JKR's New Pseudonym

[Nichola]

It's come to light that JKR has written and published a book under another pseudonym;

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainme...

After the panning A Casual Vacancy got from a lot of reviewers, what do you think of her decision to use another name? The book is crime fiction and got rave reviews but was rumbled when people started to notice the similarities in writing style.

[Siobhan]

A writer always has a certain style, or blueprint. It's an interesting stunt but I'm not a crime fan, though I love her style. Which is a shame, because she has the influence to bring readers to whichever genre she picks, she could have fuelled the careers of a lot of crime writers by being a gateway.

Wish she'd published under her own name, basically.

[Peter]

It was interesting to see that there were no bad reviews of Cuckoo as long as the pseudonym remained veiled. Then on the day of the revelation, the first one-star review rolled into Amazon.com, where the reviewer said nothing about the book itself, just that it was written by Rowling.

There are a number of reasons people may not like a book, some of them valid, some less so. Apparently there are a number of people out there who are just determined to dislike anything Rowling writes for the sole reason that she wrote it. That's not a valid reason, sorry. It's anyone's guess how many of the one-star reviews of Vacancy boil down to that, but take that into account when looking at the reviews.

[Penny]

Kaylee wrote: "I think she has the right to publish under a different name, and basically can do whatever she wants.

And JK may have a good reason for publishing under another name, as many fans of Harry Potter ..."

Couldn't agree more Kaylee. She has every right to do as she pleases.
I for one really enjoyed Casual Vacancy although it didn't get great reviews, and although I am not an out and out crime fiction fan, I will be interested in having a go, as it has some good write ups.

[Trishé]

Completely unrelated but thanks for posting this. Just bought the book for my kindle can't wait to read it. I love J.K. Rowling under any name and I had no idea about this.

[Kressel]

As soon as I heard about it, I requested it at my library. That was yesterday, and I was #6 in line for it.

[Kressel]

Anyway, isn't it kind of a reversal that she chose a man's name for anonymity since she had to be genderless "J" and not "Joanna" so that boys would want to read about Harry?

[Penny]

Didn't George Elliott do the same thing? She wrote under a man's name and was extremely successful.

[Nour]

I think she published under another name because of the expectations - and the disappointment - the Casual Vacancy got. She didn't want people to have high hopes then criticize her and the book for getting too much fame that it didn't deserve.

[Kressel]

Penny wrote: "Didn't George Elliott do the same thing? She wrote under a man's name and was extremely successful."

What I mean to say is just the opposite of George Eliot (or Currer Bell a/k/a Charlotte Bronte). JKR has to use a man's name to hide herself. The book jumped 507% in sales once it was revealed it was really her.

[Nichola]

I think a few writers in the past have done this. I know all of the Bronte sisters initially wrote under men's names because female authors were not generally popular or accepted back then.

[Kressel]

Once again, what I'm saying is, she's more popular when she reveals the real her. The man's name didn't enhance her popularity; it hid it.

[Michelle]

Sure, it hid her popularity. But, in return, she got honest reviews of her work for once not tainted by her reputation (in either a postitive or negative direction). She even sent the book out to other publishers -- and received rejections. Publishing under a false name was about her growing as a writer, I think.

I have a feeling that once the publisher knew that it was her publishing, they came up with a plan to come out with it that she is the true author.

[Nichola]

Kressel wrote: "Once again, what I'm saying is, she's more popular when she reveals the real her. The man's name didn't enhance her popularity; it hid it."

I know. My comment wasn't directly aimed in response to you. Someone asked if George Elliot had written under a pseudonym for various reasons and I pointed out that a lot of writers have used pseudonyms for a variety of reasons. Bronte sisters because their gender was against them in their era, JKR's reasons are unknown to me but I think I remember her once saying in an interview that she thought it may be fun to write under a different name :)

[Richard]

i'm glad this has come out, i enjoyed Vacancy and would be interested in reading this. I know she's friends with Stephen King and he famously did the Bachman thing years back so likely she took inspiration from that.

if you have enough cash that book sales don't matter overly to you then why the hell not try it?

