On Thursday one of the biggest names in Women’s Fiction & Chick Lit announced she was going into hiding. Well, not entirely. Actually, all she’s doing is adopting a pen name and starting from scratch. Why would an author do such a thing, especially such a well known author? Here’s exactly what Melissa Senate had to say for herself:

I’m very grateful for the career I’ve had. But a few of my very quintessentially chick lit books were clunkers, and because of those numbers, Simon & Schuster wasn’t able to get significant enough orders for my last two novels, The Secret of Joy (2009) and The Love Goddess’ Cooking School (2010). Love Goddess gave it her all, but when I submitted a proposal for a new novel, it was time for my agent, editor, and I to take a long, hard look at where I am, where I could be–and at all possibilities. Simon & Schuster gave me my first second chance back in 2008 when I was afraid my career was over along with the “chick lit as we knew it” market and the Red Dress Ink imprint. And Simon & Schuster is giving me another second chance now. They loved my new proposal; they believed in me as a writer, but would I consider writing this new book under a pseudonym and starting over as a sparkly debut author? My answer in a heartbeat: yes.

Not too long ago Leah wrote an excellent article about pseudonyms and why the secrecy behind using them. I loved her article and when I saw Melissa’s announcement this week I immediately thought of it. Her biggest qualm, and I’ll add mine as well, about the use of a pseudonym for an established author was the fact that many readers who would normal seek out that author’s books will now be left in the dark so-to-speak. That base for support won’t be there and as Melissa mentions later in her post, she’ll be “starting from the ground up”.

This got me thinking, are there advantages to starting brand new all over again? Obviously there are many reasons for a complete change, one potentially huge one would be a brand new genre with an entirely different audience. Perhaps the new genre Melissa is going into is Action Adventure or Science Fiction (I doubt these, but you never know!). With either of those audiences can you imagine a steady reader picking up a novel with Melissa’s other novels listed with her biography and having them still be interested in reading it? Though we know her writing is amazing and no doubt worth the risk of a genre switch, those who haven’t read her work before may be turned away thinking the story won’t live up to their “expectations”.

This is all speculation of course and I’m positive not all those readers would feel that way. It may be a good point though because I’m not often found in the “main stream/popular fiction” sections of my local bookstore, nor am I likely to pick up anything from James Patterson simply because I don’t like his typical genre of choice. In fact, I know with certainty that in the past few months I’ve turned down a book for review written by James Patterson that was “chick lit” simply because I’m not normally interested in his typical genre of choice.

Having said all of that, I know numerous fans of Patterson who would be disheartened at the lack of opportunity to pick up one of their favorite author’s books simply because he wanted to try a new genre. Obviously, writers like Sophie Kinsella have been able to navigate the murky waters of pen names with quite a bit of success. I’d love to know more about how she handled it in the beginning and what happened when the news was out? Was it a simple announcement and did it have any impact on her book sales? Perhaps it worked out for the better because then fans on either side could purchase those new-to-them books as well.

So, is there something to be said for starting over brand new? Do you think going about it in complete secrecy is the way to go or should long-time readers & fans have the opportunity to know about those new books soon to be published? What do you think? Pen names…yay or nay?