I wrote some stories I posted online some time ago and now I’m planning on following up that passion.
The think is I’d like to monetize them in some way but I don’t want people knowing they are mine.
The term you’re looking for is pseudonym. An alter ego has a different personality.
Put down a name that’s different from yours as the author.
No idea why someone down voted this comment. It’s pretty much all there is to it. Where ever you’re publishing / monetising can have your real name for financial and legal aspects. But the name you put as the author of the stories / books can be whatever you like (probably not the same as someone else who publishes in your field…)
So I should stop publishing as Steven Kyng?
Yes. That implies you are on the same level as Stephen King.
You should publish as Steven Emperor ;)
Steven God so nobody can claim to be better.
Stephen King’s pseudonym is Richard Bachman
Pseudonyms are fairly common.
If you go with traditional publishing, your agent can help you get going.
If you self publish, it can be trickier, but the major outlets are fine with a pen name for public use and inky using your real info for the back end. Amazon, Barnes and Noble, etc, they all are easy to deal with in that regard.
But if you’re trying to do all of your own distribution and payment, you’d likely want to talk to a good cpa or attorney about how to set things up so you don’t fuck up taxes and whatnot, while still being publicly unnamed under your real ID.
Fwiw, unless you’re also pretty good at marketing, monetizing isn’t easy. It’s one thing to have your stuff out there, and another entirely to have people know it exists, and then spend money on it.
You can put a different name than what’s yours as the author, but unfortunately if someone is dedicated if you’re writing style is still similar it’s not outside the realm of possibility that someone might be able to connect the dot eventually. Unlikely unless you got super huge, but not impossible
Just give yourself a pseudonym when you publish. Make it a pun or something so it stands out, like Anita Fagina.
Similarly, I was reading about a music artist and it said on their bio that nobody knows who they are or their real name… They have concerts and make millions from sales, surely someone somewhere has to put their name down to send money to them?
Before you tell me about crypto, that’s not how the real world works
