The Economics of Pen Names

I went to bed human. I woke up with a sinus infection on just one side of my face. I love sinus infections. My absolute favorite. I can 100% tell you the cause of this.

My neighbor, who so very much loves to crank her heat and put my apartment into the upper 80s to the 100s. (It was 100 degrees in my kitchen the other day because of her. Yes, I have a thermometer, I checked it. It was registering triple digits in my fucking kitchen.)

I am going to be so happy when we get moved.

Anyway, I’m doing something naughty with my Cindercorns and Spicy Ponies with Bite over at my Patreon. We’re picking out my birthday book for next year in a contest like fashion.

It has spawned some interesting conversations.

One of those conversations has spawned this post.

We’re going to talk pen names, why I do them, what you can expect when I do a pen name, and why some pen names fail at two to three books and why others, like Susan Copperfield and Audrey Greene, flourish. Sure, Audrey only has two books right now, but she will have many more books.

Audrey has a blank check. She is a heart pen name, and I do her for my joy and enrichment, and I’m willing to throw money away on her as a hobby and an expression of love. Audrey Greene is my love letter to science fiction and paranormal, mixed together.

So, let’s start at the very beginning. When I was new to this career, I was not as savvy about most things, especially with pen name creation/use for marketing purposes. I did not realize, way back then, that readers very much enjoy like with like.

R.J. Blain is an “anything goes” pen name, and I shot myself in the foot repeatedly through this decision. I’m the first to admit I made poor choices. Had I been wiser, smarter, and a little more savvy, I would have split R.J. into several pen names.

Vigilante Magical Librarians would have become a pen name–and because this series would have had a pen name, it might not have been slated for death after five books and a spin of series (much like I’m doing with Royal States) might have been done.

Why?

Economics.

Vigilante Magical Librarians is a touchy series. It’s… very different from most things I do. It’s political in nature. The rest of my books are far more limited on the political scale. Do I use political things? (Yes; outfoxed is political in terms of how the society works, but it isn’t political in the content; it doesn’t deal with how characters use politics to change their world. Vigilante… is all about the politics.)

Politics give me hives. I would have been much happier had I been wise and pen named Vigilante. Then it could be political all it wants without damaging the rest of my books.

Witch & Wolf World and all my darker things, including Outfoxed, should have been the core of the R.J. Blain pen name.

Magical Romantic Comedies… should have been pen named, because this series heavily typecasted me.

Read the angry reviews on Karma, License to Kill, and Old Secrets to get an idea as to why.

I started urban fantasy and paranormal with heavy expressions of darkness. The Magical Romantic Comedies heavily typecasted me for light fluffy humor.

I am not, at my heart and soul, a light and fluffy humor author. Yes, I use fluff and comedy as methods of making the medicine go down. But outside of Bernadette Franklin… all of my books have darkness, even the Magical Romantic Comedies.

(And if you can’t see the darkness, I recommend going and doing a reread while looking for those things and digging deeper. Because under the hood, most of my novels have a point I wish to make. And darkness is usually required to make those points.)

I hate being cast typed as a ‘irrelevant humor author.’ First, humor is kinda important. It keeps us all sane, and it’s physically good for us to laugh and have joy. Stress kills. Joy improves health. So the whole idea that humor authors are somehow inferior writers just grates on my fucking nerves.

For some reason, a book is only important or valid if it takes itself too seriously. And if important subjects are wrapped in humor, it’s somehow diluted.

In school, do you know when I best learned? When the teachers made the material somehow amusing and engaging–even the really dark stuff, including Holocaust studies.

I had this amazing teacher who used comedy at appropriate locations to help us stay focused on the subject at hand. (She would teach the hard parts, and then she would go out of her way to relieve stress, make us laugh, and then go back to the hard parts.)

I to this day, thirty some years later, still remember her classes. I remember those painful lessons punctuated with humor that eased the pain enough we could keep trucking.

