a crown for cold silver

[Maester Llama]

Son of the Morning was well-received, for sure, but how much of a profile does it have? I'm not certain it even has a US publisher at this stage. I also recall this Marshall novel being announced as something Orbit had acquired in advance of Alder's Son of the Morning coming out from Gollancz, so it wouldn't yet have been known how well Son would do.

Barrowcliffe also seems to be fairly open about his pen names, no? Like of course it's not advertised on the books or anything but he discusses it -- I remember a blog post or an interview or something where he spoke about Son of the Morning and the fourth Wolfsangel book as both being projects he was pursuing. Why would the Marshall pseudonym be different, I wonder, if it is Barrowcliffe? In the case of Marshall there seems to be a genuine effort at concealment and I'm puzzled as to why that might be.

[Darth Richard II]

It's obviously jk Rowling.

[Spockydog]

It wouldn't surprise me.

[Darth Richard II]

I'm joking, but i haven't read the book yet, so who knows?

[Spockydog]

Son of the Morning was well-received, for sure, but how much of a profile does it have?

Well, perhaps if the dude stopped changing his freaking name, more people would know about his books. You feel me?

[peterbound]

Wait, so it's not Tom Holt?

[SkynJay]

I am sticking with R Scott Bakker. Multi-genre author, reads like a homage/deconstruction/reconstruction of his style of fantasy.

[AncalagonTheBlack]

I am sticking with R Scott Bakker. Multi-genre author, reads like a homage/deconstruction/reconstruction of his style of fantasy.

Orbit also publish Bakker in the UK,right ?

[Darth Richard II]

Barrowcliff gas almost zero presence in the U.S., so I suppose it's possible.

[peterbound]

I'm liking the book, but this mysterious author shit is for the birds. And to be honest, a little insulting. The idea that the author needs to 'rebrand' him/herself or use a pseudonym for different genres seems like an antiquated idea, especially with the huge uptick in geekdom.

[SkynJay]

I'm liking the book, but this mysterious author shit is for the birds. And to be honest, a little insulting. The idea that the author needs to 'rebrand' him/herself or use a pseudonym for different genres seems like an antiquated idea, especially with the huge uptick in geekdom.

I am curious how it works for sales. Did the mystery add to Holt's sales? Did the reveal give him a large bump the last few days? Or is all this done out of a strange sort of ego trip: "I can sell this book without anyone knowing it is me"

[Darth Richard II]

Usually it's done to differentiate between extremely differnt works, isn't it? Or the rare author who wants to see if people just buy her stuff blindly.

[polishgenius]

Sometimes, as I understand it, it's a contract thing, if the two works are being published by different companies or whatever.

And oftimes I'm pretty sure it's not the author's choice but the publisher's, deciding not so much that readers would be confused but that a person who might reject a book by 'that fantasy guy' for example might buy the same book if it's not. I get the impression that's the reason for Daniel Abraham's pseudonyms, though hopefully if I'm wrong he'll correct me...

The weirdest one for me was Ian Banks and Ian M Banks.

[SkynJay]

The weirdest one for me was Ian Banks and Ian M Banks.

There is a UF author named C.T. Adams who writes under Cat Adams. I thought that one was kind of cool.

[Maester Llama]

Spockydog: True, yes; whatever the sales tactics surrounding pen names you'd think Barrowcliffe might have more luck with exposure if he'd stick with a name, especially for work that is in some ways not that different, I agree.

The point that his profile in the US is almost non-existent under any of his ridiculous profusion of names is a good one, though -- I think Pyr brought the first two Wolfsangel books over a few years ago, but that's about it, and Pyr's not a huge publishing house by any means.

Yep, Orbit do publish Bakker in the UK. That'd be fascinating if it really was Bakker.

I too recall Abraham's explanation for the pseudonyms [which are open in his case] being purely tactical, meant to avoid confusing readers. Sometimes it's a sales rebranding by the publisher if an author's books have sold poorly -- I recall Sarah Monette posting something on her blog explaining that this was the reason why The Goblin Emperor went out under Katherine Addison, because Monette's Doctrine of Labyrinths books with Ace had done ugly numbers that Tor and Monette didn't want retailer chains' computer systems to associate with The Goblin Emperor. When Stephen King and Rowling have published under closed pseudonyms and people have found out the explanations were more along the lines that they wanted to see if they could be successful without their names, so leaning toward the rare author who wants to see if people buy her stuff blindly mentioned above.

I agree with PB that in this case I'm finding the mysterious author shit quite annoying. Partly this is on me, because A: it's turning out to be a tactic that works on me insofar as it at least makes me pay a bit of attention and I wish it didn't, and B: it shows me that I have a nasty suspicious mind because one of my first questions is "why don't they want us to know?" Independent of what it tells me about myself it's still annoying, though: if it's a sales thing that's cool, but then why get all cloak and dagger about it; why not just be up front with people? [This is independent of how I feel about authors who personally prefer not to distribute their names / biographical details widely attached to anything they happen to publish at all, like the fantasy author Mazarkis Williams who released a trilogy a few years ago that people thought was quite good; that makes complete sense to me. This Marshall situation, involving an author who it sounds like is published and at least somewhat known under another name, feels a bit different to me.]

