“You wrote a book? Where can I find it?”

It’s one of the top questions I receive when people that I meet face-to-face learn that I’m an author. I tell them a couple of titles and that they’d be sure to find the books on Amazon as e-books, paperbacks, and audiobooks, depending on their preferences.

“Oh,” I add, “And don’t be put off when the last name is different. Ellision is my pen name.”

Their blinking is as loud as a record screech. They ask,

“Wait. Why did you write under a pen name?”

Why did I write under a pen name? (By the way, this is another one of the most common questions I get.)

There are a lot of reasons, actually.

I think of my pen name as the name of my business.

I wanted a slight degree of separation between me and my author self. They way you would if, say, you opened an etsy shop. Or an event planning company. Or a store. I wanted customers (i.e. my readers) to search for my author content, or contact my author e-mail address rather than inadvertently take a wrong turn on the internet and try to friend my personal Facebook page.

It’s me… but it’s also my business.

My legal name is difficult

They pronounced it wrong at my high school and college graduations. I’ve received wedding invitations and thank you cards from multiple friends I’ve had for 5+ years wherein it’s spelled incorrectly. I thought a different name might be… easier.

And I wanted easier– I wanted readers to be able to remember me.

To be honest, I just liked the name I came up with.

I liked that I’d come up with something that was a play off of the word “illusion.” I liked that it was, in my mind, an homage to my first and longest-lasting fandom, Sailor Moon by acting as a twist on “Elysion.” It felt like my name.

These were my reasons. Other authors have their own.

Some people write in genres that would be uncomfortable if people in their day-to-day lives were aware of it.

Others worry that their writing could put their day career in actual jeopardy. There are school teachers who write erotica, for instance, and understandably do not want their students or parents of their students stumbling across their work and taking issue with it.

And some drill down into their branding, using different pen names for difference genres, to maximize the effect of also-boughts to drive sales.

Do you write under a pen name? Why or why not?