I wrote a small novel with some blasphemous content that may well get me in real trouble. I decided to publish it using a penname. I am a goddamn coward who fears his own shadow. Here, I said it. Now I want to send queries to agents. Should I use my real name or my pen name? I don’t think that I can use my penname. Showing an agent that you don’t trust him isn’t the best way to start a relation. And I don’t think that I can use my real name. If an agent declines to represent the novel and then it is published (if ever) he will know my real name. How about using a penname until an agent decides it’s a deal? Ok, Mr. Agent. I have signed the contract and will fax it back to you. By the way, you will find me signing with another name. I’ll tell you why. Now that’s my real name. The other one was just a mask that I used when I first contacted you, fearing that you may be a turbaned terrorist. Any ideas? And do agents usually accept controversial content, as long as it’s clever (real clever) and well-written?
First of all, using a pen name doesn't show a lack of trust. It could show that this book is different from the romance novels you normally write and you don't want people buying it thinking it's your usual fare. It could mean you don't want people (including agents) Googling your real name and getting your phone number and calling you at three in the morning to tell you how much they liked your book. It could mean your real name is Hillary Clinton and you don't want any confusion, or your real name is Nora Roberts, but someone else chose that as her pen name, or your real name is Mildred Kowalski and you hate it. Your agent doesn't need your real name until she is ready to send you a check.
Secondly, by the time your book comes out, an agent who declined to represent you will have forgotten your name. He'll probably have forgotten it two days after getting your query. And he's a literary agent, not an agent for a foreign government.
Controversy won't bother most agents. It might bother a publisher who doesn't want his building bombed, but it's more likely the terrorists will hack into the company's computer files to get your real name so they can come after you than that they'll bomb the building.
First of all, using a pen name doesn't show a lack of trust. It could show that this book is different from the romance novels you normally write and you don't want people buying it thinking it's your usual fare. It could mean you don't want people (including agents) Googling your real name and getting your phone number and calling you at three in the morning to tell you how much they liked your book. It could mean your real name is Hillary Clinton and you don't want any confusion, or your real name is Nora Roberts, but someone else chose that as her pen name, or your real name is Mildred Kowalski and you hate it. Your agent doesn't need your real name until she is ready to send you a check.
Secondly, by the time your book comes out, an agent who declined to represent you will have forgotten your name. He'll probably have forgotten it two days after getting your query. And he's a literary agent, not an agent for a foreign government.
Controversy won't bother most agents. It might bother a publisher who doesn't want his building bombed, but it's more likely the terrorists will hack into the company's computer files to get your real name so they can come after you than that they'll bomb the building.
8 comments:
Your real name must go on contracts and other legal documents (bank accounts, royalty checks, stuff like that) ... Salmon Rushdie has a Fatwa on his head (or used to).
Your letter begins:
Jack Sprat (writing as Jill Montana)
your real address, city state,
Jack-Sprat's@ whatever.com (a reliable email checked daily)
Todays date.
Title: Book Title
Genre: Satanism ?
Word Count: 100,000
And then begin your query - Dear Mr Agent.
And you end it by signing Jack Sprat (writing as Jill Montana)
Now I want to add something personal - When I first contemplated a Last Will and Testament, I had a box in my house filled with those "things" that we don't want kids or parents to see. Private things. I asked the lawyer about a clause saying "don't open the box, just dispose of it without looking" and GUESS what he said? Throw the stuff out now or quit obsessing like you aren't 3x7 years old and an adult. The box ended up in the garbage the next day. I'd rather live without it.
The choice is yours.
And one last personal statement - We all write about murders and fantasies and things we'd never do in real life. That's why it's fiction.
One of the great themes running through society these days-- do the religous have a right NOT to be offended?
It is amazing the real fear people have in offending old belief constructs (and that would include all three of the sandy religions...)
"Faith" as a means to truth SHOULD be shot down in this day and age. And there should be an army of shooters (perhaps some with fake names...)
An agent will not disclose your real name. As your agent, their are certain duties owed to you, the author, and that's one of them.
And an agent who passed on your manuscript probably won't even bother reading your sig line, and certainly won't commit your name to memory. If they do remember your name, they won't remember the query letter or book proposal that ocntained it...
No worries, buddy. Send out those queries.
We had a similar discussion here recently, didn't we? One agent, at least, disagrees with Dave's advice. Yes, you will eventually need to disclose your real name (like when you sign with the agency), unless you incorporate yourself, which a lot of authors have. But that's putting the cart before the donkey.
