I find that we—those of us who blog, blog-hop, participate in message boards, readers/authors loops and groups—tend to forget that we are, in fact, a minuscule percentage of the total of readers.

This is, of course, not an original observation—Super Librarian Wendy has often talked about this—but it seems to be a frequently held belief that online readers are, in fact, the majority of romance readership.

What brings this on, you ask?

Well, when news that author Anne Stuart will have books under a different pen name with her new publisher, Janet W. said (among other things) that “…we always know that Jane Smith is now Sally Jones when she’s not writing as Judy Smart …”

Yes, we—people who are active online or are avid followers of Ms Stuart—may know this from the get go, but there will be many readers who will not have a clue. Readers who shop primarily at brick and mortar stores, and whose method of choosing something to read is check out the covers, then read the back cover blurb. Those are the readers the publisher is hoping to entice to read these books by the same author under a different name.

As Jayne Ann Krentz aka Amanda Quick aka Jayne Castle mentioned during her speech at RWA’s Awards Luncheon, (more…)