My next pet peeve
It drives me nuts when I read a book by an author where the book jacket proudly announces that it is a book by so and so, which is the pen name for which and which.
Look, I know why authors write under different names. Trying different styles, usually, e.g., Stephen King/Richard Bachman and JK Rowling/Robert Galbraith, Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine.
And, yes, some of these split personalities are eventually revealed, and so I guess I understand why publishers include both names
But it still bugs me. I picked up a book at the library the other day by John Farrow, and I read on the cover that he's really
Trevor Ferguson. Although Ferguson is famous in Canada, I had never read any of his book under either name. And I don't know how it came to be known that they were one and the same. Nevertheless, it just struck me as irritating that he was promoted on the cover as being both people.
If you write under a pen name, write under the damn pen name. And once it is revealed that you are in fact two (or more) people, then write under any name you want and leave out the connection on the cover or in the blurbs.
Yes, I know, this is a minor issue in the overall scheme of things. That's why it's a peeve and not a major international crisis deserving of intervention by the UN.
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