Why I Created Multiple Pen Names For Different Genres

I’ve created three different pen names for the different genres I’ve been writing in: A.J. Sinclair writes the historical fiction, E.V. Frost writes the dystopian sci fi and romantasy, and Ben Ivy writes the middle grade/YA adventure. I plan to develop a different persona for each genre. It remains to be seen whether I can genuinely create different voices for those personas. In creating these pen names I looked for something that wasn’t widely in use, was memorable, easy to pronounce, and would look good on a cover.

If you’re looking to create books like this, then pen names also offer privacy. Obviously I’m giving that up by documenting this process, but I’m looking at this adventure as a lab that I can experiment in, because I’m curious about what I’ll discover.

Traditionally, pen names have also been a good way to overcome bias or to give your writing career a fresh start or to publish sensitive or unconventional content. For me, it’s fun. And it makes sense to stay in the background, because I feel more like a creative director in this process.

This was a fun image too. Even darker. But the mask doesn’t quite line up with the proper dimensions of the figure’s face, so it’s not one I ended up choosing as the lab image.