YA LGBT Books discussion

Okay, this was brought to my attention and I'd like to get some more opinions. What do you guys think of authors publishing both adult stories (in this case, erotica/erotic romances) and YA stories under the same pen name?

I don't think there's a problem with it. People should stop being so touchy. There's nothing wrong with putting your name on something you wrote, no matter what it is

Kit wrote: "I don't think there's a problem with it. People should stop being so touchy. There's nothing wrong with putting your name on something you wrote, no matter what it is"

If you were a mother, and your thirteen-year-old picked up a copy of "A Picture Perfect Holiday" by ZA Maxfield (Who I'll pick on because she knows I <3 her) and fell in love with it. Since they loved it, they decided to pick up another one of ZAM's books - let's say St. Nachos. Now they've picked up an erotic romance novel that may not be appropriate for their age. Would you still have the same opinion?

I'm pretty sure I would. I started reading stuff that is considered erotic romance when I was 14, I think. Not that it's the same, but I'm a firm believer in the hands off method of raising children. I don't want to be one of those parents who tries to shelter kids from stuff, I think that only leads to rebellion. Besides, erotic novels always have content warnings on them

And please don't be offended by anything I say. I'm blunt, but I mean well

I do write both adult romance (including, but not limited to, M/M) and YA, and I have separate names for exactly the reason Ralph mentions. I don't want teens reading, say, my Reality Shift series and then tracking down some of my X-rated stuff. And believe me, my adult stuff is definitely X-rated...

I also try to do school visits, where I talk to students about bullying and self-esteem as well as writing. There have been stories about teachers who have lost their jobs because of things they've done outside work--including writing erotic romance, under a pen name. I don't want what I write under my other name to keep me from being able to go into schools and talk to kids about things I think are important for them to hear.

From a personal standpoint, I also have a very, shall we say, combative ex, who wouldn't respond well to knowing that I write erotic fiction, so I have a separate pen name to protect myself that way as well.

In answer to your question, Ralph, (even though you were asking Kit), I definitely wouldn't want my 16-year-old and 13-year-old reading ZAM's other fiction. For the same reason (plus a scene in it that I honestly felt was too explicit) I didn't let them read AKM's Undercover Assignment, because that's a YA version of the Scarcity Sanctuary books, which are adult, and I didn't want my kids trying to read more AKM stuff. I don't want kids Googling me and finding out that I write erotic stuff, which is why I very rarely mention the two names together.

On the other hand, my 16-year-old keeps badgering me to let her read my adult M/M novel Salad on the Side...

I do the same thing as Jo--my YA stuff is published under my own name and my more explicit M/M novels under a penname. I made the decision to use a penname, not really thinking of kids who'd search for those books, but because I feared parents freaking out if they learned I write both. If I didn't write YA, I probably wouldn't have made the separation, but figured it's easier to do earlier on before anyone starts spazzing about it.

Ralph,

I would use a different pen name--in fact with things as simple as script writing I do--I have one for my children's plays and another for my adult plays--which have sexual references, profanity and adult situations in them. I do not view it as hiding--rather I view it as a safeguard that I am extending to my readers/audience--they know if they see one name they are picking up child appropriate scripts--if they see the other--these would not be suitable for 16 and under.

I chose to use a different pen name for YA but not try to keep the two hermetically separated. I do think the pen name is an indicator to a reader. If they read my Kira Harp stuff, it will be YA appropriate. They can look around and find out that Kaje Harper is the same writer, but anything with that name on it is 18+ (at least potentially.) When I was a kid and a teen, if I found an author I liked I would obsessively search out everything else they had written. I do not want younger teens to pick up my adult stuff without clearly knowing what they are getting. Because I don't want to be obsessive about keeping the identities separate, both names are pen names.

That's an interesting idea about keeping your names similar but separate, Kaje. I'd never thought of that, but your reasoning makes a lot of sense.

