Is it unethical for review bloggers to use pen names?

Most of the times, pen names are ethical – even for review bloggers. A lot depends on your intent and motive – if your purpose is to cheat Authorities, slander someone or otherwise go against every principle you publicly stand for, then it would be wrong – no questions about it!

But if you want to use a pen name because you’re afraid of confusing your readers by mixing your posts on green products with reviews of old classic cars, well – you’re doing them a service.

You’re also in good company.  For example, have you ever heard of these writers?

A. M. Barnard – Flora Fairfield – Aunt Weedy – Tribulation Periwinkle – Oranthy Bluggage – Minerva Moody

I guess you haven’t – unless you’re a writer or study litterature.  And it’s not a group of characters from “Harry Potter” series – even though it certainly does sound like it. These are all the different pen names used by Louisa May Alcott, the beloved 19th century American writer whose children’s book “Little Women” resides forever among the ranks of other classics – like Charles Dickens, Jane Austen and the Bronte sisters.

Why did she do this?  Well, at first it was to protect her reputation, because women just weren’t supposed to be writers, in those days. And she adopted the pen name “A. M. Barnard” to write lurid, racy melodramas – for cash. And she’s not the first author to have done so.

And what does that have to do with review blogging?

There’s a psychological reason why it would be smart to use a pen name. And that has everything to do with the way peoples’ brains work.

Have you ever watched a movie from a totally different culture? Ever found the plot “poor”, or the ending too abrupt and unsatisfying? People from those particular cultures would most likely roundly disagree with you. You see, it all comes from conditioning.

We humans think in “patterns”.  Our brains want everything to progress in an orderly, logical progression – one we’re used to.  If you were to put the odd post on old cars in the middle of a bunch of green cleaning product reviews – and maybe throwing in an article you wrote on ski wax, because you think it’s a fine one – your readers would not only be confused. You would also lose your “branding” power – it would weaken what you are known for.  And I guarantee you’d soon begin to lose readers. When people expecting articles on green laundry detergent found themselves reading about old cras or ski wax – they would find another blog more in line with their interests.

If readers want “Little Women”, they pick up Louisa May Alcott. If they want steamy Victorian stories of forbidden relationships  and revenge, they fall back on A. M. Barnard.

Sticking to your main area of expertise works under your own name, and creating a separate blog under a pen name – even a variation of your own name – for any other subject is bothe an effective way to use a pen name and an ethical way.

Comments, anyone?