I’ve never submitted using a psuedonym, but everything I’ve read has said that the place for it is in the byline on the manuscript. Your cover letter, and the name at the top of the manuscript, should have the name the check is made out to. On the manuscript, right under the title is where you put “by Charles Manson.” According to what I’ve read.
I’d never heard that it was damaging to use one, but I have read in several places that you should only use one if you’ve got a really, really good reason. Just what would constitute a really good reason, I don’t know.
Bren is correct. The top left of standard manuscript format is where you put the name that will appear on the check. Under the title is where you put the name that gets printed in the magazine. Any pro editor will follow these rules.
If you still don’t want to risk things, create a bank account with your own name and your pen name both on it. Use your own SSN for tax purposes. You can then deposit checks made out to your pen name.
For a beginning writer, there are a few:
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If giving your real name might cause trouble with your regular job. I know of one author whose fiction might cause serious problems in the workplace if people found out who actually wrote them. That author uses a pen name. This, however, is very rare.
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If you’re a man and you write romance novels. All romance novelists have female names. Not all romance novelists are women.
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Your name is too close to an existing author. There was an aspiring author in the 70s named Robert Heinlein who was told to change to a pen name because of the confusion. He refused and remained unpublished. OTOH, Michael McDowell created “Kube-McDowell” because there was another author of the same name writing. Lawrence Watt-Evans was told to add the hyphen because of there was a Lawrence Evans writing.
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Ethnicity. This may be dying out – it only seems to apply to Asian names right now. But Somtow P. Sutchuritkul started using “S.P. Somtow” because his real name was too hard for Americans, and Yoji Kondo wrote as “Eric Kotani” for the same reason.
Very occasionally, authors might use pen names that are more memorable than their own. Carolyn Cherry was told she’d be writing as C.J. Cherryh; the “h” at the end does make the name stand out. However, authors with odd names usually stick with them, because they’re more memorable (though there was a feeling that no one would belive Harry Turtledove was his real name, so his early work was bylined Eric G. Iverson).
Established authors sometimes create pen names (e.g., Robin Hobb) to fool bookstore computers. Harry Turtledove did this recently, putting out a book as “HN Turtletaub,” because he knew it wouldn’t sell as well as his regular books. If a Harry Turtledove novel showed a drop in sales, bookstores would order fewer of his next one, so he created the pen name – and made no secret of it – to fool the chain bookstore buyers.
This is an extremely helpful thread. So I’m going to add a question to it–maybe you can help with this, Chuck.
I’ve perused all the advice I can find on manuscript format. I think I’ve got it down, as far as short stories go. But what about novels? I’ve read that novels have a cover sheet that has the information usually put in the top left-hand corner of the first page of the manuscript (in the case of a short story). Rough Draft will automatically print me a nice cover sheet, and I’m assuming it’s more or less up to standard. I assume one then omits the upper left corner thing, and jumps straight to “Chapter 1”, with “Cameron/The Moths Strike Back” on one side and “page 1” on the other, and start partway down the page with Chapter 1. But what about Chapter 2? Do you just center “Chapter 2” and then go on? Or do you start a new page, partway down?
I’m not at the submitting stage yet, but I will be–not too long in the future, I hope, and I want to be sure and get it right.
Generally speaking, you should start each new chapter on a new page, with the chapter number (and chapter title if you have those) halfway down the page just as with chapter one. Keep the page numbering consecutive, however. Don’t bother with Chapter 2- page 1, chapter 2 -page 2. In fact, don’t mention chapters in the header at all. Otherwise novels are formatted much the same as long short stories.
You didn’t ask, but - To submit a novel, throw a rubber band around the pages or put it into an appropriately-sized box. Never bind the manuscript in any way.