#penname

[painsandconfusion]

I wanna know who dove how deep into their writeblr penname

[author-a-holmes]

Obviously ignore this if you want but I saw you mention that you recently got published (congrats!!!) and I had a question. I'm still far out from that, but I know how to write and can research how to publish but I don't know how to market. Not only am I autistic and not charismatic, I want to solely use my pen name and distance my writing from my face because of my professional life. Do you know how to actually get people who might like your book to notice that it exists as an indie author with no previous following? Thank you if you have any advice!

Hello Moshke!

Thank you so much for the congratulations! It's taken longer than I expected but the realisation that I'm published is finally beginning to sink in! It's very surreal ^_^

I honestly don't know if I'm the right person to give advice on marketing as, at the moment, my book's been out just over a month and I feel like I'm stumbling around in the dark, but I wanted to give your ask due consideration and, despite my hesitation, I think I still have some tips that could hopefully help.

The reason I think I might have at least some relevant tidbits is that I'm also writing under a penname and most people don't seem to realise that.

Now, in my case, it's not about privacy it's just that don't like my given name enough to see it on book covers :D So I don't mind talking about it, but marketing your book under a penname isn't that much different to how you would market the book under your legal name.

Tip No. 1

Establish your pen name as a functional pseudonym now. Don't wait until you're ready to publish.

So, this stage was a little backwards for me. I come from the age of internet use where you did not give your real name online, under any circumstances, so I've always used various "online names".

By the time I decided that I was going to use "Arista Holmes" to publish under, anyone who knew me online already knew me as Ari. Even my best friend offline will sometimes call me Ari when we're chatting, so it had become as much an actual nickname as an online pseudonym.

But that's exactly what I'm getting at. I'm not pretending to be "Arista Holmes", I am Ari. A writer in her 30's based in the south east of England. The same way I'm Josie to my mum, or Jo-jo to my Godmother.

Tip No. 2

Don't think about it as marketing your book, but as creating an author "brand".

I'm using "Brand" here in the absence of a better term, because I absolutely hate thinking about this as a "brand", but what I mean is think of your Penname as something people will google search.

In fact, Google search your pen name.

As I mentioned, I'd been using "Arista Holmes" online for a while, and I had accounts all over the place that I didn't necessarily want coming up when people looked up my books.

(I will deny spending my youth on Neopets, it's just TOO embarrassing!) 

But jokes aside; Google your pen name. See what comes up. Scroll through all 20, 30, 50 pages of google. Some asshole looking for some embarrassing post from your teen years won't stop at page five, and neither should you.

Shut down any accounts you find, or if you want to keep them, change the username to something else. The only non-publishing related account linked to Arista Holmes now is my AO3. I figure it's still writing, so no harm in leaving that one up.

Tip No. 3

Set up social media accounts now; Be as consistent as possible across all platforms.

Now, and I want to put this in big bold letters:

Having accounts on all the socials does not mean you will be active on all of them.

Or use them at all, in fact.

Having accounts on Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram, Twitter, Tiktok, Youtube, etc etc etc, just means that if, by some miracle, you make it big and draw in fans you'll also inevitably draw trolls and by making the account with your pen name; it stops them claiming that username and pretending to be you.

It's a form of pre-emptive protection.

On that note; Be consistent across your accounts. Use the same profile picture, use the same header or banner, use the same colour scheme, use the same "About Me/About Author" description, and (as much as possible) use the same username format.

That last one won't be possible on all platforms. Some of them don't like periods/full stops. Some don't like underscores, but try to be as consistent as possible.

For example my account on here is author.a.holmes, most other places I'm aristaholmes. I'd change it, but at this point, I don't want to break all my links.

Tip No. 4

Author Pictures Are Not Required.

I'm adding this point here because I mentioned profile pictures in the previous tip. Author Pictures Are Not Required.

Don't get me wrong, they're often highly encouraged, and I can't deny that they give a humanising effect to the author, but that doesn't mean you actually have to show your face.