I do not remember the monologued history courses of Super Important Things presented in Super Serious Fashions.

But most of my books are not humor books. In fact, only about a quarter of them are. But I’ve been so heavily type casted at this point that people still get mad at me that I am writing something other than their comedies.

I should have pen named the Magical Romantic Comedy books so the rest of my titles wouldn’t have gotten nailed by those who type cast. And yes, type casting is often.

That is a huge part of why I now have longer gaps between the Mag Rom Com books and will continue to do so.

I got tired of being type casted.

G.P. Robbins (which is my replacement for the Mag Rom Com world stuff) does a better job of balancing the humor, the darkness, and the serious subject matter to me. It’s very much my happy place. I like using humor to make the hard parts of the story easier to bear. But behind all that humor is a fuckton of darkness, the kind of darkness that makes the whole world feel a bit gloomier.

That’s why I struggle with a lot of the current urban fantasy and paranormal.

I need that spoon full of sugar and absurdity to help the medicine go down.

Most urban and paranormal are, in actuality, horror books or tragedies. Happily ever afters are not guaranteed, and they’re designed to horrify and excite and thrill, not leave you feeling satisfaction of victory or contentment.

Once upon a time, I used to love horror.

But then the darkness just started getting to me, and I found the lack of satisfaction and contentment at their end to be a deal breaker.

That’s just me. I know a fuckton of horror and thriller and darkness lovers. Keep doing you, boo. Keep doing you.

I just can’t.

When I started G.P. Robbins and Lilith Daniels, these were both “I need a profitable series that can give my career portfolio diversity.” These are books I truly wanted to write and love because that’s a huge part of being able to make it through a longer series.

G.P. Robbins hit.

Lilith Daniels did not.

Unless Grave Intentions does significantly better than it is doing now, Lilith Daniels, as a pen name, goes out the door with that book. However much I’d love to just keep on trucking with the pen name, because I love the dragons, I love the carbunclo, I love the little hummingbird, I love Dragon Heights and its mishmash of wards, the reality is… I can only afford so many non-productive books.

I started Grave Affairs knowing it would be a duet with the possibility of expansion if it succeeded.

Reality: Grave Affairs just never took off, and Grave Intentions isn’t really going anywhere, either.

It has decent ratings, but for the number of sales it has, people just are not invested enough in the series.

And yes… we can tell about the general investment people have in the series by whether or not they’re bothered with rating and reviewing.

Dead Weight has at least a third of more active reviewers/raters, and those people like the books enough they’re willing to tell their friends about it.

That is just not the case with Lilith.

Do I really want Lilith to make a mystical turn around and start selling the number of copies needed for her to pay her bills? Yes, of course. I love Dragon Heights.

It’s going to be bitter sweet, once I’m done penning The Prince of New York, to dive into Grave Intentions knowing that it’s the end of Lilith’s run unless a whole lot changes.

But that’s the economics of pen names, and the economics of series.

Fiscally, I cannot keep both Grave Affairs and Magic, Mayhem, and the Law in Precinct #153… and the reality of the situation?

Readers are far more enthused about Jace and Valor and the detectives of Precinct #153 and the women wrangling them.

Lilith is a delight and I love her, but I needed her to pay the bills.

Lilith started somewhat strong, but she’s not paying the bills.

Has she broken even on her investments? Yes. She has. Which is great… but that doesn’t pay the bills.

Had I been hoping both would take off and be fiscally successful? Yes. But the proof is in the pudding, and the reality is… Grave Intentions can tie everything nicely off with a bow.

G.P. Robbins is designed to be a robust series with something like 6-12 books, all featuring the hella slow burn mystery of a madman stealing hearts and destroying lives. And once the madman’s arc is over, there will be more stories, just because I can just “pick a cop, any cop”, have a mystery, and write a contained book about that cop and that mystery.

Grave Affairs/Grave Intentions just didn’t work out that way. The sneak peek of Whispers also got a lot of positive commentary.

