# pseudonyms



## Jack of all trades (Jun 16, 2017)

Does anyone have any practical experience publishing under a pseudonym?

Thanks!


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## Bayview (Jul 19, 2017)

Jack of all trades said:


> Does anyone have any practical experience publishing under a pseudonym?
> 
> Thanks!



I'm a bit late to the thread, but I write under a few different pseudonyms. Do you have specific questions?


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## Jack of all trades (Jul 19, 2017)

Bayview said:


> I'm a bit late to the thread, but I write under a few different pseudonyms. Do you have specific questions?



I did back when I posted this. I have either found the answers or made up my own, so I don't really recall all of them.

The only one I remember now is -- what do authors using pseudonyms put for an author bio?


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## Bayview (Jul 19, 2017)

Jack of all trades said:


> I did back when I posted this. I have either found the answers or made up my own, so I don't really recall all of them.
> 
> The only one I remember now is -- what do authors using pseudonyms put for an author bio?



Sorry, I'm not clear whether that's one of the questions you had answered or one that's still outstanding... in case it's the latter...

I include vague details about my life. Like, the general area I was born, the general area I now live, the general field in which I work, the general shape of my home life. Then I mostly focus on writing interests for the rest of the bio.


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## Terry D (Jul 20, 2017)

Jack of all trades said:


> The only one I remember now is -- what do authors using pseudonyms put for an author bio?



Handle the bio information however you choose. Stephen King created an entire backstory for his alter-ego Richard Bachman. There's no harm in doing so, and definitely no 'accepted' practice. Have fun with it.


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## Bayview (Jul 20, 2017)

Terry D said:


> Handle the bio information however you choose. Stephen King created an entire backstory for his alter-ego Richard Bachman. There's no harm in doing so, and definitely no 'accepted' practice. Have fun with it.



I think you have to be a bit careful with this in some genres and/or with some elements of your bio. Someone claiming to be a CIA operative or a Navy Seal or whatever, especially if writing thrillers/military fic, would probably trigger feelings of betrayal in readers if the deception was discovered. Similar situation to someone claiming to be a member of a minority group, especially if writing fiction for/about that group. I think this expands to anyone claiming a significant life experience that isn't their own.

If you substitute your own generic life story for a fictionally generic life story, I think it's fine. But if you try to spice things up, you could get into trouble.


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## Terry D (Jul 20, 2017)

If you are writing non-fiction and claim false credentials for the subject being written about, sure, that could be a problem, but if you publish a novel under a pseudonym and want to create a backstory that says you are an alien from Venus it's not going to make any difference. There's no trouble you could get into.


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## Bayview (Jul 20, 2017)

Terry D said:


> If you are writing non-fiction and claim false credentials for the subject being written about, sure, that could be a problem, but if you publish a novel under a pseudonym and want to create a backstory that says you are an alien from Venus it's not going to make any difference. There's no trouble you could get into.



Not legal trouble, maybe, but I've seen writers essentially drummed out of niche markets by misrepresenting themselves.

Straight women writing m/m romance sometimes take male pennames, and readers generally accept that. But if they go further and start talking about their lives as gay men, and they're discovered? I'm not going to name names because the authors in question have already suffered enough, but it gets messy. Readers feel betrayed, the "authentic" edge to the writing is gone, etc. 

And for Americans claiming certain military achievements, there are legal issues in the form of the Stolen Valor act. Australians could run into trouble with the Defense Act. And for everyone it's kind of a dick move.

Whether it's actively illegal or not, I think it's a really bad idea. There are lies that everyone accepts as part of the course of doing business (like pen names) and lies that go beyond that. I wouldn't recommend that anyone tell one of the larger lies to their readers.


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## Terry D (Jul 20, 2017)

Bayview said:


> Not legal trouble, maybe, but I've seen writers essentially drummed out of niche markets by misrepresenting themselves.
> 
> Straight women writing m/m romance sometimes take male pennames, and readers generally accept that. But if they go further and start talking about their lives as gay men, and they're discovered? I'm not going to name names because the authors in question have already suffered enough, but it gets messy. Readers feel betrayed, the "authentic" edge to the writing is gone, etc.
> 
> ...



Yes. Like anything else, if you take it to an extreme it's probably a bad thing, but that's not what we're talking about here. I could write a military novel under the name of Dirk Beachstormer and add a bio that says I served on Iwo Jima and if I'm found out, no one's going to care. Why? Because Dirk is as fictional a character as any I would write into the book. Would I do that? No. For the same reason I use my real name here and everywhere else on the internet, I don't feel any need to hide my identity. My only point was that the bio for a pseudonym doesn't matter. It's not worth wasting time and energy on. Make it what you wish... or not.


