Wasn't quite sure where to post this question, so I landed here. I'd love some feedback and thoughts on if you already self-published with your real name, is it too late to now go back and pull a pen name out of your hat? I love to write and tell stories, it's a childhood passion. But I also hold a full time job outside of that all and I've used my real name when I've self-published and quite honestly, I regret that. How wonderful it would be to write under a pen name where your professional circle doesn't know... Without writing a whole new manuscript to start over, has anyone ever tried to switch up to a pen name on a novel they've already self-published?
I don't think you can redo something already published. However, going forward for anything you publish next, you can use a pen name.
I've always used a pen name for the reasons you've mentioned above. In fact, I use many names on my work. In a hypothetical situation where I have self published: If I could take down the original work. I would. I would then resubmit under a new title using the pen name. It wouldn't be fun if it's already gained some traction, though. Or I would simply follow the suggestion above by @RobinLC and use the pen name going forward. Just my two cents.
Been there, done that. However, I deleted the old ebooks and re-released them under the new name. I think Amazon and other sites let you change the author name the book is listed under without doing that, but there might be remnants of the original name online somewhere. You'd obviously need to upload a new ebook and cover with the new name in it. Also, if you created a PoD book on Amazon then the Amazon page will never go away.
