Quote:
Originally Posted by nabsltd
The reason that the publisher advised her not to use her first name was to hide the fact that she was female, with the theory being that young male readers might avoid the book because of that.
Now, I'm not saying that this change was the primary reason for the success of the book, but I'm pretty sure it didn't hurt the sales. So, the publisher was actually smart in looking out for the interests of an unknown author.
|
This is not unusual. George Eliot, the writer of
Silas Marner, is the pen name of Mary Ann Evans. She adopted a male pen name to avoid the stereotype of the types of books that were written by female authors.
See the following link to a Wikipedia article about George Eliot:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Eliot