Pseudonyms are popular with authors and their publishers for many reasons: sometimes an author’s given name is too lengthy to fit neatly on a book cover, sometimes it’s spelled in a way that might trip readers up when they go to search for it, sometimes it’s hard to pronounce, or shared by someone much different than the author. There are nearly as many reasons for taking on a pseudonym as there are…well…pseudonyms!
Since modern marketing is big on branding, when an author makes a genre jump (going from fiction to nonfiction or from suspense to high fantasy, as examples) or a target audience change (from adult to children’s books), publishers like to differentiate what they’re selling so the public isn’t expecting the same sort of book the writer has written before. There are historical reasons to take a new name, too. Sometimes women wanted to write at a time (or on a topic) that was considered inappropriate for a woman to write (remember, ladies, there was a time when reading novels was enough of a charge to have you institutionalized…).
Here are some well known authors who have written under different names:
Benjamin Franklin………………………….Mrs. Silence Dogood, Anthony Afterwit, Caelia Shortface, Busy Body
Washington Irving…………………………..Jonathan Oldstyle, Diedrich Knickerbocker, Geoffrey Crayon
David Cornwell……………………………….John le Carre
Nora Roberts…………………………………..JD Robb
Stephen King…………………………………..Richard Bachman
Richard Matheson…………………………….Logan Swanson
Jackson Pearce………………………………….J. Nelle Patrick
Kara Taylor………………………………………Kara Thomas
JK Rowling………………………………………Robert Galbraith
CS Lewis………………………………………….Clive Hamilton, NW Clerk
Joyce Carol Oates……………………………..Rosamond Smith, Lauren Kelly, Rae Jolen Smith
Isaac Asimov…………………………………….Paul French
Agatha Christie………………………………….Mary Westmacott
Dean Koontz………………………………………Aaron Wolfe, Brian Coffey, David Axton, Deanna Dwyer, John Hill, KR Dwyer, Leigh Nichols, Anthony North, Owen West, Richard Paige
Anne Rice……………………………………………Howard Allen, Francis O’Brien, AN Roquelaure, Anne Rampling
Michael Crichton…………………………………..John Lange, Jeffrey Hudson, Michael Douglas
Jayne Ann Krentz…………………………………..Amanda Quick
JR Ward………………………………………………..Jessica Bird
Erika Mitchell (Leonard)………………………….EL James
Patricia Highsmith……………………………………Claire Morgan
Ulrich Leonard Tolle………………………………..Eckhart Tolle
Meg Cabot………………………………………………Jenny Carroll
Ray Bradbury………………………………………….Douglas Spaulding
Alice Mary Norton…………………………………….Andre Norton, Andrew North, Allen Weston
Madeleine Wickham………………………………….Sophie Kinsella
?………………………………………………………………Frederic Dannay and Manfred Bennington Lee………………………..Ellery Queen, Barnaby Ross
?……………………………………………………………..Elena Ferrante
Want to learn more? Click on any of Shannon’s sources!
Romance Authors Write Under Multiple Pseudonyms
8 Famous Authors Who Used Secret Pseudonyms
Authors Who Write Under Different Pen Names
Located in the small town of Otego, New York, the Harris Memorial Library has a rich history in large part thanks to the lovely and adventurous Daisy or “Dasa” Harris who willed her Victorian-Italianate-style home to the village of Otego–so long as it became, and remained, a library. Her house became known as the Harris Memorial House, and when it was realized that the small rooms were not conducive to a library’s organization, and that the weight of so many books and their shelves might collapse the historic structure, a modern addition was added to the back of the building to house the library.