The Pros and Cons of Taking a Pen Name
Is it worth it for you?
You’re doing your daily reading routine. You find an article that resonates with you. And it’s inspiring you to write a response.
However, it’s a topic you don’t typically cover. What if your readers don’t take your writing well? What if some people are so offended they decide to stop reading your work? If you have a job, could they fire you for your topic? What if your family sees your article?
You write a rough response to the article. You don’t publish anything because you don’t want a controversial reaction. You feel the consequences are too great for your main profile.
You don’t want to publish your story on your main profile, so you create a pen name. You hit Publish, and let it out into the world. It ends up being a success.
Every writer goes through the pen name debate in their careers. Some choose a pen name, and some go without one. There are a few authors out there who use both their real and pen names! It’s more common than most readers and writers realize.
I would be surprised if you came to this article because you wanted to keep writing about the same things but with a different name. Like the scenario above, you want to experiment more with your writing, but you’re unsure if the pen name will help.
