One of my buddies
has two pen names.
One pen name
is feminine.
Readers assume
(correctly)
this pen name
belongs to a woman.
The other pen name
consists of
initials followed by
a last name.
Readers assume
this pen name
belongs to a man.
The ‘female’ pen name
receives complaints
about the prices of her books,
about how often she releases,
about other things.
It also receives a scary number
of death and other harm threats.
And, of course,
the number of dick pics
it receives is atrocious.
The ‘male’ pen name
has books priced
the exact same way
yet
has NEVER received
a complaint about pricing.
It has received a complaint
about how often
books release ONCE.
It has NEVER received
a death threat.
It has NEVER been told
it will be raped or burned alive.
It has NEVER received
a sexually suggestive message
or a dick pic.
My friend writes
many more books
under her ‘male’ pen name.
I suspect it is because
that pen name
doesn’t have to deal with
the sh*t her ‘female’ pen name
has to deal with.
“A friend’s male assistant
is a fake email account
she runs
because people called her
“difficult” and “impossible”
for having
small windows of availability
until “he” started
running interference
and then people just accepted
she was f*cking busy.”
But…but…but
if every woman did this,
women wouldn’t be represented
at all in business.
Nothing would change.
When you become super f*ckin’ successful,
you’ll change the world.
Trust me on that.
You don’t have to change the world
in ALL ways
when you’re changing the world
in one way.
Don’t make your life
more difficult
than it has to be.
If you’re female,
consider ‘hiring’ a male assistant
or merely using your initials online.
You’ll likely get more
sh*t accomplished
and be taken more seriously.