Someone mentioned that he uses multiple pen names, one per genre. Is that really necessary? If I write genres X and Y, is someone who likes genre X but hates genre Y really going to refuse to read my genre X books because I also write genre Y? Wouldn’t it make more sense for him just to read my genre X work and leave my genre Y work aside? Thanks!
There are many famous authors who write in various pen names and it seems to work for them. Jk Rowling (Youth)/Robert Galbraith(adult thriller) Nora Roberts(romance)/JD Robb(thriller) Kim Harrison(urban fantasy)/Dawn Cook(high fantasy) Jayne Ann Krentz (romantic suspense)/ Jayne Castle (paranormal romance)/Amanda Quick(historical romance)/Stephanie James(erotic romance) and others I was listening to an interview on Jayne Ann Krentz and she said the reason for the change was because your name becomes your brand. And if you are well known to write one genre, that is your "brand" abd what you are known for, so her agent suggested she use a different name to pitch a diff genre.
Seems more a matter of preference to me. There are authors who do it. There are authors who don't do it (Elmore Leonard; Stephen King; James Rollins recently stopped doing it, it appears (he used to write fantasy under James Clemens, but his most recent series is under James Rollins).
There's a thread about this, but maybe that's where you ran across the idea? As I recall, the consensus seemed to be mostly that some genres don't mix well, like dark adult themes on one hand and sweet children's stories on the other for instance, and in a case like that you might want to keep them separated. But if your thematic approaches are similar and there's no clash, then you might want to publish them all under the same name.