The War Virus

[JD]

Pen names aren't necessarily about concealing the author's identity. Plenty of writers are quite open about the pseudonyms they use. Sometimes it's a case of using different names for different genres, so your readers know what to expect; for instance, Iain M. Banks used his middle initial for his science fiction writing but published "mainstream" fiction as Iain Banks. Sometimes it's because bookstore orders tend to be based on past sales under a given name, so if you write in different genres that sell at different rates, you might want to use a different name for the lower-selling genre so it doesn't lead to smaller orders from bookstores on your next book in the higher-selling genre, or whatever.

Of course, that's just a general answer to the question. As Steve established, Irene Kress does appear to be a distinct person from Nancy Kress.

Absolutely. Examples abound of cases where a pseudonym was an open secret, employed only to distinguish one type of book from another, and/or to relaunch an author in a different genre without the baggage of some misleading former sales figures.

As an editor, I once asked a writer to use a pseudonym on a big ambitious horror trilogy simply to avoid confusion (sales-wise and audience-wise) with various men's adventure paperbacks he'd written in the past. There was no real attempt to "conceal" his true identity; the author freely let it be known that he was "Levi Black." We just didn't want the big horror project to be confused with the men's adventure books. Different audience, different sales expectations.

Similarly, SFF author (and Trek novelist) Somtow Suchatritkul also wrote horror novels under the rather transparent pseudonymn "S. P. Somtow." As I understand it, it was felt that, from a commercial standpoint, "S. P. Somtow" might be less intimidating to fans of Stephen King, Dean Koontz, etc.

And Anne Rice famously used her real name for her bestselling vampire books, "Anne Rampling" for her erotica, and "A. N. Roquelare" for her more hardcore erotica. Again, this was an open secret. Publishers and readers knew the score. It was just intended to alert Anne Rice fans that the "Roquelare" books were something very different than Rice's usual fare.

The first author who openly uses pseudonyms for different genres is Seanan McGuire, she writers urban fantasy under her real name, uses Mira Grant for her horror books, and A. Deborah Baker for her kid's portal fantasy books. At least as long as I've been aware of her, she's been open about them all being her.

 

[Greg Cox]

In the mystery field, it was known for decades that "Evan Hunter" and "Ed McBain" were the same author. Hunter wrote the more mainstream novels as well as the screenplay for Hitchcock's "The Birds." McBain wrote the hard-boiled detective novels.

(Born: Salvatore Lombino.)

I confess that, as a joke, I once sold a story to AMAZING as "Bryan Gregory Stephenson" just so that, briefly, I could be the biggest name in SFF.

Beating Jessica Amanda Salmonson by a few letters.