Starting with a pseudonym

When I started writing, I had no idea what my goal was. Then I had one—to be traditionally published—but that didn’t pan out. I sent my first manuscript to a couple of publishing houses and to literary agencies, and for the following eight months, I continued writing.

By the time I lost my patience (and accepted that maybe it wouldn’t be my path), I had the first four novels of The Five (A Full Moon’s Night, On the Run, A Failing Condition, and A Personal Investigation) and had outlined two more sequels, as well as jotted down a few more ideas (that never materialized into a plot).

I knew that I could continue submitting the manuscript but I didn’t want to. Understandably, literary agents can take weeks at a minimum or a handful of months to get back to you (I’d say my average of replies was around the four-month mark). I didn’t want to wait, so I decided to get started.

I don’t know why I chose a pseudonym (maybe because it made everything easier or there was less of a spotlight on my books and on myself)—I just did.

And with that decided, I researched different options, took into consideration what I could invest (close to nothing), and made the decision to self-publish through Amazon’s KDP platform.

In hindsight, I’m glad about the choices I made because this allowed me to learn, make mistakes, and figure things out without anyone being the wiser.

From trying out designs of covers, understanding format and linking in e-books, managing the author profile, setting up the Goodreads pages, and a few more things, there was plenty for me to navigate and discover.

While it was mostly a learning experience, it helped me get a clearer idea of how best to do some things and it bolstered my confidence to, eventually, publish under my own name.

Does this mean that I haven’t made mistakes since? Ha! Of course I have, but the practice I had before allowed me to know enough about the different platforms and to figure out how to do things in a way that works best for me, according to my circumstances and possibilities.

I’m pretty sure that I’m not the only one who started with a pseudonym and I know that there are plenty of authors who opt for them for a variety of reasons—but that’s for a different post.

Moira Daly

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