From Agent Jessica Faust's blog:
Whatever you decide to do, here’s a little advice: The minute, the second, you decide to use that pseudonym, you need to become that person. That means that you stop signing your name Jessica Faust writing as Fessica Jaust. Nope. If I’m writing as Fessica Jaust, then I better become Fessica in all of my correspondence, in every nametag I write and in every introduction that’s made. Why confuse people? If you want to sell books under a pseudonym, then why even bother telling them your real name? It’s not going to sell books. That means when you’re submitting to an agent you submit as Fessica Jaust. When you’re talking to your editor, you call and say this is Fessica.
I submit work as Phoenix Sullivan. My email and blog pages are all Phoenix Sullivan. Where my publishing credits appear on my site -- all written under my real name -- I list them under writing as Real Name.
The Pseudonym Police haven't come crashing down my door ... yet.
I can't contribute to the "when to introduce the real name" thing, but unless you've written something really, really out there, I wouldn't stress so much about the blasphemous material. I think most agents have seen it all, or at least read it all. The only reason I can think this would become an issue between you and your agent is if you think your former material will offend your agent or the very people you are writing for (your new readers). For the latter, I mean in a direct way. Like drawing Mohammed cartoons and then trying to sell the "Everyday guide to the Quran" as genuine spiritual literature. Or first you wrote "Christ must die" and now you are submitting an inspirational romance.
But if you've blasphemed some major religion and now you are writing about Cures for Toe Fungus or the next great Were-Mushroom paranormal romance, then it's not much of an issue. (I have a thing for fungi.)
The 'sandy religions'. Good one, Scott. Made me grin.
There are semi-secret pen names and then there are REALLY secret pen names. The first are usually an author trying something different, like Nora Roberts writing futuristic police procedurals as J.D. Robb. They are now so un-secret that the covers SAY "Nora Roberts writing as J.D. Robb." Same for Jayne Ann Krentz, who uses Amanda Quick for historicals and Jayne Castle for futuristics. Ann Maxwell now writes as Elizabeth Lowell because, ironically enough, a former publisher owns the rights to the Ann Maxwell name. And her mystery series is written as A.E. Maxwell (for her and her husband who collaborated on them). None of these are secret.
Elizabeth Linington, best known as Dell Shannon, used different names for mystery series featuring different characters, and yet other names for different types of books. And Erle Stanley Gardner used A.A. Fair for his non-Perry Mason books.
Then there are "house names," where many different people write as one pseudonymous author of a popular series, such as the Stratemeyer Syndicate (Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, the Bobbsey Twins, and Tom Swift, Jr.).
And there are the Deep Dark Secret ones, for assorted reasons. I don't know if C. Day-Lewis, Poet Laureate of England in his time, allowed it to be common knowledge that he wrote detective stories as Nicholas Blake. It's not uncommon for distinguished academics to write fiction under other names, like Carolyn Heilbrun/Amanda Cross. And then, of course, there are the famous names who have their fiction ghostwritten for them (no names, no pack drill).
To the best of my knowledge, the most recent pseudonym flap was over the novel PRIMARY COLORS by Anonymous, based on the Clinton presidential campaign, revealed to be by journalist Joe Klein. I was rather shocked myself to learn recently that the novels of one of my favorite mystery authors, Robert K. Tanenbaum, had ghostwriters (I don't know if they were completely ghostwritten or not.)
To finally make my point, it's pretty likely that anything written under a pseudonym will eventually have the author's true name revealed, especially if it's successful and/or scandalous. (Look at all the fake-memoir stuff these days.)
It is amazing the real fear people have in offending old belief constructs (and that would include all three of the sandy religions...)
Yeah, but if the writer who queried EE is not American, it's possible s/he could get into trouble—and not just some soppy controversy, either. We Americans tend to take our freedom of speech for granted. Rushdie's fatwa was no joke; he went for years with security at his heels. I can remember when the fatwa was hot and in full effect. He went on the Donahue show (yes, I'm that old) and security had to sit up on the stage with him, just in case. He was pretty much surrounded at all times. All for a goddamn book! (No pun intended.)
Reinaldo Arenas had to smuggle his manuscripts out of Cuba. He lived in hiding and was thrown in jail. He tried to escape Cuba by inner tube. Granted, the Cuban government hunted him more because of his homosexuality than his writing, but still, he did go to jail when the government found out he'd published in Paris. (I'm drawing on memory here from the film about him.)
Maybe pseudonyms would have helped those guys, come to think of it.
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