One of you asked, "What do you think of pen names?"

Pen names are a useful way to "brand" your writing, if it is very disparate. Say, you write educational tomes and red-hot love stories, too. It might be best to separate one "business" from another. Many do it to "improve" their names--Faith Popcorn is an extreme example and, although, it worked for her I find it VERY distracting. Others do it because they have a privacy issue (there goes that "fear" thing getting the way of writers, again).

I think that--generally speaking--one's writing will all hang together under one name and that even when they are dissimilar (an advice book on writing like Bird by Bird and that same author's literary work) one will sometimes work to "sell" another one. (My sales on This is the Place have revived a bit since FRUGAL came out.) In my opinion, authors should examine their motives for using a pen name very carefully and THEN carefully consider how it will effect their promotional efforts before they do it. Once decided, and one's book is published, it's hard to regain lost ground if that should be the net effect.

Best,