ADVANCED MAGIC BAKERY… Chapter Twelve
Chapter Twelve… More Than One Magic Bakery
Authors desperately need to learn branding. It is a major promotion tool when done correctly. Just saying…
Authors also do not realize that the name above the door into their magic bakery is their author name. Not their publishing name which is for business like licensing agreements.
No one ever cares about a book title, they only care about author’s names, even when the writer is only on their third book. All systems of searches boil down to the author’s name.
So Dean, how do pen names work here in the magic bakery world of 2025?
My first knee-jerk answer is that you have to write twice as much as you do with only one name. Sadly that has a lot of truth in it. The cliche of 20 books to 50K in income is per author name.
Let that sink in for a moment.
For many writers, working under a pen name helps them write more. If that is the case, great!
So what you do is you set up another magic bakery right next door. If you want to have the pen names be attached in the back of your books and on your web site, that is basically setting up an archway between the two stores. (Of course they would share a kitchen.)
Realize that often if you write under a pen name, no reader will know which is your real name or your pen name, in essence, both become pen names. Make sure you answer to both names without grinding your teeth.
Rarely is cross promotion between the two names very valuable, unless one name becomes wildly more successful than the other.
Basically, if you decide for any number of a thousand reasons you want to write and publish under two names, or three, or four names, realize that with each name you need to brand.
There are no magic bakery or copyright issues with multiple names. None. Both stores work exactly the same.
You just have to work twice as hard to have both names move forward and fill the shelves in two stores instead of only one.
I used to say don’t do it because of branding, but now with multiple websites being easy, with very smart readers being able to keep books, genres, and names separate, and with multiple Shopify stores possible, if you really want a second pen name for some personal reason, fire away.
Just expect your overall progress in getting a name known for increased income to be twice as slow as it would be with one name.