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Q&A Should I bother allowing images (headshots) for pen names?

I would not assume that the reason for using a pen name is the desire for anonymity. Sometimes it is about marketing. If your name is Rock Hardplace and you write sweet romances, you probably wan...

posted 7y ago by Mark Baker‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Answer
#4: Attribution notice removed by user avatar System‭ · 2020-01-03T20:41:55Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/29425
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T06:49:14Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/29425
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T06:49:14Z (almost 5 years ago)
I would not assume that the reason for using a pen name is the desire for anonymity.

Sometimes it is about marketing. If your name is Rock Hardplace and you write sweet romances, you probably want to use a pen name.

Sometimes it is about disambiguation. If your name is Jonathan Kieth Rowling, you probably want to use a pen name.

Sometimes it is about dividing your professional career from your fiction writing. If you are published in an obscure technical field, you may not want your technical books and your fiction jumbled together in people's Amazon search results, so you use a pen name for your fiction.

None of these imply a desire for anonymity. On the other hand, an author who is using their real name may not want their picture shown on their book, for all sorts of reasons.

In short, don't assume one data point from another imperfectly correlated data point. Collect the two data points separately.

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2017-07-28T21:09:53Z (over 7 years ago)
Original score: 19