I've chosen to put my face on my "About The Author" page in the back of my book, but that's a personal choice. You don't have to add one at all! It's only more recently that I've seen fiction author photos in the back of books.

Until about... 15 years ago? Ish? I wouldn't have expected to see an author photo unless the book was non-fiction.

If you want to add a picture of you, but don't feel comfortable or can't because of real world problems, consider an artist's caricature instead. Go one step further than a pen-name and give yourself a pen-picture! Jenna Moreci uses an artist's interpretation as her profile picture/logo, and Lemony Snicket only had pictures of the back of his head for ages.

If you do decide to commission an artist though, do explain to them that it will be included in your books, that you'll be selling, as they will probably want to add a commercial licence price to the artwork; But if you explain why you're having the caricature done I imagine most artists would be very reasonable about it.

***

That's all my tips for setting up and marketing yourself, as the author, under a pen name... but I can already hear the voices in my head muttering that I've not really touched on how to get people to find you once you've set up the pen name, and the socials, and your website etc.

And it's because I personally think that if you're writing under a pen name you need to establish it as an entity in its own right before beginning to try marketing it.

So, moving on…

Tip No. 5

Find your place on the great, wide, interwebs...

I mentioned I'd been online as Arista Holmes for about 8-10 years prior to deciding to publish under this name, but once I did decide to publish I went and made all my author socials (just like I mentioned in Tip No. 3)

That was in 2020 and it was part experimentation, and part letting people find me. I knew I wasn't going to be able to keep up with multiple social media's, and I also knew I didn't WANT to, so I made the socials and I started posting on each platform and figuring out which platforms I liked. Which ones were easy to use, and which ones got me the most engagement with other people.

For me, this turned out to be Tumblr and Instagram. Twitter and Facebook are like graveyards for me, and Tiktok is only a little better, but your mileage may vary.

I cross post consistently with Tumblr, Instagram, because those are the places I get the most engagement... but I also maintain a blog on my website and any big pieces of news (such as asking for ARC readers, or publishing my book) gets posted across ALL platforms because, well, I live in hope that one day my tiktok will go viral lol.

But honestly, the multiple socials literally eat up so much of the time I could spend writing; I highly recommend picking two, three at most, and focusing on them.

But what do you post? I can almost hear you yelling <3

Tip No. 6

How to market when you're shy/introverted/not-charismatic/or any other thing you feel is holding you back.

You're going to want to throw something at me but lean on your strengths. It sounds so simple, and I know it's not, I'm sorry, but here's what I mean by that.

When I was still experimenting with all the socials to find the ones I liked, I stumbled across an image. I want to say it was here on tumblr but, honestly, I don't remember and at the time I was neck deep in every marketing and promotional blog or article I could find trying to figure this shit out.

It was called "The Periodic Table of Content Marketing".

I don't know why this helped me wrap my head around marketing, but it did.

I read over each of the types of marketing and I started getting idea's.

Ebooks... I'd heard about people doing reader magnets for newsletter lists.

Interviews... I've seen authors on podcasts. I'd seen people on tumblr interviewing their characters. I could do that.

Trends... What are popular tropes if not trends of the moment?

And I suddenly realised that this silly little graph was all the different types of marketing I could do, broken down simply, and laid out neatly, and I could pick and choose not only the bits I was comfortable doing, but the bits that I was confident with.

I'm never going to put my face on a tiktok video and lipsync to popular songs, but I could write a 12,000 words short story prequel to my series and make it exclusive to newsletter subscribers.

That was something I could do, because it leaned on my strengths; My writing.

Because I haven't said it yet, but two years ago I'd have described myself very similarly to you.

I'm not charismatic. While I'm not autistic, I am painfully introverted. I have severe social anxiety. I'm not funny, I can't talk with strangers casually or easily. Talking about my book more than once a week feels like I'm bragging or being pushy... But I can write.

So I started looking for opportunities to share my writing, and let it... not speak for itself, but let my words draw in the audience. It still took a bit of pushing on my part, I would look for tag games where the user had left an "Open Tag" and I'd hop on those and share some words.

