Who is PK Weaver?
Let's talk pen names
A thousand thanks to those who read my post about Zoocracy and asked about the byline. What are your thoughts? Answer the poll below to help me decide!
If you didn’t notice, here’s the cover mockup I made:
What’s in a nom de plume?
When you sit and commit your cognition to fiction—you essentially step out of your body and into a different being. Truly feels like you’re channeling something external, the Muse whispering in your ear.
So that’s one powerful poetic reason to use a pen name. Actually donning that separate persona to wave their magic wand.
3 Practical Reasons to Use a Pen Name
Plenty of good reasons to keep using my real name as a novelist going forward. Continues everything I’ve written here on Substack and elsewhere, including a couple of published short stories. Matches what it says on my MFA degree and my alma mater (Go Blue!) and 20 years of writing snippets. Helps people find me who know me.
I bet you can think of a few more and I want you to weigh in…but first let me explain my reasoning.
⚡️ Selling the Exciting Debut Novel
During my brazen MFA days in 2012, I self-published my first novel as Paul D Blumer. After selling a couple hundred copies, I got an opportunity I couldn’t refuse…to live on a wild game reserve in South Africa for a year, teaching preschool in the village nearby. So I dropped everything and buttoned up my khakis for adventure.
Suddenly a dozen years passed, and now I’m ready to get back in the novel business.
Only problem is, my out-of-print first novel is still visible on Amazon (and cannot be removed, per imperial policy). So I can’t pitch Zoocracy to publishers as Paul Blumer’s debut novel.
But it could be the exciting debut novel by PK Weaver.
Why does debut matter?
People (and press) love a debut. And my platform is very small—so it also helps bridge the built-in audience prerequisite publishers prefer these days.
🛡️ Brand is buffer
An author is a brand, even when it’s indistinguishable from the person behind it. If Zoocracy hits like it should, and subsequent novels continue the momentum…I still want to be able to use my real name in reasonable anonymity.
Also my planned future canon includes a powerful novel about non-magical Jesus, so it’ll be smart to put at least one digital layer between me and the brand.
😏 I’ve always kinda wanted to
Whenever I look up an author, musician, or artist I admire, I’m always tickled to discover their name is something they invented. A moment they chose. Part of their story, their persona, their cache.
What does PK Weaver stand for?
P is boring, just my actual first name.
K will stay a secret for now—but it’s a nod to my ancestral roots, in a land I never visited before it was targeted for destruction by a greedy madman.
Weaver. Long before books or flatscreens, our walls told deep lasting stories through intricate tapestries. Planned ahead and painstakingly laced together from a million fine threads and tamped in place…sounds like a novel to me! Particularly inspired by “The Weaver” by Puscifer.
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