The Pros and Cons of Writing Under a Pen Name

if you decide to use a pen name I suggest thinking of the pros and cons everybody is a little bit different so there isn't a cookie cutter answer to this in my case I chose to write under a pen name because my professional brand was very different than the dark kind of zoo they ended up calling her the mistress mistress of the macabre Bonta and black writing dark fiction they were just different it's not a secret I've had people online I know who you are I know your secret um it's not a secret but it helps me just differentiate my branding even when I go on social media I can fall into the Vantaa mode as opposed to be in Desiree and it's easier it's easier on anybody who's reading my books anybody who's interacting with me and honestly it gives me the ability to have fun when I'm Fanta and when I'm Desiree I'm you know a little bit more serious so when somebody is looking at creating a pen name think of why you are doing it in some cases people want to be very secretive that wasn't my situation I don't mind if people know that I have both names but if you're hiding and you're maybe you're a whistleblower I have clients who are doing whistleblower books or they're doing books that are very sensitive in some cases they're revealing things about themselves that they don't want their family to know or their church to know so they have a really a really they have an interest in keeping that secret and so in those cases I recommend really thinking about what you're going to do at the marketing and PR so you're tying my hands a bit as the person promoting your book I can't put you on a TV interview obviously I probably can't even really do a lot of podcast or radio interviews unless you really are going to almost split a personality and that's hard so really think of why you're doing it and if you're doing it just because you think it's cool and fun well then on the flip side of that realize that now you have two people to manage you have not only your regular social media to manage but you have this num - plumes social media to manage so in especially because a lot of authors say oh my god I got to go on Facebook I got to do this so if those types of things seem arduous to you now multiply that by two and keep in mind too that you just for your own mental health like you're gonna be splitting your personality to a certain degree how easy is that going to be for you so those are the main things I would keep in mind if you're going to do it just think of the pros and cons for your individual situation so that you're doing it with the foresight and the understanding of what might be coming down the road if you make that choice you

Channel: Author Learning Center

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Id: S7zFE1QdQA8

Length: 3min 15sec (195 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 09 2019