Forum: Story Discussion and Feedback

4b) posting other authors stories here, adding their name to avoid being called plagiarist.

IIRC, AuthorWench and Limnophile are both decent authors who post under their own names. Perhaps CreepyUnclePete is their editor or adds value in some other way.

AJ

Or, sometimes authors use one pen-name for one type of story, and another pseudonym for other times (ex: straight porn vs. plot based). It's also common for authors to post under another name, if they suspect their readers will feel they're 'betraying' their fans for writing in another genre. I've never quite figured out why, personally, yet it seems to be a fairly common practice (not here, but with traditionally published stories, at least.

The reasons are many. One of the most common is 'genre change' and the fact that many genre fans do not cross over well. A recent example is JK Rowling. The majority of HP fans were young readers yet the content of the Galbraith books are more adult orientated. Given the time elapsed between, many of her initial child readers are now adults, but famously, the Galbraith books did not sell well on their own merit, until the truth became known.

I believe Rowling's intent (and statement), that she had no desire to be 'outed' and that the 'outing' itself, was done deliberately by the publisher, for (the publishers own) financial gain.

Tom Holt, famous for writing light hearted books, wanted to write something very dark and 'became' KJ Parker.

There are many writers who don't actually exist because they are one or more individual writing in collaboration. James S Corey (Who wrote the scifi series The Expanse), turned out to be Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck.

It's also common for authors to post under another name, if they suspect their readers will feel they're 'betraying' their fans for writing in another genre

This is most definitely a 'thing' and no 'suspect' about it, and by gosh, they will let you know it…. LOL. To the point that they will actively 'down vote' the story(s) they have issue with, as a means to 'encourage' you to go back to writing what they want to read. Think of it as a digital Stephen King 'Misery'…

And I write this as someone who only fairly recently 'came out' here (well, about five or so years ago) about four of their 'other' pseudonyms. Part of that was because the secrecy had served its initial purpose.

I'll use my own name, though if I'm going to criticize them, I'll use this one.

It sounds as if that is the reason I see Forum posts credited to Crumbly Writer and Vincent Berg.

In the past, you used Crumbly Writer as your Author Name on SOL. Then you started posting stories to SOL using Vincent Berg, which was your professional Author Name. I wondered why you were now using both when posting in the Forum.

Thank you.

I hope AuthorWench and Limnophile eventually return here in person.

AJ