I've always been conflicted on what to do in this situation and never reach a clear decision. I'm only just starting but I hope to write both YA and 18+ as well as M/M and M/F. So I feel that I am looking at four possible pen names and I just can't wrap my mind around that. Adding to that, while I am concerned that people seeking YA stuff find something that is 18+, at the same time I do not believe in censorship or that it is my responsibility to keep an eye on what teens are reading. I believe that is the responsibility of the parents. So for now I'll be Ashlyn/Myka and see what happens.

I'm kind of unsure about my take on the whole YA/Adult debate, but that 4 penname would be too much, and I don,t think that separating MM and MF is that useful. At this point, it's the responsibility of the ready to read the summary and check if it's MM or MF...

On the adult side, I write both M/F and M/M, and I don't separate those. I use the same pen name for both.

However, as I mention earlier in this thread, I do separate my adult stuff from my YA. So I have 2 pen names. (All the reasons for that are earlier in my post.)

Ashlyn, while it is parents' responsibility to monitor what their teens get into, the reality is that they don't always. And to top it off, even if they do monitor, some parents (including some I've met personally) would blow a gasket if they discovered that their teen's favorite author also wrote "sex stuff." That's the main reason I keep my YA works and identity mostly separate from my adult. (When I'm Jo Ramsey, although I do obviously mention that I also write adult romance, I don't give out that pen name or many details that people could use to track down that pen name. On the other hand, when I'm being my romance author self, I do give out the Jo Ramsey name because I figure some adults also read YA, and some adults have teens who might want to read my YA.)

Caitlin wrote: "Great ideas. I've been struggling with this exact question for a little while now. I guess I'll be having both a YA and an adult name.

In my adult MM series there's a daughter who I would like to..."

I separate the two but link them, as I said. I'm probably never going to be into the YA enough to do school visits, etc. I just don't want kids to get surprises. If they go into my adult books knowing they've switched over, that's fine with me (although if they're 14 I'm gonna tell them to think about waiting, Lizzie and Alex :) But I don't want a kid to think "Oh, there's another by my favorite author" - I can dream, right? - and then find themselves in the middle of an explicit sex scene (of any flavor) that they were not expecting.

Caitlin, I'm doing something similar to what you mention... The love interest of my adult M/M werewolf series will be the main character of a YA trilogy (or more) which kicks off this fall from Featherweight. The adult series is under my adult name; the YA will be under Jo Ramsey.

I've decided if anyone asks, I'll just say that (Adult Romance Name) gave me permission to use her character in the YA series... LOL. But yeah, I will be blurring the lines a bit. I couldn't help it; I was joking with Laura Baumbach during a publisher chat one day because I'd just pitched a heterosexual adult romance spin-off from the M/M series and I made the mistake of saying I should do a YA spin-off too... An hour later, I realized that the love interest's backstory (changed into a werewolf at age 15 by a sexual predator whom he later killed; became a pack Alpha before he was 18) was a YA series waiting to happen. So I made it happen.

My 16-year-old's pretty happy about it, because she's been bugging me to let her read the adult werewolf series and I won't let her till she's over 18. This way, she can get a taste of it before then.

That's what I did with mine; Featherweight is the YA imprint of MLR Press, which does a lot of my adult M/M stuff. They actually asked if I wanted to release the YA story under both names, and I said no, just under Jo Ramsey.

Having two different names can complicate things a bit. That's the main reason I didn't choose a different name for my adult M/M; I was already juggling two pen names and didn't think I could manage another.

Caitlin wrote: "Yeah, I'm not having a different one for my adult M/F, M/M and F/F stories. That's just way too much work."

Plus you might get cross-over; I read all three.

Caitlin wrote: "So do I which is probably why I write in all three :)"

I admit I skip explicit scenes in F/F - women just are not my personal triggers. But a good story is a good story, and if you have a book someone likes it's good to let them generalize. I would say though, if you write all three, make it really, really clear in the blurb which is what. There is a very strange group of M/M readers who will flip out at their author writing M/F and badmouth it if they are caught unaware.

