#401: Writing Well: Pros and Cons of Using a Pen Name

Welcome to Kingdom Writers, where we help equip and empower Christian writers of all genres to share your unique gifts with the world. We're your hosts, C.J. and Shelley Hitz.

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What are the pros and cons of publishing under a pen name? Hi, my name is Shelly Hitz, the owner and founder of ChristianBookAcademy.com where we help you take a step of faith and finally finish your book so God can use it to impact lives. Also, the host of the Kingdom Writers Conference and the Kingdom Writers Podcast. And in this episode, episode, I wanted to share a little bit of information on the pros and cons of writing your story under a pen name. Now, if you're writing about sensitive information and you're writing about other people, this might be an option for you to write under a pen name. But I want you to also understand the pros and the cons. So, first of all, what is a pen name? A pen name is a fictional name that you choose to have as your author name. So a very famous pen name is J.K. rowling. And the reason that the publisher used her initials as a pen name was because they thought it would appeal more to boys. And they thought, you know, people may not read these books by Joanne. Rolling. And, you know, there's just different reasons why you might want to have pen names. And, you know, there's different people that have done pen names through the years, but it basically is a name you've made up. And it could be that you add. You add initials. It could be that you use something different. Like, for me, I was publishing in a different niche. So I was publishing in a cookbook niche years and years ago, and I no longer do this. But I wanted to separate the books that I had for the Christian living and authors from these cookbook cookbooks that I was publishing. And so I published under my first and middle name, Shelly Lynn. And so it could be a multitude of different things, but in that case, I could still use my first name and I could still feel. Feel like I was being honest, you know, I mean, I don't know. There's just. There was just something about it that felt better to me, having my same first name and then using my middle name. So there's many, many ways you can do this. It's kind of actually fun to brainstorm and come up with some ideas for a pen name. But I want you to consider the Pros and cons. So here's a few pros. Number one, anonymity. Like I said, especially if you're writing on a sensitive topic, you may want it to be anonymous. Or if there are people that are in your story that you do not want to call them out or, you know, to have it be published under your real name, there could be some legal ramifications as well. I'm not a lawyer. I'm not giving legal advice. But there could be some reasons that you want to keep anonymity. So that's the first pro. The second is, like I said earlier, it can separate your books into a different Amazon author page if you write in a completely different genre. And so, like I said, that's what I did when I had my cookbooks. So I had one Amazon author page that was for Shelly Lynn, the cookbook author. And then I had another Amazon author page for Shelly Hits that had all the rest of my books. I have since retired my cookbook series, and I have completely, you know, just used Shelly Hits from from then on out. But that could be an option for you if you want to separate your books into different genres. Personally, I like to keep things as simple as possible. And once you start getting separate websites, separate pen names, separate things, it just starts to get overwhelming. And I lived that. So if possible, I still think it's better, in my opinion, to keep everything under the same pen name unless they're just completely different niches or topics and you really feel like it's important to separate them. For example, I have my books for authors and my Christian living books and my books for teen girls, all under Shelly Hits. They're all different genres technically, but they all kind of relate in some way. So, number one, a pro is anonymity. Number two is it can separate your books into different Amazon author pages if you write in different genres. And number three, it can be super helpful if you have a very common name or another popular figure has the same name. So we had a Christian Book Academy member that she's said she ended up choosing a pen name because someone had actually already chosen her real name as their pen name. And so she didn't want to be like, overlapping with that person. She wanted to have her own place, you know, on Amazon and in Google Search. And I have another friend that her name is also the name of a very popular model. And so it's hard for her to rank on search, you know, for. In the Google search engines or things like that because this other person is. Is just famous and so that could be an option as well. What are some cons? So the cons is that, you know, a lot of the promotion we do now is personal. So people want to get to know you and see you. And it becomes difficult with a pen name. So on social media you can, you can do your social media completely on a pen name again, you know, then you would have your personal social media if you do that. And then you would have, you know, all of your social media for a pen name. And you know what was really interesting? Years ago, I went into business with someone and we were signing contracts and legal documents and we were opening a bank account. And I ended up realizing that the name I knew this person by was their pen name. Like their whole Persona, every interaction, like they were living their social media life as their pen name. Now that would just feel really weird to me, but I had, I was shocked because I had no idea, like, that was not who she really was. You know, that was not her real name. But.

So, you know, you can do it. She, she, she was a rock star at it, you know, and then you can use things like Amazon ads where you don't have to have any kind of personal brand or social media or things like that. And so there's ways to get around it. But it does become a little bit tricky with certain kinds of promotions. The other thing that can be more difficult is speaking engagements. So if they're going to book an airplane ticket or hotels for you and it needs to be booked under your real name versus your pen name, so that, that can get really sticky at times. But in those cases, what you can do is. And again, I'm not a lawyer, I'm not giving legal advice, but you can create a separate legal entity for, for your pen name. And you can do this by creating a DBA in your state. If you're in the US that's doing business as under your pen name. And this is something you probably would want to consult a lawyer or get some help about this. But there are ways around it and ways that people have dealt with it. But I just want you to know upfront, like, if you're considering using a pen name, what are some pros and cons? So let's just review this again. Pros, number one is anonymity. Number two, can separate your books into different Amazon author pages if you write in completely different genres. Number three, it can be helpful if you have a super common name or another popular figure has the same name. And then the cons is that the marketing can be really difficult on social media. You almost need to create your whole other Persona for that pen name. And then speaking engagements, it can get tricky. When they're booking things for you like airplane tickets, hotels, they're writing a check to you, right? And so you may need to create a complete separate legal entity like a DBA in your state under your pen name so that you can, you know, receive checks and get, you know, get hotels and all the things that you need under that name. But these are just something a few things to think about. Pen names are very common in the writing world, so I want you to know that's very common. But I also wanted you to know up front what are some pros and cons. And I hope that this was helpful for you. And my name is Shelly Hitz and would love to help you write and publish your book inside Christian Book Academy. You can join us@christianbookacademy.com and I will talk to you next time. Bye Bye.

Thank you for listening to this episode of Kingdom Writers. We believe that you, as a Christian writer, have a specific role to play in the Kingdom of Heaven to impact lives for eternity.

And because of this, we choose to pour out our lives into encouraging writers like you to not only tell your stories, but to take the courageous step of self publishing your stories in books that will outlive you and leave behind a powerful legacy. This podcast is sponsored by Christian Book Academy, where we help you give birth to your books. We invite you to join our community of Kingdom writers.