adive on using nom de plume

[Colin]

I'm looking to publish another book using a pen name. Does anybody have any advice/experience of the pros & cons of doing this?

[G.G.]

What was commonly said about changing pen names is that all the work you've done to be discovered with the original name goes to the drain and you have to start over.

Others say they only use it when the genre is so different they wouldn't want to mix people (Ex Children and Erotica).

[Arla]

If you don't mind the two names being connected and are just using a pen name to show the work is of a different genre, then you can promote your new persona through the original one so, as G.G. said above, all the work you've put into being discovered with the original name won't be lost.

If, on the other hand, you want to keep the two names completely separate, then you'd need to promote this new persona as you did the first, with a twitter account, FB page, website with unique look, blog, etc., and start posting and making connections with that identity as well. I have two, and haven't had a problem keeping them straight (yet) but I've heard that can be an issue, as can the workload since social media already butts well into writing time.

[Christina]

Echoing the others, it all depends on your motive. I'm introducing a pen name with a book I'm writing that's in my opinion, too adult themed to be listed side by side with my YA and clean-ish reads, but I'm not going to go out if my way to hide the fact. The hard part is managing two personalities. I find the easiest way for me is to use all of my social media through my Android devices only. This allows me to quickly switch between accounts in the gmail, Twitter, and Facebook apps. The hardest part us making sure you post from the correct account.

[Riley, Viking Extraordinaire]

Where as I specifically made a pen name so I can write whatever I want, and not care.

[Kat]

I use a pen name for things I write in English, because my real name is hard to spell/pronounce for English-speakers.

For German writing (where I have no plans to translate it into English) I use a semi-pen name - a nickname and my last name, because I want to sort of put my own name on it, but at the same time don't want people looking me up in the phone directory.

[T.L.]

I've only ever published under my pen name.

Get ready for schizophrenia to kick in!? It's really very odd, you write as that persona, you use social media differently (ensuring it's inline with your genre) etc. It is like developing a whole new person. I think I've got used to it. No you haven't! Yes I have. ;-P

At the risk of sounding like an echo, yes, if you've developed a whole following under one author name, the only good reason to switch is an entirely different genre. There are ways round it though (a la Arla's advice).

And yes; I only log onto my 'TL' stuff on one device, keeping it totally separate from my personal social media etc. I just find it easier that way.

Good luck.

[Owen]

The points made by others here are good ones, but from the purely practical standpoint, there may not be much in the ways of pros or cons. I'm assuming that the reason for considering a pen name is your other book is in different genre or otherwise not related to the first.

Our experience has been that pen name or no, does not seem to make a practical difference. My co-author has a book out in a different genre than the series we write. It is published under the same name as she uses when writing our series. We've seen no appreciable crossover in the years her book has been out. So the name recognition and visibility she built up thru out series (which is considerable) has not benefited she other novel to any significant degree.

The lesson I take away from this (supported by other author's experience), is that it's the genre, not the name, If you write in a new genre, you seem to starting over (in most cases), regardless. Marketing in different genres -- should you choose to do any marketing -- is different enough that it requires separate strategies and more effort.

So, IMO, the pen name question really only comes into play when an author wants to write something that could negatively affect their other work if it became associated with it -- as G.G. and Christina pointed out.