Seanan Maguire uses the name Mira Grant for her horror writing, and her real name for the rest of her writing. I can't remember any specific examples, but I'm pretty sure I've come across at least one or two other writers who do the same thing.
J. Noah Kym
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In the case of Stephen King/Richard Bachman, those books were originally just credited to the Bachman name and reissued once it became commonly known that Bachman was King. King wanted to avoid oversaturating the market by releasing more than one book a year. He also wondered if a book he wrote could succeed under its own merits rather than just because it was published under the name "Stephen King." The Wikipedia page on Richard Bachman gives a good overview of the situation, as well as how it was discovered that King was Bachman.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 a pseudonym or an additional credited writer can just be the author having a bit of fun. Nicholas Meyer is credited as an editor on all four of his Sherlock Holmes novels*, with "Dr. John H. Watson, M.D." as the credited author, and the 2008 James Bond novel Devil May Care is credited to "Sebastian Faulks, writing as Ian Fleming."
*The Seven Per-Cent Solution, The West End Horror, The Canary Trainer, and last year's The Adventure of the Peculiar Protocols.
Okay, so the mystery of J Noah Kym is solved, and thank you. Now what about Fearful Symmetry / The Soul Key ? Neither the author who was originally announced, Leanne Morrow, nor the author whose name is on the final product, Olivia Woods, have any other writing credits whatsoever, Star Trek or otherwise. So are they pseudonyms too?
That was right around the time of the upheaval at Pocket that led to the DS9-R downtime, which led to what had been planned as one book being split into two, and to the second half of it being substantially delayed. Christopher's post in this thread says that Olivia was just a new hire brought on by Marco, and when Marco went, she did too. No reason to disbelieve him, he is obviously in a position to know better than me. But given the amount of pseudonym-ing going on elsewhere in "season 9", and that neither name appears anywhere else, I can't help wonder.
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That was right around the time of the upheaval at Pocket that led to the DS9-R downtime, which led to what had been planned as one book being split into two, and to the second half of it being substantially delayed. Christopher's post in this thread says that Olivia was just a new hire brought on by Marco, and when Marco went, she did too. No reason to disbelieve him, he is obviously in a position to know better than me. But given the amount of pseudonym-ing going on elsewhere in "season 9", and that neither name appears anywhere else, I can't help wonder.
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Well, Goodreads has some other things listed for Olivia Woods, but no idea if that's just a case of throwing everything credited to an "Olivia Woods" together.
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1029325.Olivia_Woods
Leanna Morrow was the original writer of Fearful Symmetry, not of The Soul Key. When she didn’t work out, Woods was brought in. But Woods’ original version of Fearful Symmetry was pretty long and its ending was rushed, so she and Marco agreed to split it into two books and expand the second half. That’s where The Soul Key came from.If I remember correctly, Leanne Morrow was a new writer Marco hired who didn't work out for some reason, so he asked Olivia Woods to just do another book, since he was happy with her work on Fearful Symmetry. But it was a long time ago...
Some of us who knew about J. Noah Kym wondered at the time whether Woods and/or Morrow might be pseudonyms. I’ve just looked back at an old message from someone who pointed out re: Morrow how unusual it was to give a novel contract to someone with no prior fiction sales. (This person made the same point about Sarah Shaw, back before that was confirmed to be a pseudonym.) But Marco did have a history of working to bring new writers into the Trek line. Both Heather Jarman and Kirsten Beyer started off as Trek novelists with no prior published fiction. And Morrow not working out and Woods having to split the book in two are things that make more sense for actual new writers than for established ones under pseudonyms, though they could happen to old hands as well. Woods’ author bio did include actual biographical details, however sparse, in comparison to Kym’s non-biography. So I really don’t know.
What @Brendan Moody said. That's how I remember it playing out/being discussed at the time as well.
I remember asking Marco about the change in authors at Shore Leave, and as far as I recall, he talked about Olivia Woods as a real person. I see no reason to doubt it. After all, there were a lot of authors that got one or two chances to get published during the time when Pocket was actively seeking out new authors (whether through Marco's and Keith's recruitment efforts or through Strange New Worlds) but who haven't been heard from since due to Pocket shifting gears and choosing to draw mainly on its established stable. Some of them have managed to get at least a few things published beyond Star Trek, but getting published is not a sure thing in this business.
Looking a little bit more through my messages from those days, I notice that the person who speculated about Morrow being a pseudonym later said that they had heard more about the situation and were pretty certain Morrow was not a pseudonym. This person had also heard some of the details of why Morrow’s version of Fearful Symmetry fell through, on which they couldn’t elaborate, and said it shouldn’t be taken as a reflection on Morrow’s ability. The (different) person who told me about J. Noah Kym also said after Fearful Symmetry was published that they thought Olivia Woods was a real person and knew no reason to think otherwise. I’ve always assumed both Morrow and Woods were real people who just didn’t have an online presence or a further fiction career to date. As Christopher says, publishing is a harsh business.
Yeah, I've seen a lot of books "written" by a fictional character give an editor credit to the real writer. The Star Trek character "autobiographies" credit David A. Goodman and Una McCormack as "editor" for their books.
When?
I thought Stratemeyer had long-since abandoned that series. I know they attempted to reboot The Bobbsey Twins, but couldn't sustain the rebooted franchise for more than a handful of volumes, and ended up abandoning what, in its original form, had been their longest running series.
Evan Hunter wrote detective novels as "Ed McBain" and mainstream novels as "Evan Hunter." Birth name: Salvatore Lombino.
Somtow Sucharitukul wrote sf under his own name and horror as "S. P. Somtow."
Anne Rice writes her vampire books under her own name, softcore erotica as "Anne Rampling," and hardcore erotica as "A. N. Roquelare."
Nora Roberts writes romances as Roberts and mysteries as J. D. Robb, as well as few other pseudonyms.
Robert Jordan (aka Jim Rigney) wrote historical romances as "Reagan O'Neal" and a western as "Jackson O'Reilly."
It's a fairly common practice for authors who jump genres.
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Around 2006. There was a short-lived revival. I actually wrote the bible for the reboot and plotted most of the books in the series, although I only ended up writing one of them in its entirety: THE ROBOT OLYMPICS.
(Forgive the double post. Just spotted the query above.)
Ah, here's a summary:
http://tomswift.net/ts5.htm
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Donald Westlake could fill an entire section of a bookstore with his pseudonyms alone.
I've actually seen Meyer's books shelved under "W" for Watson, presumably by somebody who didn't get the joke.
Wow. That's something else. And the thought of that person working in a bookstore or a library...
Yep. And sometimes an author becomes a BIG NAME under one name, so publishers can't resist reissuing their earlier pseudonymous work with a new label making it clear that the BIG NAME is the real author.
"DEAN KOOTZ writing as Leigh Nichols," for example.
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