Pen Names and When to Admit Them

a ruling pen_Image via Wikipedia

In the middle of writing the draft for the second blog installment of a short story effort called The Visitor,  it's time to mention that Alec Powers is a pen name.

Mark Twain, one of the most familiar pen names, may have been writing for quite a while before he owned up to being Samuel Clemens. Would we prefer that he had used his real name? I doubt it. 

Alec Powers is the second pen name I have used. Jane Bullard was the first, for Not All Roads Lead Home. I have written a few times about why I chose to write my first book as Jane, not publicizing that it was I who was the author. Using a pen name does not require giving the writer's real name

In this age when many authors do not use pens, but choose word processing, where are the pens involved most of the time? I miss the images of the inkwell and sharpened feather quills, the latter of which inspired pen name as a way to describe a writing name.

Who is surprised to remember that one of my favorite books is Gap Creek written by a man in a woman's voice. When I first read it, I wondered if Robert Morgan  was a pen name for a female author, but it does not appear to be so. He so effectively expressed the speech and patterns of a woman and a woman living in a remote area in the southern U.S.

I'll write more on this blog as I continue to practice the short story, for me a new genre and one of the most challenging.   

(c) 2012 by Author Support blog and Jean, Jane, and Alec

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Call it "Christian" if...

 Plate from Hans Christian Andersen Fairy Tales, Doubleday Page and Co., New York 1914_Public Domain_Wikipedia

Giant publishing houses like Doubleday, Simon and Shuster, and others have historically published Christian authors. 

     However, the books were not labeled "Christian" or "secular " Readers investigated books and authors for the quality of writing, information, and story-telling. 

     One of Doubleday's earliest bestsellers was a A Day's Work. The author? The controversial Rudyard Kipling. Was he a Christian? Did readers know or ask? Look at his work to see his entertaining stories and poetic prayers. Examine his talent (if not outstanding, would Henry James have attended his wedding?) without use of expletives. Along with Jungle Stories, consider his "Recessional" poem, with the words, "lest we forget," and used by many including the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (est.1917), for which Kipling was a literary adviser during World War I.

God of our fathers, known of old,
Lord of our far-flung battle-line,
Beneath whose awful Hand we hold
Dominion over palm and pine -
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget - lest we forget!

Whether soldiers fight on one side or the other, they and their families understand the sentiments of "Recessional" and Lest we forget. 

     Looking back only a few decades, enjoyable book days of finest and best-selling writers knew and guarded beautiful literary style, used with talent and insight, a good story, a distinctive style, and, in Charles Dickens' case and others', knew ways to express powerfully, unforgettably the major societal concerns still alarmingly high on lists today, due to poverty, enslavement, apathy. "Religion" and "spirituality" did not need to be said. Gripping and popular stories presented the dramas on pages with might and convincing prose. It's different today, and we could trace how we got here with "Christian publishing houses," and such phrases now being needed, although they widen the separation and many "secular" readers miss books that they, too, would enjoy and want more of, like Lynn Austin's WWII-era novel about Brooklyn, a Metro job, women's work changing, the invasion of Poland, Jewish and Christian displacement and war service, in While We're Far Apart.

      Opine publishes "Books for Thinking Christians." We let buyers know up front that "Christian" is our authors' faith perspective. All buyers are welcomed to browse our books, respectful of Christian and Jewish perspectives. Opine Publishing learned early that we could be inundated by queries and manuscripts from authors who would soon realize that we would not be a good fit for them, nor them for us. So, we decided to say it at the top.
     Language quality standards in general fiction publishing now often breaks sewer lines. And it saves everyone's time to know more about who is behind the books all of us read. I am as likely as anyone, due to my liking of detective and mystery stories, to pick up a book whose insides could be a quick turn-off due to expletives alone. Using the library helps. In the stacks I leaf through interesting-looking books to check language levels. If a few paragraphs grab my interest without any offensive language, that's my first step toward reading a good new book.

Today I looked for Amazon.com's bestselling books 2012 and their bestselling Christian books 2012.. Many were released at the end of the Fall publishing cycle and were out there before the New Year rang in.

      In the second search I noticed Lorilyn Roberts' How to Launch a Christian Best Seller Book, Kindle edition, with "Look inside" option and a price anyone can afford. (I'll download it to my free-download Kindle to HP Pavilion (Core 2, about 2004) laptop today.)

     My bottom-line view is that neither publishers nor authors should have to label themselves "Christian" for it seems, to some, like a deliberate separatism or even boasting, and I think the truly best books should rise to the top. However, it's more than "the best" these days, and that's a fact. It's the "edgiest" (and some "Christian authors and publishers" are going this way, as well) or the most sickening, often written by very talented yet grossly language-abusive writers.

     It's doubtful whether we or any century will see another equal to Shakespeare or Dickens and their companions in literature, or Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, or Bach, in music. Yet, these set the standards in book publishing and music performance. Yet, there are the likes of authors similar to the writing levels of Catherine Marshall and Eugenia Price, and other men and women writing from Christian faith and perspective. 

     Whoever is writing as Christian or not anti-Christian, should increase the quality of books through quality, insightful, enjoyable, thrilling, and exciting stories with free speech--free of expletives and other elements now common in popular and general bestselling book genres. Even non-Christian author admittedly work with issues of justice, law, and repentance, being drawn to those major themes.

Jean Purcell, publisher
OpineBooks for Thinking Christians

Opine eStore and Book Cafe

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"Get Your Book Noticed"-KR

Image via Wikipedia

 Kirkus Reviews says, "Get Your Book Noticed"

Not so long ago, the traditional publishing and marketing world shrugged off (or worse)  self-published books. That has changed, and not just because John Grisham published the first edition of A Time to Kill, or that people learned why Charles Dickens self-published A Christmas Carol. His own publisher would not touch it-"not profitable; too short."

Today, more than ever, self-published authors trend toward a professional view, different from their predecessors even five or ten years ago. The smartest of them focus on improved writing, book production, marketing,the bottom line, and expectations. Yes, there remain schemers making money off writers not learning the self-publishing trade. And it is, friends, a demanding profession. There are still over-confident writers that imagine buyers rushing to their books by the thousands, or millions. But those types or stages you find in almost any profession or trade. Especially true of work meant to go public in a highly competitive market.

It is hard work (examine closely any claims to the contrary), and usually with slow, if any, remarkable money profits (ditto).

If you are an author, you can investigate Kirkus Reviews, one of the biggest book reviewers, as well as others. Learn how they propose to help books like yours. They want you to do it, and I'm glad to encourage investigation. Be wise about what they promise to do, and don't blame them if you don't do your part. What they want to do is this: Help. Authors. Promote. Their self-published books.

Self-publishing authors able to cooperate with the specifics behind the help and what is needed on their part, for that to work, need eyes wide open and willingness to try. That would be, I opine, a far, far better thing to do than to pay anyone to promote a book, or to take no special action to help one's own book. It's good there are those willing to help, depending on their own advertisers and not authors' money.

There are ways to shine a spotlight on outstanding, professional, and author-ready self-published books!

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