This is just how this industry works. Readers communicate in many ways… and I do actually listen.

G.P. Robbins stole hearts.

Lilith… did not. Some people absolutely love Lilith and all the fun stuffs in those books, but Robbins is the name people keep bringing up with me in conversations when talking about my newer pen names. (Susan Copperfield is beloved, and that’s why the Patreon kinda just adopted her, and she completely ignores the general rules of the trade.)

It’s okay, though. Not every series can succeed, not every pen name will succeed. But I’m being realistic about the reality of the situation.

There won’t be a book three from Lilith Daniels unless the book mystically produces like more than double of preorders than what it currently has. (Which is just isn’t going to do. The preorder has been up for six months, and it just did not have the interest that Partner in Crime received.)

At this stage, after having done this like 70-80+ times, I know how this story goes. That’s okay. It just means I tie everything up with a bow and Kinsley and friends ride off into the sunset for their happily ever after.

And Dragon Heights becomes a ‘what might have been if only things were a little different’ setting.

There is no point in keeping a dead series alive when it can be finished now, painlessly, and without loss of the heart of the books.

And no, I’m not asking you to go on a campaign for Lilith or anything. I didn’t do a good enough job, as a writer, of selling the series to people. I wanted an offbeat paranormal investigations with a fun vibe… and I wrote that, but because it’s offbeat, it’s not ‘takes itself overly serious’, it’s not horror is as horror does, I’m not surprised the end result is a completed duet and nothing else.

But readers, at least, will be able to clutch their completed series to their chests in October and be happy with that.

Enter Audrey Greene, the blank check holder.

I write Audrey Greene for me. That is the do all end all of this story. She could sell exactly 0 copies of her next book, and I would be a little sad nobody loves me, but I would keep writing her.

I can have precisely one heart pen name / one heart series, and Audrey Greene is that for me.

It is the series where I fling my personal crafts, hobbies, and interests onto the page with wild abandon. It is my place to chase after my favorite tropes. It is my place to write what makes my heart sing.

Let’s take a moment to look at the full art spread for Moon Tamed. Do you know what this evokes for me?

Peace.

Audrey Greene is the pen name I go for when I want to create peace for myself as a writer.

Do I wish Audrey’s books sold better? Yes, of course. But do I at all care that her books do not sell? Nope!

I’m writing her for me, and I felt like sharing my slice of peace and happiness with you.

What does the full spread of A Light in the Dark also create?

More peace, splashed with tranquility. But that’s these characters… that is the consequence of these characters.

They bring some form of peace and joy with them, and they leave the world a better place when they go.

And I love books like that, even when readers think they’re too slow or not engaging or just plain weird or they don’t go to a book’s expectations…

This is the cover for the next Audrey Greene book. It is not what you’re going to be expecting.

It will be about a woman who was in a cult, abandoned, and is forced to discover the modern world around her, and she stumbles upon the Secret Society of Red Pandas… and from there, her life is forever changed.

Also, don’t read cult as a negative in this fashion. The cult she belonged to was good natured, good spirited, but just strange with their beliefs, and the woman who was abandoned by the cult was not abandoned because of anything particularly bad about said cult.

The cult wished to move on.

She wished to stay.

So she did.

This book came about by a personal writing challenge to “create a cult that everyone actually likes, is populated with good people, and society as a whole has embraced the misfits despite disagreements on how the world should work.”

And no, this is not an invitation to go on a rant about cults.

Here is the definition of cult as a reminder: a system of religious veneration and devotion directed toward a particular figure or object.

Cults are neither bad nor good by definition. We socially just add a connotation that if it is a cult, it is bad.

The definition is from Oxford.

Much like I did with A Light in the Dark, I am picking away at the Secret Society of Red Pandas, and when I’m near the halfway mark on the book, I’ll commit to a preorder.

After the Secret Society of Red Pandas, I have at least six more Audrey Greenes I wish to write.