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## Jack of all trades (Jul 20, 2017)

Thanks for the feedback.

I have written a fictional bio, and was deciding if I want to use it. I think it's short and ambiguous enough to keep me out of trouble.

I had hoped it was an original idea (fictional bio), but I see it's not. Ah, well.

Thanks again, guys!


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## Bayview (Jul 20, 2017)

Terry D said:


> Yes. Like anything else, if you take it to an extreme it's probably a bad thing, but that's not what we're talking about here. I could write a military novel under the name of Dirk Beachstormer and add a bio that says I served on Iwo Jima and if I'm found out, no one's going to care. Why? Because Dirk is as fictional a character as any I would write into the book. Would I do that? No. For the same reason I use my real name here and everywhere else on the internet, I don't feel any need to hide my identity. My only point was that the bio for a pseudonym doesn't matter. It's not worth wasting time and energy on. Make it what you wish... or not.



I really think you may be underestimating how much some people don't like being fooled. YOU know that Dirk is fictional, but if you give him a bio, it sounds like he's real.

There was a fuss last year about that poet who used an Asian-sounding name to be included in an anthology - he never even SAID he was Asian, as far as I know, but people made the assumption and were quite upset when they found out. There was also a big hubbub about a white author using a Latino pen name. Again, no Latino bio that I'm aware of, but people were upset anyway. I've read significant criticisms from First Nations people about white people using Native American pen names (especially when writing Native American characters).

In terms of military service, there's an entire internet community dedicated to uncovering Stolen Valor cases. I just read one about Ice-T (apparently he's claimed to be an Army Ranger but really wasn't). From what I've seen the people most likely to care about Stolen Valor are _also_ the people most likely to read military fiction, in which case a military fiction writer who stole valor would quite possibly be alienating his target audience (if he was found out).

I'm not saying this is a _moral_ issue (although I'm not saying it's not, either). I'm just talking about the practical dangers of it. Of course if no one ever reads your book or cares about you as an author it won't matter, but I expect most of us are hoping to someday be in a place where people _do_ care about our bios, and it would be nice if we didn't have to worry about being "discovered" at that time.

ETA: Rachel Doleanaz was an international laughing stock. Yeah, she took all this to an extreme, but I sure wouldn't want to take even a tiny step down the path she followed!


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## Terry D (Jul 21, 2017)

In today's environment someone will get pissed about anything. But no one stormed the castle when Stephen King said Richard Bachman was a veteran. Worry about it if you wish. But, frankly, this is a rookie concern that doesn't mean anything to more experienced writers.


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## Bayview (Jul 21, 2017)

Terry D said:


> In today's environment someone will get pissed about anything. But no one stormed the castle when Stephen King said Richard Bachman was a veteran. Worry about it if you wish. But, frankly, this is a rookie concern that doesn't mean anything to more experienced writers.



I have over thirty novels published. I would never outright lie in an author bio.


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## Terry D (Jul 22, 2017)

And you are entitled to your opinion, just as any of us are. This discussion has veered into pendency, so I'll leave it at that.


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## Bayview (Jul 22, 2017)

Terry D said:


> And you are entitled to your opinion, just as any of us are. This discussion has veered into pendency, so I'll leave it at that.



It'd probably be pedantic to point out that the more usual word is "pedantry"?

And I agree that my opinion isn't intrinsically worth more than anyone else's. I just don't agree that worrying about how one represents oneself is "a rookie concern that doesn't mean anything to more experienced writers" and I use my experience as evidence of that.


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## Terry D (Jul 22, 2017)

Bayview said:


> It'd probably be pedantic to point out that the more usual word is "pedantry"?



You are right. Thanks for the correction.



> And I agree that my opinion isn't intrinsically worth more than anyone else's. I just don't agree that worrying about how one represents oneself is "a rookie concern that doesn't mean anything to more experienced writers" and I use my experience as evidence of that.



You are already misrepresenting yourself by using a pen name. Everything else is simply a matter of degree. A point I made long ago.


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## Jack of all trades (Jul 22, 2017)

Terry D said:


> You are right. Thanks for the correction.


Completely different meanings : 

"ped·ant·ry /ped()ntrē/ noun excessive concern with minor details and rules." 

Vs

"Pendency | Define Pendency at Dictionary.com www.dictionary.com/browse/pendency the state or time of being pending, undecided, or undetermined, as of a lawsuit"




> You are already misrepresenting yourself by using a pen name. Everything else is simply a matter of degree. A point I made long ago.



This kinda makes the opposing point. You feel that using a pen name is a misrepresentation. From there to "an in-depth, fictional bio is a making a bad thing worse" is not such a far leap.


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