Argumentative Essay About Pen Names

A pen name is a fake name authors use to hide their identity. Almost every author has used a pen name or has one. It is a very common thing and for many reasons. Pen names date back hundreds of years, when females weren’t supposed to do anything but cook and house stuff. Many authors have started using pen names and it has become fairly common nowadays. Given most people don’t know what a pen name is, a lot of authors use a fake name without even knowing it's really called a pen name. But why? Authors  use a pen name for 100s of reasons and unless that author tells you, you will never truly know. However we can make an informational guess as to why they do it. Two  reasons authors use a pen name are, to have a feeling of equality, and  authors would like to be able to publish as many books as possible

As previously mentioned above, there is no way to know why one author chose to use a pen name. However, according to, “Source 3: Letter from Robert Southey to Charlotte Bronte, paragraph 10 ‘Literature cannot be the business of a woman’s life, and it ought not to be”.  This is the main reason why authors use pen names. Not for safety or for a surprise, but for equality. Women and blacks are not and we’re not treated with equality ever before. With this case if a woman wanted to publish a book and it gained attention she would not be able to let the world know she was a female she would have to use a pen name to hide her true identity.

Another thing mentioned above was another reason for why authors use pen names. Another reason authors use pen names is to be able to publish more books. Many companies will not publish more than 1 book a year. So many authors who would write tons of stories would get backed up with all these stories. They would only be able to release 1 a year while they would write 20 a year. So authors would soon start to use pen names. This way they could write as many books as possible and publish them also. This meant more money, more books, more status. Many of you favorite authors probably use this method to punish lots of books. This is proven in “Source 4: Who is Richard Bachman? Paragraph 14 ‘King chose his pseudonym very carefully, even though he was pressed by his publisher to quickly come up with a name” So, not only did the authors like using their pen names but the publishers as well.

Overall people will never know why an author used a pen name unless he or she told you but you could infer on why they use it. If the author publishes a lot of books a year he most likely is using a pen name to be able to publish more books. Another way to tell is if the author is a female writing about a controversial topic or maybe someone who is not white. However in conclusion authors use pen names for many different reasons, some being freedom to any genre, equality to others, and other reasons.