[Katie]

I think JKR can do whatever she likes. I will read this book knowing she wrote it. I can't wait to read it. Perhaps she will be like Joyce Carol Oates, which an extraordinary volume of various literature. And if people don't read it and criticize her for her choice, grow up. Envy does not look good on you. I don't see people all pissy about Janet Evanovich or any other authors who wish to keep an anonymous life.

[Nichola]

Katie wrote: "I think JKR can do whatever she likes. I will read this book knowing she wrote it. I can't wait to read it. Perhaps she will be like Joyce Carol Oates, which an extraordinary volume of various lite..."

I didn't see anyone getting pissy ????

[Removed]

Food for thought here...maybe this story, shows up a huge flaw in the publishing industry. This crime novel she's written was rejected by at least one publisher, because it was quiet, yet logic dictates if it had arrived with JK Rowling on the title page, it would have gotten a rave review and straight to the presses. Who votes for all anonymous submissions...no names..if its your first novel and its a best seller, its judged on the same merits as a famous author's latest hack job. (No I'm not calling her book a hack job) Just saying that publishers should publish based on the merit of the piece not the previous success of the author.

[Peter]

@Scott: your idea has its merit. And, of course, in the world of scholarly (academic) publishing, peer-review is almost always done anonymously (although the anonymity is, in many cases, far from perfect, but that's a whole 'nother discussion).

But, considering that the commercial publishing world is all about commerce (sorry for the tautology;-), if Dan Brown or Stephen King or Joanne Rowling submits a book, the publisher who is concerned about moving books is going to see the dollar/pound/yen/ruble signs light up and go with it. That's the way this world works. The point is not whether the book is good, bad, or indifferent, the point is that people will shell out money.

The nutrition my brain is chewing over is the inescapable feeling that a lot of people were just waiting to jump over CV with bad reviews for a variety of reasons, many of them having nothing to do with the book or the writing. Three months of anonymity gave CC (at least) some chance to get unprejudiced responses.

[Peter]

@Kressel: take into account that when Philosopher's stone was first released it wasn't an instant success, either. For over a year (!) it sat in bookstores with, AFAICT, no more than one (generally positive) review in The Scotsman (a Unionist rag with limited appeal in Scotland and hardly read at all south of the Tyne river) and a bit of word-of-mouth, but hardly a landslide of sales. It wasn't until the news broke that a US publisher had offered a relatively unknown Briton an unheard of six-digit sum that Rowling's name and the book title were printed on the front page of mass-market newspapers across the English-speaking world that sales picked up.

Which they then did with a vengeance.-)

The point is that the pseudonym, on it's own, was about getting untainted reviews, not popularity. OTOH, *revealing* the pseudonym was everything about ramping up sales.

Which it has done. With a vengeance.

(A lot of this has already been said by Michelle, but it seemed worth reiterating.)

[Kressel]

Yes, I even heard the theory that JKR outed herself in a pseudonymous tweet.

[Jean]

Kressel wrote: "As soon as I heard about it, I requested it at my library. That was yesterday, and I was #6 in line for it."

You are lucky at my library I am #31!

[Gary]

I bought CC for my Kindle as soon as I heard about it a few days ago. I have read it already. I thought CV was ok but this book is much better. I have been reading mysteries (mostly police procedurals) set outside the US for the past 18 months and have read close to 200. Rowling has created two very likable characters which isn't that common in this genre. While I thought this book was good, it is less exciting than many others in this area. If you like this book I can suggest several series that feature a man and a woman as main characters and are set in the UK: books by Deborah Crombie, Martin Edwards (Lake District series) and Barry Maitland (Kathy Kola and David Brock). All of these series have 6 or more books.

[Susan]

I bought "Cuckoo" for my nook. Haven't read it yet because I was in the middle of a couple of other books. Will read it soon. I enjoyed Casual Vacancy. It was not an easy book to read, but it was interesting and well-written and I couldn't put it down and walk away. Every time I had to set it down for something, I had to pick it up as soon as I could and read some more. The Harry Potter books are like that, too. I'm currently indulging myself by re-reading them all between other books...

[Meghan]

Good for her for trying to get honest, raw reviews of her writing, rather than using her famous name for sales.