They’re my happy place books, and the whole “have a career thing” just doesn’t apply to them.

(Possessively clutches covers) MY PRECIOUS.

But then that leads to another pen name in a very similar situation: Leanne Hearst. Yes, I have two covers for one book. One will be for the special edition hardback, one will be for standard edition prints and eBooks. I am undecided on which is going to be used for the what.

Leanne could be multiple books… she might live and die with Purple Stained Sky. I started writing Purple Stained Sky with zero intentions of publishing, but then I told my Patreon subscribers (Cindercorns, Spicy Ponies with Bite tiers) about this game I was playing online (4thewords) and this was the book I was playing the game with.

You write a book or anything in the browser, and you go on quests and shit. So, I’ve been playing a game with this book.

It was very much a for me project, and I genuinely wasn’t really thinking about publishing it really.

It’s a romantasy without sex on the page, and it’s more sweet and cozy vibe than anything else. With dragons.

I expect it to be a severe level economic flop, but I love the story anyway.

I’m willing to lose money on the romantasy because it’s a heart book, but I’m only willing to lose money on one romantasy heart book.

AKA, I’ll very probably write another Dragons of Iredoran Reach book, but it will be done silently, in the background, in my little browser game, where I make my heart happy and just don’t publish it unless I can pay some of my rent with it.

I can only afford so many books not paying the rent.

Susan Copperfield is fully funded by Patreon, so she’s immune to the retail responsibilities. When I make business decisions regarding the Susan Copperfield pen name, I actually just make a post on my Patreon for my Cindercorns and Spicy Ponies with Bite, and the majority wins.

They recently decided that the format of Royal States (in a landslide) would be two Agents of the Royal States novels between each regular Royal States novel as the Royal States series will be coming to an end sooner than later. (Do not panic. It’s coming to an end because the series is reaching its natural conclusion. No other reason.)

Patreon subscribers very loudly states they wished for a delay of series end to get more Agent of the Royal States goodness.

I’m good with this. The Agents of the Royal States books are fun. If they want to draw it out, more power to them.

But to dive into the economics bit of this more, it basically works like this:

$5,000 = production costs, average.

$6,000 per month written is my rent and basic expenses. (So if a book takes me three months to write, the living expenses are $18,000.)

Taxes are like 45% because reasons. (Sigh.)

Essentially, I need to earn roughly $33,350 off a single book within the first year of its life for it to be paying the bills. (And some books, I’m super generous and give them 2-3 years. But financially, I really need these puppies to be earning back within a year… I like food, I like shelter, I like spoiling my cats… and as a gentle reminder, no, moving (outside of my area) is not an option.)

And yeah I am a little bitter my rent is going up but my quality of life will be HUGELY increasing, so I’ve accepted I’m a member of a fiscal hostage situation. And I’m the hostage.

Including Patreon, Dead Weight accomplished this. (Yes, I factor Patreon in as often as I can to be kind to my books.)

Grave Affairs… did not.

Partner-in-Crime hasn’t quite made it yet, but the fact that it is close enough I’m giving it side eye is actually sufficient enough for me to go “Eh, close enough.”

Grave Intentions is definitely not going to come anywhere near the $33,350 to make sure I actually get paid for having written the book.

That’s okay. But that’s the economics of the situation.

When I started Lilith and G.P., I went in knowing these books needed to pay the bills. Lilith isn’t paying the bills, however much I wish she were. (And yes, she fairly got her year to pay the bills. She did not make it. Woe, woe, woe.)

G.P. made it. And that’s how the economic cookie crumbles.

Also, since we’re here, I didn’t release Game On in November because I decided I was going to use the slot to eliminate a series so there was another completion on the plate. Book Project 2025 is very much about getting completions on the plate. (Reminder: Book Project 2025 is where I’m trying to advance series / complete series, with the writing of these completions happening between 2025 and 2026.)

The move threw a bunch of kinks in this plan.

