The Name Blame: Authors Take Aliases To Cover Up Flops; With Stores Tracking Sales, One Bad Book Is Poison; William Becomes Diana

Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg
Wall Street Journal

Reed Farrel Coleman had six mystery books under his belt but sales were steadily weakening. His then-agent made a startling suggestion, he says: Take a new name.
Mr. Coleman, or as he's now known, Tony Spinosa, says he's just "doing what the market expects me to do: Play the game." The first book in his new series, "Hose Monkey," will be out next October, published by Bleak House Books. "Do I have some bitterness?" he asks. "Yes. But what good will it do me?"

Now that retailers can track books sales speedily and efficiently with point-of-sale technology, the entire publishing world knows when an author's commercial performance takes a dive. For these unfortunate scribblers, such a sales record makes it hard to get good advances and big orders from bookstores. So some are adopting an unusual strategy: adopting an alias -- even one of the opposite sex.
Two decades ago, the book industry largely relied on guesswork as it decided what to publish and sell. Editors could keep promoting promising authors, even if sales were weak. When they finally wrote a "breakout" title, their catalog of older books would become valuable.

These days, publishing veterans talk about "the death spiral" of authors' careers. A first novel generates terrific reviews and good sales, but with each succeeding book, sales get weaker and the chains cut their orders until they don't stock any at all.

"You're only as good as your last book's sales to much of the retail market," says New York literary agent Richard Pine, a principal in Inkwell Management LLC.
Dean James has published seven novels and six nonfiction books under his own name but hasn't earned enough to give up running a Houston bookstore. Rather than risk being cut off by his publisher, Mr. James offered to publish his latest work under the androgynous name Jimmie Ruth Evans. The book, "Flamingo Fatale," is a mystery involving a woman who lives in a trailer park, published in July by Berkley Prime Crime, a unit of Pearson PLC.

"I knew I'd have a better chance under a different name because I know how the book business works," says Mr. James.

A few months ago the author spoke to a book group at a private Houston club. Many of the members knew he was writing under a female- sounding name but one man was clearly stunned, expecting to see a woman. "When I walked into the room his jaw literally dropped," says Mr. James.

Natalee Rosenstein, Berkley Prime Crime's senior executive editor, says nobody asked Mr. James to change his name. Nonetheless, since his new protagonist is a woman, it made sense to give him a female moniker, or at least an ambiguous one. "You want to create a fresh start," she says.

William P. Kennedy went one step further. By the early 1990s, the military thrillers that had made his career were no longer selling well. Determined to reinvent himself, Mr. Kennedy sent his publisher a novel involving kidnapping and high finance called "The Trophy Wife." His editor at St. Martin's Press thought the book would appeal to women if it was written by a woman. He pressed Mr. Kennedy to change his name. An amused friend of the author suggested Diana Diamond.

The book, published in 2000, was a success. So was a subsequent title, "The Babysitter." The third, "The Good Sister," hit the best- seller lists. TV talk-show host Kelly Ripa invited the author to appear on "Live with Regis and Kelly." He wore, as a joke, a wavy, blond wig. Although Mr. Kennedy revealed his true identity during the program, it didn't hurt his sales. As Ms. Diamond, he has published six novels.

Mr. Kennedy has some regrets about becoming Diana Diamond, mostly because the literary career of William P. Kennedy appears to be over.

"I still submit books under my own name but it seems to be the consensus that they won't sell," says Mr. Kennedy. What irritates him most, he says, is that he's now acclaimed as the "Queen" of a genre known as the relational thriller. "If I was a sensitive person I'd be suicidal," he says.

Terrill Lee Lankford's literary agency was urging him to take a pseudonym even before his book, "Blonde Lightning," hit the shelves this summer. He declined the advice. His earlier title, "Earthquake Weather," was a critical, if not commercial success. But since it wasn't a big seller, orders from bookstores for the follow-up were lackluster. Mr. Lankford's editor at Bertelsmann AG's Ballantine imprint was enthusiastic about the sequel but the author's agency said his name was a liability.
Mr. Lankford says switching monikers is unethical. "If somebody didn't like my book under my own name it would be wrong to sell another book to that person under a different name," he says. "Just to defeat the computers at Barnes & Noble and Borders isn't a good reason for doing this."

Barry Martin, co-owner of Book'em Mysteries, a bookstore in South Pasadena, Calif., agrees with Mr. Lankford that the practice is "deceitful." He adds: "Publishers will do anything to sell a book."

Others make the point that poor sales may reflect bad marketing decisions rather than negative reader reaction. "A book could have a bad dust jacket," suggests Jack Rems, owner of Dark Carnival, a science-fiction and mystery bookshop in Berkeley, Calif. "I don't think my customers care that much about an author using a new name. It's about getting around the chain-store track record."

Pseudonyms have a long, established historical pedigree. Mary Ann Evans wrote as George Eliot because writing was considered a man's job in the 19th century. Sometimes authors have an itch to try something new but don't want to disappoint or confuse fans. Romance writer Nora Roberts, for example, writes a futuristic crime series as J.D. Robb. Stephen King created the pseudonym Richard Bachman to publish several books written early in his career. But not until recently was a pseudonym considered a marketing necessity.

In today's market, some successful writers might not have survived. James Ellroy, author of "L.A. Confidential," is one example, says his former publisher Otto Penzler, who owns The Mysterious Bookshop in New York City. The first three of Mr. Ellroy's books published by Mr. Penzler sold cumulatively less than 5,000 copies in hardcover. His fourth book, "The Black Dahlia," was a massive best seller.