That's right folks, believe it or not, one of the things that writers some times like to do is to write under a different name and even use a different picture for the photo... For various reasons... But in the case of Richard Bachman... (A.K.A. Stephen King), here is what the master had to say about his, 'nom de plume'...
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Author, 'Stephen King' in the early days of his successful career as writer used to some times write novels under the name, 'Richard Bachman'[/caption]
Stephen King stated in the series, 'The Bachman Books' that adapting this name was a way to, 'make sense of his work' and to try to answer the question of rather or not his success was due to luck or talent...
In the end it doesn't appear as though king was able to get the answer he was looking for due to the fact that after the release of his novel, 'Thinner' and despite the fact that he had put the novels that he wrote under a different lamp and tried to egg the potential for failure on, 'Thinner' was still fairly successful for the author... What with selling over 27,000 copies before he was outed as Bachman and sales improved drastically once readers found out that, 'Thinner' was actually the work of Stephen King...
But you know what, that is just one example of the many great authors out there over the years that have ended up writing under a Pseudonym over the years... Included in this list are:
1. Dean Koontz (As Aaron Wolf)... And that is just one of his names!
2. Ann Landers apparently is a pseudonym!
3. Anne Rice... Now she is an interesting one... You see, it turns out that she has a couple of pen names, but for herself, her real name is Howard Allen Francis O'Brien!
4. Ray Bradbury... Mr. Sci-fi himself also wrote under different pen names
5. And guess who Theodor Seuss Geisel wrote under for a pen name... You guessed it, the writer who wrote one of the world's most beloved children stories... You guessed it, Dr. Suess!
6. Emily Brontë who happens to be a member of the world famous, 'Brontë sisters' wrote under the pen name, 'Ellis Bell'!
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Emily Bronte wrote what could be one of the top 10 best works of fiction that she ever produced under the Pseudonym, 'Ellis Bell'![/caption]
And that is just to name a few! So you might be asking yourself, why are these famous authors from all walks of life, who have been known to write in various genre's end up using pseudonyms... Well there are many reasons why people ultimately use pen names... In the case of Emily Brontë it was to hide her gender... In the case of Stephen King it was to increase the number of books he had published... But when you get down to the heart of it, why did these, and other truly amazing authors who produced some of the best works of fiction end up at one time or another using a pseudonym?
Well honestly folks I couldn't give you just one reason, there are many, some times it is to hide something (as is the case with a woman in the 19th century who is trying become a famous author), some times the real name is found to be unsuitable, and heck, some times they are done on the behalf of the author but not actually done by the author!
But lets be honest here folks, rather you are reading the work of Richard Bachman, or Stephen King... Or if you are reading an Dean Koontz novel or if it is a novel that had originally been written under the name, 'Aaron Wolf'... In the end the story is what matters, not what the name of the author is... It is just kind of fun to wonder why these titans of the written word ended up writing some great works of fiction under a different name, don't you think?