Anyway, every penny extra that Dead Weight makes, at this stage, is applied to the rest of its series. It boosts Partner. It boosts Game On (the next title in the series.) Once a book clears its earning bracket, I account for it in the series economics. That’s why the Magical Romantic Comedy (with a body count) series lasted as long as it did before I moved it to “you’re no longer paying the bills” status.

Books 1-10 paid the bills for books 11+… until they no longer could pay the bills for the later books in the series, resulting in me writing at a loss on those books.

I try to be fair.. but being fair means being fair to me and my financial situation.

(This is like the Susan Copperfield issue; Patreon is paying for Susan Copperfield, so I don’t worry about the finances. The Patrons know what they’re paying for and requested to do this, everyone is happy. I don’t worry about Susan Copperfields making money. I finish one, I start the next one a month later to give myself some breathing space off just having finished one.) Susan books are written when I have extra time in my work day until it is back in publication rotation, and then it is front seat (like Prince of New York currently is.)

Patreon can only support one series at a time, and they wanted Susan. And I love it.

When Susan Copperfield is finished as a series, Patreon members (Cindercorns, Spicy Ponies with Bite tiers) will pick the next series to gain financial immunity.

That won’t be for a while, but that’s how it works.

I finish what I start, but sometimes, finishing what I start means I write 500 words a month and pick at it in the background because the book in question has made less than $10,000 since 2018. (I’m looking at you, Bernadette Franklin.)

So why don’t I just “finish things already?”

“Because I like eating” is the answer. And you aren’t paying for the books that fail to pay the bills.

I am.

And as always, I always get paid last.

The staff needed to be paid gets paid first. The government gets paid second. I keep whatever the staff and the government do not get.

That is how this industry works. Just be glad that I am, by nature, someone who hates quitting. (Failing is fine. I do it all the time. I love failure. Failure means I can do better next time. It is healthy to fail because without failure, you cannot learn. Please ditch the anti-failure rhetoric. If you aren’t failing, you aren’t trying, and if you aren’t trying, you’re not succeeding at jack shit. Only those with the courage to fail have the strength to succeed.)

I am skilled at failure, and I am proud of it.

But I have bills to pay, and that’s why I do as I do. It’s much easier to pay the bills with pen names, because I can advertise to the precise type of person who wants to read what I am writing.

Just see the disaster that is R.J. Blain, the pettiness of people who are angry that I dared to write something that wasn’t a comedy, and the absolute confusion of people who struggle to figure out what books belong to which series.

And please, please, please… the Vigilante Magical Librarians series is not part of any other universe I have written. It is its own thing. I promise. It’s not connected to the Dae Portals books, it’s not a different timeline in the Royal States books, and it’s definitely not part of the Magical Romantic Comedy (with a body count) series. I promise. It is its own thing!!

Please.

(And yes… I get asked this fairly often. I have NO idea why people think this. The only thing I can think of is that the Vampire of Montana is a blood leech… but the magic systems of those two worlds are just so different!!)

So yeah, book math is complicated, but here’s a quick and dirty example of how the methodology works, and roughly the point in which I decide to backburner something, either to let the previous books earn more money, give it a rest so it might do better later, and so on.

I’ll use $20k as the “earn back” amount just to make the math easy.

Book one earns $40k in a year.

This means book one and two are already clear, because it paid for itself twice over.

Book two earns $20k.

Book three is clear, book two paid for it.

Book three earns $10k. Book four now needs to earn $10k to be clear.

Book four earns $5k. Series is no longer earning money, backburnered to wait for book four to clear and begin earning towards book five.

I tend to be kind to myself and to my books, but my methodology is why I’m to 80+ something books and am still trucking along, even though some of you are pissed you have to wait for books to clear before I can realistically start writing the next one in the series.

(Nobody, and I mean NOBODY, is entitled to me spending my money to write a series that loses me money. I do so because I WANT to, but I do so strategically and when I can afford it.)

