![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
There's a minor teacup storm at the moment around one of my publishers, Torquere. I firmly believe that people with concerns/issues/problems should be allowed to voice them without fear of reprisals or getting jumped on but in all honesty I haven't got any myself. TP have always treated me well and been supportive and professional and the checks arrive on time. I've worked with them as an editor/proofer in the past so I've been on both sides of the fence.
What is amusing me is the shock/horror, OMG, so unethical, the readers deserve to know, reaction in some places to discovering that some of the authors there, including the owners, publish under more than one pseudonym.
Er, where have you BEEN? Authors have always done that. And, no, they're not obliged to disclose it.
If you like a book, does it matter that it's by the same author as that book you liked last week? What difference does it make?
I write under the same name for everything so far but I can think of many reasons for having a handful of different names for different genres. If I built up a name for fluffy romances and then decided to do a graphic horror, I might well put it under a new name to save annoying the fluff readers I'd built up, or alienating the ones who might go for horror but associate me with fluff.
Contractually, too, it can be useful; if you've committed to having the next three books by author A with one publisher, you can have a separate book printed elsewhere under another name.
Also, if you're co-writing, people often create a single name for a writing team; it was an option WG and I considered when we began the Ghost series.
Often the identity behind the names comes out or isn't hidden; most people know that Nora Roberts is J. D. Robb for instance. Although I only found out ten seconds ago from Wiki that she's also written as Jill March and Sarah Hardesty.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nora_Roberts
But wasn't Stephen King's pseudonym of Richard Bachman a secret for a while? Wiki says it was a good six years or so before King admitted he and Richard were the same, although there were clues in the books. He did it, apparently, to be able to publish more than one book a year, which was an issue back then, and to check that they were selling because of their quality, not his name, which I can understand; like doing anon ficathons and being certain the f/b is for the fic, not our friends being kind.
Jean Plaidy (not her real name) had lots of alternate names:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleanor_Hibbert
I was quite old when I discovered she was also Victoria Holt. I don't remember feeling outraged.
I DO remember feeling pleased with myself for spotting that M C Beaton who writes the Hamish Macbeth books was Marion Chesney; the style was so familiar; it just pinged me.
The same thing happened when I read some romance thrillers by Madeleine Brent; familiar, but I couldn't pin it down. No wonder; despite the author blurb being all about a woman, 'she' was actually Peter O'Donnell, author of the Modesty Blaise books. It made me view blurbs a little more skeptically, that's all. That was kept secret, according to Wiki:
The fact that Brent was O'Donnell was not made public until after the publication of the last of the Brent books.
I don't think anyone is really bothered that people are writing under pseudonyms; that's common practice especially in a genre like erotica. What I do find strange is that people think writing under multiple names is some sort of scam.
If it is, it's been going on a long time.
What is amusing me is the shock/horror, OMG, so unethical, the readers deserve to know, reaction in some places to discovering that some of the authors there, including the owners, publish under more than one pseudonym.
Er, where have you BEEN? Authors have always done that. And, no, they're not obliged to disclose it.
If you like a book, does it matter that it's by the same author as that book you liked last week? What difference does it make?
I write under the same name for everything so far but I can think of many reasons for having a handful of different names for different genres. If I built up a name for fluffy romances and then decided to do a graphic horror, I might well put it under a new name to save annoying the fluff readers I'd built up, or alienating the ones who might go for horror but associate me with fluff.
Contractually, too, it can be useful; if you've committed to having the next three books by author A with one publisher, you can have a separate book printed elsewhere under another name.
Also, if you're co-writing, people often create a single name for a writing team; it was an option WG and I considered when we began the Ghost series.
Often the identity behind the names comes out or isn't hidden; most people know that Nora Roberts is J. D. Robb for instance. Although I only found out ten seconds ago from Wiki that she's also written as Jill March and Sarah Hardesty.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nora_Roberts
But wasn't Stephen King's pseudonym of Richard Bachman a secret for a while? Wiki says it was a good six years or so before King admitted he and Richard were the same, although there were clues in the books. He did it, apparently, to be able to publish more than one book a year, which was an issue back then, and to check that they were selling because of their quality, not his name, which I can understand; like doing anon ficathons and being certain the f/b is for the fic, not our friends being kind.
Jean Plaidy (not her real name) had lots of alternate names:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleanor_Hibbert
I was quite old when I discovered she was also Victoria Holt. I don't remember feeling outraged.
I DO remember feeling pleased with myself for spotting that M C Beaton who writes the Hamish Macbeth books was Marion Chesney; the style was so familiar; it just pinged me.
The same thing happened when I read some romance thrillers by Madeleine Brent; familiar, but I couldn't pin it down. No wonder; despite the author blurb being all about a woman, 'she' was actually Peter O'Donnell, author of the Modesty Blaise books. It made me view blurbs a little more skeptically, that's all. That was kept secret, according to Wiki:
The fact that Brent was O'Donnell was not made public until after the publication of the last of the Brent books.
I don't think anyone is really bothered that people are writing under pseudonyms; that's common practice especially in a genre like erotica. What I do find strange is that people think writing under multiple names is some sort of scam.
If it is, it's been going on a long time.