Man, my hands look massive in this photo and I really need a manicure.
I’ve been busy writing.
Writing little short stories that I’m publishing on the Kindle under a Pen Name.
But since they are under a pseudonym and not my real name it’s a little hard to promote them to people that already know me as a writer.
So I’m torn.
Reveal or don’t reveal?
Reveal
- I personally don’t care if people know I write under another name.
- I could promote the books here on my blog.
- If you have any clue online it really isn’t that difficult to find out my pen name (I haven’t gone to all that much trouble to hide it)
Don’t Reveal
- I write business books. If people saw that I also write fiction they might ask WTF?
- I write about sex and murder (although not in the same story yet). Controversial to some.
- I don’t want my kids getting teased because their mum writes erotica.
- I don’t want to attract the crazies. I told you some of my stories are about sex, one of them (so far) has two murders in it (just finalising the cover before I publish). ’nuff said.
- It’s better to keep different genres separate.
What do you think?
Hi Tracey,
Here’s my opinion: NOT revealing your pen name (at least immediately) gives you the option to reveal it later. On the other hand, revealing it now takes that option away. Another good thing: it could be a case study for your “Tracey Writes Books” blog.
While it does give you the extra work of promoting that new pen name, how big of a benefit/overlap do you think you’d get by promoting the new pen name here as well?
(BTW, I did have an Economics professor at university who said he was more recognized by the fishing book he’d written than his Economics articles and books.)
Cheers and have a great day.
Hi Diogo,
You are right that I probably wouldn’t have that much benefit from promoting the books here, but I can see the benefit on the Tracey Writes Books blog especially if I talk about the strategy that I’m using.
I’m just not sure whether writers or internet marketers would get the most out of the strategy (I’m thinking marketers would prefer it since writers tend to get hung up on quality vs quantity).
t
Tell it
Yeah I’m leaning that way. t
Hi Tracey,
I just wanted to stop by and give my input as someone who wrote several short erotic stories on a dare one time (from an ICQ buddy of mine). She was going to publish them on a website and since we had done a couple of other projects together I said “Sure, why not”.
I wrote 5-6 short stories and most of them were very well received on her site ( which I don’t even know now whether the site still exists or not)
I always wanted to keep that as my “secret side”. Would I do it again? Probably but not without making sure that my wife, children and grandchildren (yeah, I’m that old) never saw it. Or if they did see it, that I wrote it.
It’s not that I am embarrassed about what I did, it’s just not a genre that my wife and children ever expressed an interest in.
I really enjoyed doing it. It was a great diversion during that time in my life.
Ahh well, just my thoughts. Thanks so much for letting me share.
Great blog and I hope to keep enjoying it well into the future.
Sincerely,
Gary