: Re: Is it a bad idea to adopt an 'English' pen name as an Asian American writer to reach a wider audience? There is currently a dearth of Asian American writers on U.S. library bookshelves, and

@Jennifer354

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People adopt pen names for all sorts of reasons. George Orwell, Mark Twain, and John Cougar Melloncamp all had pen names for different reasons.

Realistically, there's no one that can answer this for you. And as you point out, this is a business decision. As such, you should probably be in contact with your publisher, agent, or business manager as the case may be. Likely involved would be market research, in particular some polling across your target demographic.

You touched on the flip side of the coin - sacrificing the potential business in favor of making a personal statement. Low visibility is a one of those self-recurring feedback loops. People get pen names, so the next wave of authors said "well pen names worked for them!" so they do it too.

Personally, I've never looked at a book and consciously thought "Man, that looks like a good book. Oh, wait, it was written by a Swede. NEVER MIND!" Then again, as we no doubt find in real life and in our stories, people are rather subconsciously racist and tend to keep to their own.

So, you need to first decide if this is a business decision or a personal decision. Only you can make that decision. Then you need to follow that up with the right people.

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