Hello, welcome to my channel. I'm your host, Anthasar, but y'all can just call me Anthi. Let's talk about pen names. Why do authors use pen names? And should you, as an author, use a pen name. All right, story time with Anthi. Go get popcorn! I created the name Anthasar when I was around the age of 16. It was around the time when a lot of pet sites were super popular. I'm sure you can remember one of them. Neopets. Yeah, those were the days. You believe it? That's been so long. It's been so long! Oh my gosh. Because the website forced you to have unique names for every single pet that ever existed on their website. It was extremely difficult to get a name without a bunch of numbers in it. You want the name Bob for your pet? It's gonna be Bob123456789100123. Because that's how many other Bob's there are. Yeah, a lot of Bob. So that's how I created Anthasar. I was already drawn to names that start with the letter A. And so I ended up sitting down and in a notebook was writing a bunch of syllables for stuff. And I'm like, okay, let me put this with that. Maybe that'll look nice. And then it kind of just came together and the Zarn. And I was like, oh, I like that. I really like that. And that's how it came to be. After that, it kind of floated around in my story ideas. But it quickly soon became an official name for an official character in my very first series that I actually finished the very first book of it. And it's the very first book I ever finished the first draft of something. And it will probably never see the light of day. You may not read it. No one may read it. I can officially say that I have not published my first novel. It's just saying. The character that the name Anthasar officially became attached to was a crowned prince. Yes, you heard me right. It was a crowned prince. The name Anthasar to me was a male name for the longest time. I mean, there are other unisex names like Sam. It works, right? It works. Anyway, but after that, it kind of became an identity for me. I have been using the name Anthasar on fanfiction.net since 2013. And before that, I have been using it on other places. And during that time, like close friends would call me Anthasar and Anthi. And it was, it's been a thing for me for an entire decade. Or an entire decade. Anthi is feeling old. And anyway, when your name is Brittany Gonzalez, you were going to be using a pen name anyway. Let's be real here. Anything. What's as wrong with you? Are you trying to be like Madonna? Who? Just kidding. Yeah, no, seriously. I am not trying to be like Madonna or any other person who uses just one name because they think it's cool. It's just really been kind of a unique character name, unique username, or the past decade that I was like, you know what? I'm kind of going to stick with it because why do I have to be named? I don't know. B.N. Gonzalez or Gonzo. I don't want to be Gonzo. So I would have had to have made up a pen name that was not my personal name unless I got married. And it was like, I like this name sort of maybe sure. I would have had to come up with a pen name one way or another. But Anthi's R was already part of my identity. It was a simple decision for me. At some points on my online adventures, someone accused me of stealing the name Anthi's R from a movie called Galaxy Quest. Like they really were like, oh no, you definitely did. You definitely got that from there. And I'm like, hmm, no, I didn't. And they're like, yes you did. Yes you did. Okay, let me do my research because I had no idea. So let me clarify that when I made up the name Anthi's R, I had no idea that a movie called Galaxy Quest existed. The character name in question is called Mathis R. It's spelled differently. Let's go back even further. Anthis R and Mathis R both sound like Balthazar, which is a biblical name. So and then someone recently told me, oh, Anthi is a character named from an anime and I'm like, I had no idea that existed. So you know, when you're a creator, you're not always original as you think, you are. But I didn't directly go, oh, I like that. If anything, I knew about the name Balthazar and liked that. But it wasn't actively in my mind. Oh, I definitely want to sound like Balthazar, but let me alter this. I've done that for other names though. And of story time, let me give you some examples of how pen names are used. A lot of authors use pen names when they are writing outside of their genre. And they don't want to confuse their readers. Personally, I don't actually like this. Coming from fanfiction, if I find an author I really like, I go and look up their profile in the hopes to finding other things to read. Even if it's outside my preferred fandom, I will read outside my fandom, even if I haven't even heard of whatever the thing they're writing in, simply because I liked their writing. But that's just me. I do know that it's a lot easier to direct readers to a specific author or pen name that only writes in a certain genre and be like, you like romance, go to this author. Oh yeah, you like steampunk, go to this author. Multiple pen names is a thing, maybe your readers like your horror stories and won't appreciate your sappy romance novels. Or maybe your romance readers won't like your gory horror. Yeah, never know. You can use a pen name because you don't want your real name to be known and you want to remain anonymous or keep your life private. That's one way to do it. I personally have not done this because my pen name is quite different than a normal name. Legally, I still publish my books under my name, Brittany Gonzalez. A pen name is great to hide behind. Another reason why you might want to pen name is to hide from your parents that you write a rhodica. Unless they're into that. Another thing, as in the case of JK Rowling, she used JK to be gender neutral so that readers would buy her books because her name doesn't sound female. Apparently, book sale if you're not a girl. I'm sorry for having boobs. Excuse me, princess. Excuse me. Hopefully we're past that stupidity but who knows. Personally, I don't buy a book based on the pen name. I'm not going to notice someone's pen name necessarily like who published the book. Okay, so if I can spell your name, it'll probably be better but you know, can you spell anthasar? I don't know. I buy books on the blurbs and on the covers because I'm basic like that. I don't honestly care who wrote the book. If you were a good writer and I like your book, I'm coming back for more. It's not rocket science. One thing to be aware though, pen names are great but maybe you might not want to do multiple pen names because we're in the digital age. It's hard enough to build one audience. It's hard enough to be found. Okay, I'm going to write all of my books under the name anthasar. I'm not going to go and go get a balfazar. In the age of social media, publishers and agents like it when people are following you and people already know about you, they're really happy about that because that's easier marketing for them if you get traditionally published. Think about this. If you're trying to be anonymous, you can't make multiple YouTube channels with your different face unless you get really creative. Now I need kind of need to see someone be like, I'm going to wear a green wig for this pen name and a pink wig for that pen name. I need to see that. Somebody do that. Even on your same channel, that would be cool. That would be cool. That would be a lot of effort but that would be cool. It's hard enough to build an audience. Maybe not do 20 pen names. Just just a thought. I'd be confused anyway. If you want to write with one pen name, I think that is brilliant and wonderful. Like you don't like your name or your name is boring. Make a pen name and then write under it. But I'm not personally, I'm not sure if writing multiple pen names is conducive or new fledgling authors trying to have their voice heard and a sea of voices. Pen names are a great tool in the big toolbox for writers. Picking one will be a very personal choice and will probably mean something more to you than it would mean to anybody else. Like the origin story of mine. My pen name is very near and dear to my heart. Maybe it puts off some people, maybe it doesn't. Who knows? Whether you decide to use a pen name or not, the choice is up to you. Anyway, I hope this video was enjoyable and informative. Let me know down in the comments below if you are currently using a pen name or if you plan on using one. All right, thank you so much for watching. I hope you enjoyed this video. Until next time. Bye!