As I procrastinate work my way back into the wild world of self-publishing and the pen name game, I’ve been doing a lot of spying on the market. I’ve been observing author strategies and seeing how other writers are handling pen names. The biggest mistakes I see indie authors making with pen names are:
Launching too many pen names at once or too fast (creating capacity and traction issues).
Opening a second Amazon account for a new pen name.
The first is problematic, non-fatal, and often self-correcting. That second one can get your Amazon author business shut down.
Amazon pushes a large majority of e-book sales. Estimates on the low end are north of 60%, so losing the account is devastating. If your books are in Kindle Unlimited (KU), it’s even worse since your e-books are exclusive to Amazon, and you’re all-in. In some cases, an author in KU could lose as much as 80% of their e-book royalty income if Amazon pulls the plug, including any unpaid royalties. Yeehaw.
Even if the actual market share numbers are closer to half that, the problem with having all your eggs in one basket is when they take the basket away, the eggs disappear right along with it. Amazon isn’t the only game in town, but building an income by “going wide,” selling through other platforms like Apple and Barnes & Noble, takes time.
Reality check: Trusting any part of your online business to any third party platform can be risky, of course, and all the “building your house on rented land” caveats apply. Many authors have shaken off Amazon and taken to going it alone, selling direct through their own websites. The downside, of course, is you don’t get to ride Amazon’s wake.
I currently have 3 pen names planned and per Amazon’s terms, they will all go under a single Amazon account. Writers use pen names primarily for privacy or to keep reader audiences separated based on genre, heat, or violence levels. When a writer opens a new Amazon KDP account for their shiny new pen name, though… Boom! The Zon monster shuts them down. Please don’t end up like them.
I watched an experienced writer get their Amazon KDP account shut down due to creating a second account and they had to rethink their whole strategy. Given that author’s experience, I thought they would have known better and not gotten themselves in that situation.
That author is not alone, either. I’ve seen several cases where people I thought should know better have committed this primary Amazon sin. So let me state it clearly:
When starting a new pen name, do not open a second Amazon account.
Amazon KDP Accounts
You can have only 1 personal Amazon KDP account. No more.
The wording in the official Amazon help as of this writing is:
Both Amazon and KDP have a policy which prevents creating a second account under a different email address, or under an email address that's associated with an already existing account.
From the terms and conditions:
4.2 Account Information; No Multiple Accounts.
…
You may maintain only one account at a time. If we terminate your account, you will not establish a new account.
If you get shut down, you can try to get your account back, but it’s rough. You can try hiring third parties who may or may not be able to help you. From what I’ve seen, it’s often a permanent ban.
The right way to publish with a pen name:
When you upload your book to Amazon KDP, it asks for the author name. Put in whichever pen name you want as the author of that book. It seems like it should be more difficult than that, but it’s not.
You can have as many pen names as you want under a single Amazon account. The only way readers would know you’re connected with those books or pen names is if you tell them. There’s no need to even think about opening multiple Amazon accounts.
Author Central and Pen Names
This confused me at first, but Author Central is simply a separate account you can set up to manage your author/pen names. You can add information to your author pages such as an author bio and information about your books. By default, Author Central allows 3 pen names under a single login, but you can expand that up to 7 by contacting support.
Remember:
Each pen name you manage adds complexity to your author business and your life, so it’s best to use as few pen names as possible.
Pen names act as a promise to the reader (what the reader expects from this author).
Pen names act as a guardrail (safety, privacy) and a separator for your books (keeping genres separate).
As a Reddit user put it, they didn’t want teen girl readers finding their adult smut books. You also run the risk of confusing Amazon’s algorithm if you lump books from different genres together under the same author name.
The Pen Name Drag
For each pen name, there’s a certain amount of administrative overhead, including marketing, social media accounts, and often an email list/newsletter to take care of. Too many pen names become overwhelming to manage and can actually slow growth by diverting your time and attention.
For these reasons, a good strategy is to:
Consolidate as many books in related genres as possible under each pen name.
Get one pen name and its books selling before launching the next pen name.
Limit the total number of pen names you use.
There are always trade-offs, so it’s worth some careful consideration when making the decision to launch a new pen name. Just don’t let it take up too much of your writing time, and make sure you have only 1 KDP account. Be careful out there.