I published my novels under a pseudonym. I did this because I did not want my novels to come up on an Internet search by someone associated with my day job, which is in a completely different field.
More recently, I have taken on several pseudonyms on the Internet -- so that I look like several different people, at least to the casual observer. Presumably a sophisticated observer could figure it out, but not someone just doing a simple Google search.
When I take on a new pseudonym, I feel free to say whatever I feel like with that pseudonym; however, in the context of social media, I soon make friends and enemies -- and then have a community of people surrounding me. I start having the same concerns with respect to that community that I have with respect to people in in my real name life -- worrying about my reputation, becoming more careful about what I say, feeling constrained.
After a while, the pseudonym becomes my name in some sense, and is less and less a pseudonym and more and more a representation of me. Then I feel like I should make a new pseudonym.
The irony of this is that this pseudonym, the one I am posting with here, is the one I would most like to draw attention to, since I am trying to sell my novels -- and, yet, this one is the one that has attracted the least attention and remains without a community.
Strange.
No comments:
Post a Comment