[AncalagonTheBlack]

There is a UF author named C.T. Adams who writes under Cat Adams. I thought that one was kind of cool.

FYI,Cat Adams is the joint pen name of authors C.T. Adams and Cathy Clamp. ;)

[Bjornbert]

Spockydog: True, yes; whatever the sales tactics surrounding pen names you'd think Barrowcliffe might have more luck with exposure if he'd stick with a name, especially for work that is in some ways not that different, I agree.

The point that his profile in the US is almost non-existent under any of his ridiculous profusion of names is a good one, though -- I think Pyr brought the first two Wolfsangel books over a few years ago, but that's about it, and Pyr's not a huge publishing house by any means.

Yep, Orbit do publish Bakker in the UK. That'd be fascinating if it really was Bakker.

I too recall Abraham's explanation for the pseudonyms [which are open in his case] being purely tactical, meant to avoid confusing readers. Sometimes it's a sales rebranding by the publisher if an author's books have sold poorly -- I recall Sarah Monette posting something on her blog explaining that this was the reason why The Goblin Emperor went out under Katherine Addison, because Monette's Doctrine of Labyrinths books with Ace had done ugly numbers that Tor and Monette didn't want retailer chains' computer systems to associate with The Goblin Emperor. When Stephen King and Rowling have published under closed pseudonyms and people have found out the explanations were more along the lines that they wanted to see if they could be successful without their names, so leaning toward the rare author who wants to see if people buy her stuff blindly mentioned above.

I agree with PB that in this case I'm finding the mysterious author shit quite annoying. Partly this is on me, because A: it's turning out to be a tactic that works on me insofar as it at least makes me pay a bit of attention and I wish it didn't, and B: it shows me that I have a nasty suspicious mind because one of my first questions is "why don't they want us to know?" Independent of what it tells me about myself it's still annoying, though: if it's a sales thing that's cool, but then why get all cloak and dagger about it; why not just be up front with people? [This is independent of how I feel about authors who personally prefer not to distribute their names / biographical details widely attached to anything they happen to publish at all, like the fantasy author Mazarkis Williams who released a trilogy a few years ago that people thought was quite good; that makes complete sense to me. This Marshall situation, involving an author who it sounds like is published and at least somewhat known under another name, feels a bit different to me.]

Wasn't the idea the Mazakiris Williams was Mark Lawrence?

[Bjornbert]

Spockydog: True, yes; whatever the sales tactics surrounding pen names you'd think Barrowcliffe might have more luck with exposure if he'd stick with a name, especially for work that is in some ways not that different, I agree.

The point that his profile in the US is almost non-existent under any of his ridiculous profusion of names is a good one, though -- I think Pyr brought the first two Wolfsangel books over a few years ago, but that's about it, and Pyr's not a huge publishing house by any means.

Yep, Orbit do publish Bakker in the UK. That'd be fascinating if it really was Bakker.

I too recall Abraham's explanation for the pseudonyms [which are open in his case] being purely tactical, meant to avoid confusing readers. Sometimes it's a sales rebranding by the publisher if an author's books have sold poorly -- I recall Sarah Monette posting something on her blog explaining that this was the reason why The Goblin Emperor went out under Katherine Addison, because Monette's Doctrine of Labyrinths books with Ace had done ugly numbers that Tor and Monette didn't want retailer chains' computer systems to associate with The Goblin Emperor. When Stephen King and Rowling have published under closed pseudonyms and people have found out the explanations were more along the lines that they wanted to see if they could be successful without their names, so leaning toward the rare author who wants to see if people buy her stuff blindly mentioned above.

I agree with PB that in this case I'm finding the mysterious author shit quite annoying. Partly this is on me, because A: it's turning out to be a tactic that works on me insofar as it at least makes me pay a bit of attention and I wish it didn't, and B: it shows me that I have a nasty suspicious mind because one of my first questions is "why don't they want us to know?" Independent of what it tells me about myself it's still annoying, though: if it's a sales thing that's cool, but then why get all cloak and dagger about it; why not just be up front with people? [This is independent of how I feel about authors who personally prefer not to distribute their names / biographical details widely attached to anything they happen to publish at all, like the fantasy author Mazarkis Williams who released a trilogy a few years ago that people thought was quite good; that makes complete sense to me. This Marshall situation, involving an author who it sounds like is published and at least somewhat known under another name, feels a bit different to me.]

Wasn't the idea the Mazakiris Williams was Mark Lawrence?

[Darth Richard II]

He's one of the leading candidates yes, although I think the theory is he co authored it with someone else.

[Puntificator]

Wasn't the idea the Mazakiris Williams was Mark Lawrence?

It's Mazarkis.