I'll be the first to admit I am extremely indecisive when it comes to this. I do see the YA/Adult point because as a reader I do seek out YA stuff on purpose. At least I can be certain I won't be doing 4 pen names :P Now my only problem is that Ashlyn was suppose to be my adult pen name and my LIAW story was suppose to be higher in the rating scale, but now I want to keep it YA...

Oh well, I'll figure it out eventually :P

Ashlyn wrote: "I'll be the first to admit I am extremely indecisive when it comes to this. I do see the YA/Adult point because as a reader I do seek out YA stuff on purpose. At least I can be certain I won't be d..."

Good luck! I switched pen names on a YA story when I put it out as actual publication - I'm betting Jen would be happy to switch yours too if you asked her.

Kaje wrote: "Ashlyn wrote: "I'll be the first to admit I am extremely indecisive when it comes to this. I do see the YA/Adult point because as a reader I do seek out YA stuff on purpose. At least I can be certa..."

Or switch pen names :P I'm making some test covers to help me decide.

I had a 15 year old read my very adult story in study hall at school. The mom in me was floored. I'm going to keep Summer Michaels for all material. I think I need to do better tags and such so readers know before hand if the material is suitable for them. I want my readers to fall me and read whatever I put out there, not restrict them somehow.

It is a tough call - for my part, the explicit nature of my adult writing made the decision for me to use two names, but I don't separate them in other ways. You might ask an author like Jeff Erno, who writes both YA and erotic fiction under one name, whether it has caused him problems (although the author might not know if teens had been led to pick up adult fiction inadvertently, unless someone complains.)

I would be interested to hear from Jeff Erno as well. I guess it ultimately ends up being personal preference and what you are comfortable with. As a reader, I don't think it matters.

I think most (some don't) parents pay attention to the things their kids read, and hopefully monitor their book/ e-book purchases. All 18+ contains explicit sexual content is labeled as such, with warnings right along with the book descriptions if you are purchasing online. This hopefully would deter most young people away from non age appropriate content.

There books I read now, that I am pretty sure I would not have been equipped to cope with as a pre- teen, or even in early high school. (I'm going slightly off topic here, but...), There are books I've read now, however, that I wish I had read before becoming sexually active, because they were empowering, in ways that the sometimes inaccurate and unhealthy wisdom and advice I had received from friends/ classmates was not. So if as a parent I knew my teen was becoming sexually active, There are probably some things I would carefully select for them to read. I am sure that sounds messed up to some parents. I am not a parent yet, so maybe I will feel differently when I have kids, but I learned a few pretty basic lessons about love and relationships, (and yes, sex), the hard way, and I guess I'd like to help them avoid what I went through, if that's even possible.

I also think kids get exposed to sex way more on TV than they did when I was growing up, and even without that, sexual content is sometimes found in somewhat innocuous packages. The first time I read a book with sex scenes in it, I was 10, and I read Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls. Obviously not as explicit as say, ZAM, but I was 10. I don't think it ever occurred to my parents to check stuff in classic literature like that. There were a number of other books that I probably read before they were really age appropriate, mostly because I was a voracious reader. I remember my Mom questioning my reading choices when I started in on Stephen King at age 10 or 11, but she never stopped me from reading anything. I got freaked out by closed shower curtains for years after I read The Shining though :).

When Jeff was our April Author of the Month I asked him Jeff, I was just wondering about the fact that you chose to use the same name for your adult and YA fiction. Was that something you thought out carefully or just didn't pay much attention to? Do you think it helps with cross-promotion, or do you worry about YA's picking up your erotica? (I'm curious because I went back and forth on the topic and ended up picking a different pen name for YA, but it does mean my adult readers don't cross over for the most part.)

He said:

I was a teen myself once, and I read and enjoyed erotic stories long before I reached the legal age of consent. I loved them, and I think it would be naive and hypocritical for me to act like teenagers do not care about sex. So I don't care if a younger reader knows that I write "adult" themes. My erotic and BDSM books are marketed as such. It is not like a teenager is going to accidentally pick up Puppy Love and think that it is a YA novel.

