something that you're worried about that might be a reason to use a pen name unless was certainly not least miss falls under the unique branch onra category if you choose a name a pen name that no one already has you can cultivate your Google results as I like to say it means that if no one's using that name currently to do anything like what you are doing when someone searches your author name they will get a beautiful page of Google results and will have no problem of finding the relevant links that will take them to you the author whereas if you have a more common name they might get really messy Google results or if you use your real name they'll get personal Google results it's not a must thing but it can definitely be a pro if you are interested in cultivating your internet search results now back to that murky middle that neutral zone and gender so it is again a very personal choice if you want to or need to obscure your gender by using a pen name well it can absolutely be a pro in certain genres that it can be a boon to you you should not feel obligated to obscure your gender because sometimes it is really upsetting to think so what boys aren't gonna buy my book because I'm obviously a woman and stick to your guns if you don't like that but I do warn you that in some genres obscuring your gender is the best decision and this actually goes both ways there are definitely men who write romance who use female pen names and most often women using male pen names will happen or or gender-neutral pen names is actually how I should say it there Jenner neutral when you see initials for example you're mostly gonna see that in middle grade sometimes younger but also in adult literature because adult thick adult literary fixpack thick has a whole host of gender issues unto themselves that I don't even have time to get into but speaking just you know the genres I'm more familiar with romance they would often make sense to pick either a gender-neutral or an obviously female pen name and then for middle grade to pick a neutral or kind of not completely obvious pen name if you are writing a middle grade that would be marketed more to boys I don't like this I don't like the whole gender binary but that is something to be aware of when it comes to pen names and the market and I will say I see things changing I think that if JK Rowling were publishing Harry Potter now I don't think it would be as big a deal if her book said Joanne Rowling so I feel we have made some progress but it is what it is now on to the cons of using a pen name these are some potential cons of using a pen name the first one just being it can be really weird not going by your real name cuz you know we walk through so much of our lives you know with our legal names or the names that people call us in our lives and then you invent this new person for your book career and people are calling you by the name especially if you don't use your same first name I I do use my real first name so it's not tutoring to be called Alexa because I am Alexa but you know every once in a while I hear the Don I go haha that is my that is my name now isn't it okay um it can be weird it can just be weird to have people calling you a completely different name especially if you use a different first name or if you're using initials and you're you're not used to that normally but I will say you do get used to it another con is simply that people don't know who you are in your real life meaning if you want those bragging rights if you want people from high school to know that you published a book well they're not really gonna know if you're not using your real name if you're kind of really keeping those lives and identities separate it's kind of a minor thing but if you want everyone to know that you wrote a book it's someone is publishing it using your real name has real advantages there because you can brag another little thing that might be a con to using a pen name is your parents and family might be a bit sad or even insulted that you didn't use your real name like what your real name isn't good enough for you don't like the name that we gave you or you're ashamed of us that's kind of an extreme reaction but Pete there might legitimately be hurt feelings as all I'm trying to say especially if the your family if the layman in your life don't know the publishing industry or like think the whole idea of branding yourself is a bit bonkers and it is a bit bonkers that's the honest but it can people can really chase against you using a pen name and just not understand why you're doing it again I don't think it's a huge con I mean I don't think it's gonna cause falling outs falling out with a family but just that's definitely something that I would put on the cons list the next con is simply but it can take a lot of work you basically have to create from almost scratch a whole other person a whole other online footprint a whole other identity social media profiles if you are keeping them divided and you're still maintaining both it's a lot of work and especially with your pen name because you are starting from scratch there are pros and cons to that when you're straying from scratch you there's a lot of work to do in terms of building your social footprint and your Google results and all of that jazz it's just a lot of work to create a pen name brand now that said you can kind of dove you can convert IRL social handles into pen names I have done that it's not the end of the world but it is just a little bit of work and related to that another con is just it can be confusing even internally within the industry so I have a pen name and I my