I’m undertaking a 1000-day reinvention project, blogging here daily to track my progress. In Friday Flash, I share an epiphany or aha moment from the past week.
One of the biggest realizations I’ve had as I move forward with indie authorship is that I don’t have to tap into my own social network as a way to promote my book. I don’t need to build up my Facebook or Instagram followers or ask my friends and family to sign up for my newsletter. If I write a book that is useful to a specific target audience, and I can get it in front of those people, that will be a likely much better route to success.
I started thinking yesterday, “maybe I will publish under a pen name.” The more I think about it, the more I like it. On r/authors, a commenter replies to a question about whether to use a pen name or write under your real name:
I’ve done both. I like the pen name better. I’m an introvert, and while I haven’t made it big or anything, I like the privacy a pen name gives you. It also helps with receiving criticism. Being an indie author, I have to read reviews of ARCs in order to know what might need to be addressed before publishing. Writing under a pen name gave me a nice separation. Reviewers sometimes make a lot of assumptions about authors after reading their books, and sometimes criticize the person instead of the writing. With a pen name, I could be like “well, wtf do they know? They don’t even know my real name!” Obviously that’s the mentality to have as an author anyway, but having a pen name made it easier to take that criticism without it impacting my mental health. Also, pen names are awesome if you want to write in different genres. It’s taken me a few tries to figure out what I wanted to write, and using pen names allows you to dabble with different types of stories.
I haven’t figured out what name to use yet. I want to come up with something that is both unusual enough that I can register a domain name and grab key social media accounts, but is not totally weird. I want something that expresses something about where these writings are coming from. I have a few ideas, but need to soak on it for a bit.
I deactivated my Facebook and Instagram accounts just now. That felt good. I had to first resign my volunteer positions managing social media for two art groups. That also felt good (though it felt a little bad too, to flake out like that).