When I was in high school, I read and loved Anne Rice novels. Some of them were vampire stories. Others were erotica. I knew they were written by the same author.

The only exception is that I write some hard-core BDSM novels that have a heavy humiliation element to them. I use a pseudonym to publish these stories because of the fact that there is a lot of misunderstanding about what humiliation is. Many people confuse it with bullying.

Bottom line is that I think you just have to be honest about what you're publishing. If it contains explicit sex, you should say so, and let readers decide for themselves if it is to their liking.

I do think that when Dumb Jock was released, it was perceived as a YA book, and this contributed to a perception that I was strictly a YA author. But I also think there is a misconception that male authors do not write good mm romance and should stick to gay fiction. Over time, when you continue to release books in various genres, you build an eclectic audience. I think many of my readers will only enjoy a specific slice of my offerings, and I try to market my books in a way that is unambiguous so there are no surprises/disappointments.

Penny wrote: "I think most (some don't) parents pay attention to the things their kids read, and hopefully monitor their book/ e-book purchases. All 18+ contains explicit sexual content is labeled as such, with warnings right along with the book descriptions if you are purchasing online. This hopefully would deter most young people away from non age appropriate content...."

This is true, however if I think I already know the author, I would be unlikely to check each volume (for example I would never expect a new Tamora Pierce novel my kid picked up to suddenly have explicit sex), and I know as a kid I never never read the fronts material - just dove right in. With a favorite author I never even read blurbs because I didn't want to spoiler the story at all. (I still don't for my very favorite auto-buys.) So that was my concern in choosing two names. (Some hubris perhaps in hoping to become an auto-buy ;)

Hi! I've been published for about a year and a half under my real name, but that was all adult material and some of it is explicit. I just published my first YA novel this weekend, and I agonized about whether or not to use a pseudnym for months. What finally made up my mind was when I met my publisher face to face at a workshop and her 15-year-old son. Her son was very cool and had his head on straight, and I had a long discussion with him about YA novels. He told me, "If I find a book I like, I'm going to search the Internet for more books by that author. But I don't really feel like reading all that sex stuff." (And no, his mother wasn't listening, at the time. :-p )

At any rate, if a high school librarian would be less inclined to stock my YA novels, because a search on my name brings up erotic fiction, I'll write YA under a pseudonym.

James wrote: "Hi! I've been published for about a year and a half under my real name, but that was all adult material and some of it is explicit. I just published my first YA novel this weekend, and I agonized..."

I like that you got the input from a teen boy. (My daughter said the same thing, but girls' liking for explicit might be different from guys in the YA years. Obviously individuals differ a lot, but it's good to hear that guys might also prefer to distinction made clear... since I did two names too LOL.)

Is it too obvious to just swap the first and last names? For example, I'm thinking of using Taylor Cameron for YA and Cameron Taylor for adult fiction.

Amanda wrote: "Is it too obvious to just swap the first and last names? For example, I'm thinking of using Taylor Cameron for YA and Cameron Taylor for adult fiction."

The whole question is, are you going to link the two. For me, I knew from the start that I wasn't going to keep my YA name hermetically sealed away from the adult one. I'm not planning on a big YA career with school visits or whatever. So I used Kaje Harper, and Kira Harp. And am pretty clear that both names are mine, but the content of the stories will vary, and the Kaje ones are 18+/adult. If that's your situation, then I think reversing them could work, although because authors are occasionally listed last-name first there might be times when it would be confusing. You might want to make some other change that doesn't depend just on name order (eg. using "Cam Taylor" for the adult or changing one of the first names or adding an initial.)

I use Rayvin Engelking/Xavier as my pen name. My real name is too obvious to my friends. I write christian realistic fiction(abuse, bullying, with christian characters..) I use my real name for those. For my gay and trans books I use Rayvin Engelking/Xavier as a name. It was my nice name when I was a kid/teen in school. My friend named me Rayvin, this spelling is celtic/irish.