2025 is going to be a strange year, as I wanted to stack in a few fiscally successful items so I can do completionist stuff in 2026. (2026 is going to be a very hard year for me financially, because my current plan involves finishing at least two or three series, and none of these series will come anywhere near what is required to pay the bills.

I will have my whole boat floating based on a single Royal States (Agents of) novel and whatever these finishers DO make. I will probably try to squeeze in something with more hope of making me money, but that’s what Book Project 2025 is all about, having 2026 to finish off a few series.

To give you an idea of the finances, Booked for Theft has earned not quite $16,000 since its launch, including Patreon store sales, etc.

Yeah, that’s nowhere near the $33,000 needed to pay me. But hey, the government and my staff got paid!

So, when you see me shuffle things around again, it’s to keep the financial boat floating.

And well, if the fiscal boat fails to float, nobody gets any books at all. And yes, there are a lot of ways you can help a book succeed.

Here’s how:

1: Tell your friends about the book.

2: Leave a 5* rating. You don’t even have to leave a review. But if you go to every vendor you can and just leave a 5* rating on the ones that let you, this is a huge help. 5* ratings are your cry of “I want more!”

3: Yes, leave a review. Gush about what you love about the book. Pick a character that grabbed you and just leave two sentences of why you love this character. If there was a plot twist that left you breathless, write that! “I love this book because there is a plot twist that caught me completely by surprised, but it MADE SENSE!” Stuff like that. (Side note: I get so mad when there is a plot twist that makes no sense even by the end of the book. Sometimes I can have a stupid and just miss things, and if I can’t figure out why this plot twist is a twist after a reread, I am fury, I am flame!)

4: Share a link on social media for your friends and just say “I loved this book.”

5: If an author puts a book on sale, tell your friends (or buy one a copy as a gift.) When an author runs a sale, we WANT you to take advantage of it. That’s why we put it on sale!

6: If you see our ads on a platform, such as Facebook/Meta, give a like and a share, and if you feel really kind, leave a comment with how much you love the book. Social proof on ads like that are really helpful and very appreciated. (And if you can, set the shares to public, that way anyone who sees your profile will see the book.)

As a general reminder, when I am reviewing books on vendors for series potential, I am looking at it a certain way:

1: 4.8+ * ratings are golden, especially in higher number. Books with 4.8* ratings are given more weight than books with lower star ratings.

2: 5* means “I want this so bad, I will buy the next book.” 4* means “I might buy the next one, but I didn’t love this one. 3* means “I didn’t really like it, didn’t really hate it, but very probably not buying the next one. 2*: you hate it, but not with every bone in your body. 1*: you hate it with every bone in your body.

I do not look at, care about, or consider reviews of 4* and below. My PA doesn’t check them or cherry pick those for me. 5* readers are my audience, and if someone leaves a 5* review to rant and rave about why they didn’t like the book, those reviews don’t get to me anyway. My PA cherry picks and only sends the nice ones my way.

And I don’t ask my PA to cherry pick often. Mostly, I just look at the ratings, and if I see a book has been rating bombed, I assume the only thing I should be assuming: I didn’t write a good book, oh well, try better next time.

I don’t particularly care how people view the books and their personal rating systems. On vendors, this is why I use to evaluate if a book should be bumped up the queue. If two books have the same earnings, and one is rated higher, the one with the higher rating will win.

End of story.

The books with higher ratings sell better.

If a book drops below 4.2*, I just give up on it/the series, and just wiffle waffle about it. It’s very hard to sell a book that has ratings that low.

And yes, selling Playing with Fire can be a bit tough even at 4.4*. Booked for Murder used to be 4.1*, but has improved significantly, but when it was 4.1*? Almost impossible to sell.

So, yeah… those ratings really matter.

And now I must go fling myself into the Prince of New York gauntlet. I have much to do and little time to do it in. Wish me luck.

I hope this better explains the whole pen name and book publication prioritization thing.