# Using Pen Names and Income



## Philip Overby (Mar 16, 2015)

So I'm thinking of self-publishing some work this year, but I want to keep it separate from my main work (under my given name). Does anyone know how this would work? Would I be able to link my accounts on various publishing sites and have any income funneled into one place? Or would I have separate incomes for separate pen names? I'm not sure how this works. Suffice to say, I'm going to dabble in some non-fiction and some other things that I don't want connected to my main fantasy work. I'm just wondering if I would have to balance multiple pen names and accounts for multiple projects.


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## FarmerBrown (Mar 16, 2015)

I write under two names (my maiden name and a pen name) and I self-publish. All the distributors I work with (except one) allow multiple names within one account, which is registered under my real (married) name. Amazon allows up to three names per account, CreateSpace doesn't care how many names you publish under, Kobo and Draft2Digital allow at least 2 different author names (probably more)....Smashwords is the only one that makes you create a separate account for every name you publish under. I have all monies go to the same bank account, they just arrive at different times from the different distributors. Hope this helps, I'm happy to clear anything up and answer questions!


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## Philip Overby (Mar 16, 2015)

Thanks for the clarification! This will be helpful for me going forward.


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## Caged Maiden (Mar 16, 2015)

Nice to know, thanks.  I have been contemplating a similar situation.


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## Reilith (Mar 16, 2015)

Maybe this is not the spot for this question, but when you mentioned it now, about pen names - how does it work if you want to publish under one and how does that affect the publishing process and sales?


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## FarmerBrown (Mar 17, 2015)

Reilith said:


> Maybe this is not the spot for this question, but when you mentioned it now, about pen names - how does it work if you want to publish under one and how does that affect the publishing process and sales?



If you publish under a single name, real or not, that is usually the best option because you aren't dividing your works. If you're self-publishing, your greatest weapon against obscurity is an abundance of titles, which is harder to do if you're splitting your titles between multiple names. No one will know you have written a total of six books when two are published under name X and four under name Y. They just see two or four. So that can affect sales. Authors with more titles tend to be more visible, which results in more sales (especially if they're series)....but this isn't a rule!

On the other hand, if you want to write very different kinds of books (my real name is more 'pure' fantasy stuff and my pen name is zombies and sci-fi and stuff I want to experiment with), writing under multiple names can be beneficial. When you do that you can also see which of your stories people actually read, so you could devote more time to the ones that are selling and spend less time on the ones that aren't (or abandon them entirely...)


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## Joanna (Mar 17, 2015)

Like FarmerBrown said, it's not a problem at all. Just a little clarification: Amazon publishing (KDP) does not have a limit on pen names, you are considered "the publisher" there and can have as many as you like need. In fact you can only have one KDP account (and they are VERY strict about that rule!). The 3 pen name limit refers to AuthorCentral (where you can have multiple accounts) - which is where you manage your author bio, and some other more social related aspects of your Amazon presence.

Same goes for Smashwords - if you pick a Publisher account then you can manage multiple pen names under it. Though the main difference between Amazon and Smashwords in this regard is that on Amazon, the pen names are completely separate (in fact to a customer you can look like more than one press, which is very handy if you want to keep your pen names absolutely separate), on Smashwords the publisher link is unavoidable (say via the "other books by this publisher" link the readers can click), however if that's not an issue, it means you can have all your books in one place.


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