This is part of the reason Tumblr is one of my favourite places to network with writers and readers, because the tag games let me share and tease content without having to push through my social anxiety all that hard.

It's a slower, organic, audience growth but it's definitely my preference.

The content I shared on here, produced to play tag games, I quickly realised that I could copy it onto a pretty image in canva, and share it on instagram easier than I could condense a paragraph into the twitter character limit, or make it look appealing on Facebook's janky system.

And the more writing I shared, the more people commented and followed. And the more they commented and followed, the easier it was to talk to them. And then I started getting asks. That was nerve wracking and sometimes they'll still sit there a couple of months before I can make myself answer them.

(Sorry Sleepy and Avra, if you're reading this! I'll reply soon, I promise!)

Have I gone off topic here? I kind of feel like I have but also... not really.

If you feel like your writing is your strength, lean on it. Let it do the heavy lifting for you. Show your hand with your words.

By the time I set up my mailing list and offered 'Whatever Happened To Madeline Hail?' for free, I got 12 people to sign up straight away. I don't know if that's a lot, but it was at least eight more than I was expecting.

When my book launched, I received 14 reviews, and sold 20 copies the first month. Again, I don't know if this is a lot, but it was a whole hecking lot more than I'd hoped for.

I don't know if I'm good at marketing, and maybe someone will reblog and reply to this with better advice, or tear apart what I've said, and if they do great! I really hope it helps you or someone else down the reblog chain because, as I said at the start, I'm really just stumbling around in the dark and hoping I somehow get it all to work out lol

But I do just have one more piece of advice, that isn't really my advice...

Tip No. 7

Fake it until you make it.

You're a writer. The beauty of the internet is that we have time to stop, and think about the words we're writing in response to someone.

I'm a shy, introvert, who doesn't know when to shut up when she gets started talking about writing (Or at least that's what it looks like based on the length of this post...)

But 99% of people I speak to online don't know I'm an introvert. They don't know that after sending an email I have to go back to bed for a few hours to recover my energy, or that I can't answer a phone without feeling nauseous for the rest of the day and it's because when I'm online I'm Arista Holmes, and I can write my responses in the same way I write my characters.

I'm not saying I'm not being me, I am, but I'm also being given the time and space to be the confident me I want to be, rather than the nervous wreck I actually am.

Write your socials, and market your book, as the you that you’d write if you were dropped into one of your own books.

Fake it until you make it.

Handy Resource List For Marketing:

Periodic Table of Content Marketing

Jenna Moreci's Youtube - I take her writing advice with a huge chunk of salt, but her marketing advice is top notch.

Bethany Atazedah Youtube - Co-wrote a Marketing For Authors Non-fiction series, but a lot of her youtube videos contain good, free, advice too.

Self-Publishing With Dale - If you want to market effectively, keeping on top of the current trends and changes in the market is important. Self Publishing with Dale is the best way I've found to do that; He really has his fingers on the pulse of the Self Publishing Market, and even if you're not publishing yet, checking out some of his videos can teach you loads about what to do, but more importantly, what NOT to do.

Michael Anderle's 20Bookto50k system - I didn't mention it as a tip but the BEST form of marketing a book is to write the next book. Michael Anderle talks about his theory that is you have 20 books published, your backlist of royalty income should net you around $50k a year. The hour and a half talk changed my whole marketing outlook and is why I'm focussed on a slow grown, more organically sourced, audience rather thank paid advertising.

Abbie Emmons Youtube - I'm not sure I should include Abbie in a list of marketing resources as she's often more about the writing side of the craft, but her videos have been invaluable to me, so she's just worth checking out in general.

[neelihara]

Okay so I just discovered your blog and I'm yet to read anything here but the name neelihara is SO BEATIFULLLL 🪷❤️

OMG thank you so much. NEELIHARA is my penname. The name has a very deep personal meaning for me from my life. And there is another meaning I came up with to tell people in general because it's very beautiful. Neeli means blue in many languages and my own mother tongue as well and hara is usually referred to Lor Siva and also the Destroyer of things. So the meaning of Neelihara could be the one who destroys the blue in your life. And by blue I don't mean the beautiful blues of the skies I mean the blues of life like sadness and heartbreaks and stuff like that. Personally I have a different reason behind it but this meaning is equally beautiful to me when I have to tell someone. Thank you so much once again for telling this.

