Was this ever conclusively revealed as a pseudonym? I've always assumed it was, a la Sarah Shaw, but haven't been able to trace who's behind it if so...
I don’t think it’s ever been “officially” confirmed, but it was a pseudonym for Heather Jarman and Jeffrey Lang.
Where did you hear that? I've seen this conversation come up a few times in the past, but nobody ever seemed to know. I think I remember seeing a few theories that they were Marco Palmieri.
I was told back in the day by a member here who had connections with the Pocket writers/editors. There’s also a decent amount of external evidence: the name-checks for Jarman and Lang in the book’s acknowledgements and its Voyages of Imagination entry, plus the reference in the author bio for Jarman and Lang’s Tales of the Dominion War story to a further collaboration between the two.
I remember people speculating that Anonymous in Prophecy and Change was Marco back in the day. I've been told by people who were in Prophecy and Change that Marco was not Anonymous, but I've never cared enough to ask. (I don't remember why, but I just assumed Anonymous was Kevin J. Anderson.) I don't remember any speculation about Marco being the person behind J. Noah Kym. That doesn't mean it doesn't exist, only that I don't remember. That was all a long time ago.
For what it's worth, "J. Noah Kym" is an anagram of "Jam Honky." Make of that what you will. (Aside: “Jam Honky” is the name of my new band.)
I haven't posted here in a long time but always check out the topics and responses. I'm curious--why would they use a pseudonym? I went back and checked and all the books of theirs that I've read were good reads and liked by fans from my memory of the commentary after their releases. I thought one of the main reasons for the use of a pseudonym (beyond the obvious) is that, at times, authors books don't sell as well and one way to give an assist to a new book is to have it "written" by a new author. Or when someone writes something that is rather different from their usual genre or style.
Perhaps the same reason Dave Mack used the "Sarah Shaw" pseudonym on Mirror Universe: Saturn's Children -- to gloss over the fact that the same author wrote (or co-wrote) two installments in the same miniseries.
Ahh. That did occur to me when I saw, in fact, that had occurred (Worlds of Deep Space Nine). But as a reader--meh, it wouldn't have mattered to me. If you had written two books in a miniseries (or Mack, or Bonanno, or Beyer, or George, etc.), I'd have been pulling out my card all the same. Thanks, Christopher.
When the Worlds project was originally announced back in January 2003, Marco Palmieri specifically said each story would have a different author, so there was an extra incentive to use a pseudonym on Jarman’s second (co-)contribution. Based on what I heard at the time, there may have originally been a different author intended for the Bajor story, with Jarman and Lang taking over at a later date. The two delays for the second volume of Worlds, which was originally meant to come out a few months before volume three rather than at the same time, were definitely because Jarman and Lang needed more time to finish “Fragments and Omens.”
Now, on the other hand, if someone uses a pseudonym like "Alan Smithee" or (Harlan Ellison's favorite) "Cordwainer Bird," it means they're disowning the opus to which it is attached.
With “Nathan Archer”, he was trying to set a sales base for the Archer name, so that bookstores would order books based on the specific genre rather than looking at all his books across all genres.
Those are both good reasons that are sometimes used. Or, as noted, it may be used to disguise the fact that the same author is appearing multiple times in the same anthology or issue of a magazine. Or it may be that a series is being written under a "house name" so that all the books in the series are shelved together even if the series is being written by multiple writers, as in the case of Doc Savage, The Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, Tom Swift, etc. And then there's the cases where a real author turns into a "house name" so that a series can continue beyond their death, which is why "V. C. Andrews" is still churning out bestsellers even though the real Virginia Andrews died way back in 1986. House names are less common than they used to be, but they're still a thing, particularly in kid's lit. I'll cop to having written at least one TOM SWIFT novel as "Victor Appleton."
what I don't understand is when an author uses a pseudonym and openly admits it. Like "Stephen King writing as Richard Bachman", right on the cover. What's the point?
Sometimes that happens because the books were originally published under just the pseudonym and then the publisher reissued them with both names once the secret got out. In other cases writers are trying to communicate that this is something different from their usual output.
It's also sometimes done to thwart Nielsen Bookscan, which can inflict downward spirals on the number of copies that retailers order. Unless one's most recent books have oversold the system's predictions and gone back for additional printings, it almost always recommends that retailers reduce their orders of subsequent titles by published authors. Conversely, for no good reason, it usually recommends higher orders for debut authors. So, when Bookscan starts sinking an author's career, often it is side-stepped by publishing under a new name. Since the system tracks only the byline on the book, and not secondary information, Bookscan pays no mind to what author names are pseudonyms. It's a stupid system, but it's the one we've got.