Pseudonyms: To Use Or Not To Use

I suppose I should start off by admitting that Elysee Orchidkiller is not my real name. I can hear you groan with disappointment and I completely agree with you. It is such a shame that my parents didn’t think up such fetching names!

Why did I choose to publish under a pseudonym?

I imagine my reasons are common ones. Firstly, I had already published two books under my real name (one of which was a bestseller) and the new book was of an entirely different genre to those two. I’m sure you are thinking that I have gone mad! After all, who wouldn’t use a name that already had a literary reputation behind it?

It’s quite simple, really. I was publishing a book about the most personal, sensitive topic in my life.

Which brings me to my second point, and I assume this is the primary reason authors write under a fake name: we don’t want anyone to know that we wrote it.

Bizarre, isn’t it? We write a book that we are proud of and decide to publish it – but then we use a pseudonym as we don’t want anyone to know that we wrote it. Ah! The wonderful, eccentric world of writing! I’m sure there are many more reasons why authors choose to use a pen name but I’ll share mine in more detail.

‘Diary of a Traumatised Uterus’ was a book I wrote out of necessity, not choice. Seven years of heart-wrenching, soul-destroying fertility treatments took its toll on me and I needed an outlet to express my tormented emotions. The physical side effects of IVF are nothing in comparison to the catastrophic psychological and emotional conflicts that you have to fight through. Your very sanity is at stake, and I can assure you that I am not exaggerating when I say that.

Writing about such a personal journey is similar to stripping off and putting your naked body on display for the public to stare at and critique. Although I felt completely comfortable allowing strangers to see me in such a vulnerable state, I really couldn’t contemplate those closest to me doing so. I guess I didn’t want the pity; the sympathetic hugs and concerned looks would have made the situation even harder to bear.

I didn’t realise that by publishing under a pseudonym, I was giving myself more complications to deal with. Anonymity is great in some respects, but when it comes to marketing, it makes matters rather difficult. When I publish a book, my first port of call is my family and friends. I ask them…well, beg them…to buy my book, share my social media links and post reviews. However, using my newly acquired ‘Orchidkiller’ pseudonym, I couldn’t do any of that without compromising my identity as the author. I had to rely on organic reviews from readers who had mysteriously stumbled across my book out of the millions on Amazon.

I soon realised that by hiding my identity, I had effectively handcuffed myself to a rock located on the edge of a crumbling cliff. Like many authors, I cannot afford to fund a large scale marketing campaign – the odd twenty pounds on social media promotions is pretty much the extent of my advertising budget. Due to this, I have one review on Amazon.

ONE.

Three stars, from a reader who failed to appreciate that the book was meant to describe how I felt when I was at my lowest point, and not how she, the reader, may have wanted me to feel.

This was the first book that I had ever self-published and I was naive. You see, a few months back I had a moment of rage against the publishing world. It was set off by the usual author grumbles: feeling that publishers take advantage of authors, realising how unfair royalty percentages are, etc.

In a moment of supreme confidence I told myself that I did not need, or want, a publisher. I could do it all by myself, thank you very much!

And so, as I write this, I am pretty much trying to figure out how I am going to unlock these handcuffs. I have now accepted that I will most likely need to trust a small handful of my closest friends, not because I need their reviews, but because I’m genuinely interested in their opinion on the book.

The rest of my plan is genius.

Plug away and wait.

Doesn’t that just sum up the life of an author anyway?

I have to let you in on a secret, though. There is something incredibly amusing about writing from behind an identity mask. I felt that my boundaries were much broader than if I was writing under my own name. I could go a bit mad, be a bit naughty and push the limits a bit more when it came to expressing my views. And express them I did…boy, did I go on an anti-‘baby on board’ sticker tirade in chapter 8. When I was angry and frustrated, I shamelessly let my words rip across the page, and when I went through what I can only describe as the worst days of my life, I soaked my notepad with my tears and I etched my pain across its damp surface.

From a writing perspective, it was rather liberating. I could be raw and I could be the real me because I cared less who I offended or annoyed in the process.

Thanks to my anonymity, I had nothing to hide and so I hid nothing.

Perhaps there is something to pseudonyms after all.

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Elysee Orchidkiller is the author of ‘Diary of a Traumatised Uterus’. In her book, Elysee describes her experience with infertility, using humour and sarcasm as her medium. In a world where your reproductive organs are looked upon much like a prized cow, you really do have the choice to cry or to laugh. Elysee chooses to laugh, albeit at times through her tears.

Follow her on Twitter https://twitter.com/OrchidKiller

Tags: featured, pseudonyms, women writers

Category: Contemporary Women Writers, On Writing