[cakbanedraws]

Goodbye Onoha! Hello there Cak Bane!!

Okay then, the decision has been settled!! I change my pen-name from "onoha-arts" transform into "cakbanedraws" Yep, this pen-name it's more unique and funny, since "Cak" mention have a meaning with my region language Also, I've already changed my IG username into "cakbanedraws" too.

[tussie-mussie-trouble]

Tried to ask my friends to describe me in two words for figuring out a pseudonym for myself

Wound up crying because one said "Marshmallow, Warm" Which while i now feel like i'm winning at this whole being a human and friend thing if that's how they feel and i'm going to cry again if i think too hard about it okay too late im crying again- Not great for a penname but that's going to basically live in my heart forever.

[mindandhigh]

a pen name

what is in a pen name

[billconrad]

Pen Names

    Growing up, everybody called me Bill, but my birth certificate lists William as my official name. I use William for documents and signatures but Bill for everything else. I used Bill for my books because I felt it was more “friendly.” My bold decision did not make any headlines.

    Funny side story. Ten years ago, I was a contractor and needed to go onto the Port Hueneme military base. My contractor identification listed my name as Bill, but my driver’s license listed me as William. The security guard at the gate wanted to arrest me because the names differed. When he told his supervisor what he had “discovered,” the supervisor biffed him on the side of the head. I drove away laughing.

    Well, this topic has come to a close. However, as I read Facebook Group Writers Helping Writers posts, I saw authors fretting over their pen names (The name they write under). How does Randolph Drake sound? Is it too charismatic? Will it turn women off? Will men buy my book because the name intimidates them?

    I could not believe what I was reading. Then I thought, “Wait a second. I see the real person’s name in the post. I know the true identity of Randolph Drake! Wow, I uncovered a big (open) secret!” Even more surprising were the fellow authors responding to the pleas for help. “As a man, I would buy a book written by Randolph Drake.” “Randolph Drake sounds sexy. How about Julian Drake?”

    The more I read, the more confused I became. Were people ashamed of their names? Did a pen name elevate their reputation? My favorite authors are Tom Clancy, Neil Gaiman, and Ken Follett. Those are their real names. (Side note. I researched the topic and all three used pen names for other works. But the books I liked use their real names on the cover.)  However, many famous authors use pen names like Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair).

    I do not understand why a regular author needs a pen name. However, I would understand that if the subject is sensitive or offensive, one’s identity must be a secret. I also appreciate a kooky name (like Maynard Smellmore) or if the author has the same name as somebody famous or infamous.

    Be proud to be an author! I hit the random name generator and came up with Tom Drake and Judy Collins. Those are not exciting names, but I would buy a book from Tom Drake or Judy Collins. These “plain” names certainly do not offend me.

    To better understand this issue, I searched the Internet. There were many articles on the subject, and two provided clues. First, a pen name is a safety net. If your first book fails, change your pen name and move on.

    Second, a pen name distances oneself from their writing. Bob Smith leads a boring life, but Randolph Drake leads a life of danger! This change allows Bob Smith the freedom to be bold, the very definition of an alter ego. Randolph Drake is an incredible person who writes up a storm! A fellow author once told me, “Authors are a secretive bunch.” Was that it? Does having an alternate identity put an author in the mood to write?

    The more articles I read, the more confused I became. Yet, I stood by my opinion. “My name is my name. Writing under a different name would not be honorable. An author should be proud of what they created.”

    It took a few hours to calm down, and then I thought about what Bird Person said on the television show Rick and Morty, “Wubba lubba dub dub which means whatever floats your boat.”

    I still do not get pen names. Writing comes from within. But many things in life are a mystery. For example, how do painters capture a stoic face in oil? I certainly do not have that talent and would not know where to start.

