Authors use nom de plumes for various reasons. Erotica writers for instance, who don’t want their families to find out how they’re earning their crusts. Fictionalised memoirs are also books that sometimes could cause major problems for their authors if the people in their lives that are also in their memoirs find out. Especially if they are painted in an unfavourable light. This can lead to legal action, apart from any other sort of revenge the “injured” party might think to take. Hugely successful authors, like Stephen King who wrote as Richard Bachman, have dipped their toes into these waters for various reasons. Sometimes to see if they would be as successful if readers didn’t know their books had been written by them (I knew with King and Bachman though – before the truth was told), and sometimes simply because they don’t want to anger readers of a certain genre…