pen name and all of my external social media profiles but I I don't have an author Facebook page and I still have my personal IRL Facebook page and I've joined a bunch of author groups using that name and when people look at it they have no they don't know who I am although I try to do try to make it easy i use my author headshot on my personal page cuz i like it you know i worked real hard for that shot and maybe they'll go oh that's so-and-so but it can it can lead to a little bit of confusion again I think that's a minor con but it is something that definitely comes up the kind of the complication of two identities two lives and kind of keeping them separate and know but also seeing where they dovetail and get a bit confusing the next one is again kind of a minor one but something worth mentioning it can get complicated with booking things now when you use a pen name your agent will know your agent will know your legal name your publisher will know your legal name because all of your contracts and whatnot are going to be in your legal name but it can get confusing I have had situations where people in my life who only know author Alexa genuinely think that Alexa Dunn is my real name and my legal name and I have had hotel rooms booked under the wrong name not by my publishers I know my legal name but in other situations and I have shown up to a hotel and I've been unable to check in because I do not have legal identification that says Alexa done on it so that is something that can definitely happen but I don't think I'm the only one that that has happened to again it's it's not like a huge problem but it's definitely something to think about and kind of on the same level as that you can just end up really confusing people who do know you IRL who knew you before who are now like wait what do I call you and I will say if any of you have been in Phantom's you may be completely used to this I think the reason I didn't really have much of a problem transitioning into a pen name is I was using a fake name for many many years and Harry Potter fan um and I got very used to people calling me by another name I mean there are people from Harry Potter fandom to this day do not know that Alexis is my name and I'm fine with that they called me something else for like eight years so I think I'm just kind of used to it but I will say there's a cognitive dissonance when you're using a pen name of like being this other person now to kind of cycle back around a prose though this can also be a pro and this is where the whole other video but there's something called the author persona the person that you are when you are an author that you project yourself to be and that you live on social media and there are many authors who I respect and admire who give excellent advice on this of that the way to stay sane when you go into the industry and you get a book deal and you're balancing the bizarre idea of having fans which I still haven't quite come to grips with of having an author persona it's you but it's a different version of you and that you can use that to kind of protect your private self so they it's a little less messy you get less kind of sucked in and emotionally involved and some of the things that can happen with the line of like author reader interaction and so on and having a pen name can really help that because you doubly feel like it's a version of yourself a persona because it's not even your real name like Alexa done is is a lot author Alexa it's another version of myself and it does feel completely separate from Alexa IRL last name and I like that so you know I'm leaning heavy on the prose here and that's only because if you think you want to use a pen name what you really want to hear are the reasons that you could or should use a pen name if you don't want to use the pen name you don't even care anyway so the pros and cons aren't really particularly valuable to you so really those are just some of the you know pros cons neutrals and essentially reasons why some people may need to or choose to use a pseudonym in their author career I'm entirely sure I have skipped something that I've missed something so drop any questions you have about using a pen name pros cons anything I mentioned but didn't go to detail about down below in the comments and I will endeavor to answer it as best as I can if you like this video I would appreciate a thumbs up it lets me know that you want to see more content like this the kind of like you know how to's and coulda woulda shoulda of publishing I I like making these videos so I'll probably make more anyway but thumbs up is always appreciated by the same token if you are already subscribed to the channel thank you I love you and if you're not go ahead and subscribe I post new videos two to three times a week all about why a writing craft the industry and specifically traditional publishing since that is the bulk of my experience and thank you so much for watching and as always happy writing everyone

Channel: Alexa Donne

Views: 94,026

Rating: 4.9222975 out of 5

Keywords: alexa donne, brightly burning, authortube, author tube, writing advice, how to write a book, jane eyre in space, booktube, publishing advice, The Pros & Cons of Writing Under A Pen Name, What are the pros and cons of writing under a pen name?, pen names, pseudonym, writing with pen name, using a pen name, author pen name, author pen names, kim chance, jenna moreci, vivian reis, lindsay cummings, pen name, pen name publishing, pen names for writers, pen name or real name

Id: Dq8OhCmFG-Q

Length: 21min 5sec (1265 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 08 2018