    What if serial killer “Bill Conrad” does something terrible? What if I write a book about Area 51 or a hard-core adult novel? The answer is, “Bill Conrad wrote this book.” If I cannot be happy with my humble writing, then that is my fault, and nobody else’s.

    Fortunately, you’re getting the real deal because General Martin Strongbow wrote this blog. Or is it William? Do I sound like Tom or Kevin? Let’s go with Murphy from now on.

    You’re the best -Bill

    April 22, 2023

    Hey book lovers, I published three! Please check them out.

    Interviewing Immortality is a psychological thriller about a 500-year-old woman who forces a disgraced author to interview her.

    Pushed to the Edge of Survival is a drama, romance, and science fiction story about two unlikely people surviving a shipwreck and living with the consequences.

    Cable Ties is a classic spy novel about two hunters discovering that government communications are being recorded and the ensuing FBI investigation.

    These books are available in soft-cover on Amazon and eBook format everywhere.

[margueritesauvage]

Hello, some of you may also follow my other account with my other pen name @madymadeleinemartin (and a different art style). After giving it a few thoughts, I’ve decided to merge both accounts here as I signed more projects with this cartoony art style but under the @margueritesauvage pen name. So be prepared to see 2 types of work here! Starting now with some #WonderWoman :) Thanks!

[hiemaldesirae]

sillies….

reincarnation au where theyre all reborn with scars signifying major injuries / how they died. yqy is covered in freckles (its the arrows) sj has cool diamond like scars on his limbs and a discoloured eye (from having it ripped out) lqg has a really big scar-like formation on his abdomen (i dont remember if he died from stabbing during the qi deviation but it sounds cooler that way). anyway they dont really remember their past but theyre all drawn to each other anyway

and they all live happily ever after with long hair and good wardrobe choices

[penname-artist]

A Wild Pen Has Appeared!

Salutations, fans and freaks! Tis the morrow!

I am Pen. I also go by Penn, Penne, Pentacle, Pentagram...the list goes on.

I am a certifiably silly guy that makes a lot of stuff. Art, writing, animation, crochet, cross-stitch, etc. I'm like the local jack of all trades, here to have some fun.

Youtube @ PenName-Artist

Tumblr @ penname-artist

Instagram @ penname_artist

DeviantArt @ Pseudo-Studios

Archive of Our Own @ PenNameArtist

Patreon @ PenNameArtist

Current news:

3/11/24 - Updated the pinned post and info sheet! I'm in the process of another facelift, so hang tight everybody!

Mind your head, and until the morrow!

[novemberthewriter]

grrrr I might be changing my artist name yet again cyz I can't settle but it's gonna be so annoying cuz I got too many email addresses atp .

[songweretson]

I finally watched How To Train Your Dragon: Homecoming. And it was... fine. I was personally disappointed by the third movie for a variety of reasons, which is why I didn't watch the holiday special until now.

But.

The fact Eret isn't there tells me that, at some point, he left.

So now I'm going to imagine that he sailed south to the Highlands, where he met a certain redheaded princess with a penchant for archery, and settled down.

There we go. I figured out how to make my crazy crossover ship work without messing with the canon timelines. Headcanon accepted.

This is my happy ending. I think I can now let this go.

Very old art for the heck of it

[raytm]

characters raymond is considering adding the roster based on impulse alone and having seen them in smth he was watching / read for 2 minutes.

any jjba muse actually im feeling insane sanemi, obanai, tanjiro maybe ??? shoto, hawks, tamaki or maybe shinsou or god monoma

[hikari-m]

{D I G I M O N} Adventure 02: The Beginning {DaiHika} / {Daikari} + S u m m e r J a p a n e s e F e s t i v a l + Y U K A T A + (Daisuke)'s T A I K O D r u m m i n g + (Hikari)'s W A T E R M E L O N (S w e e t s) C r a v i n g

From GraffArt Collaboration Merch Set! (Originally Announced/Revealed on Jul. 22nd, 2k24)

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[giritina]

I think about the artist Okama all the time and his reason for choosing the name. Ticking clock waiting for him to come out as trans or change his name