JK Rowling has denied that her use of a pseudonym for her latest book was a previously-plotted marketing ploy.
The Harry Potter author released The Cuckoo’s Calling under the name of Robert Galbraith earlier this year; picking up rave reviews but relatively low sales for her work. However, when a member of her legal team leaked her real identity on Twitter, sales began to skyrocket.
Writing on “Galbreith”‘s website, Rowling said: “If anyone had seen the labyrinthine plans I laid to conceal my identity (or indeed my expression when I realised that the game was up!) they would realise how little I wanted to be discovered.
“Being Robert Galbraith has been all about the work, which is my favorite part of being a writer… If sales were what mattered to me most, I would have written under my own name from the start, and with the greatest fanfare.”
She also explained why she chose the name in the first place. “I chose Robert because it is one of my favorite men’s names, because Robert F. Kennedy is my hero and because, mercifully, I hadn’t used it for any of the characters in the Potter series or ‘The Casual Vacancy,'” she said.
“Galbraith came about for a slightly off reason. When I was a child, I really wanted to be called ‘Ella Galbraith,’ and I’ve no idea why.
“Odder still, there was a well-known economist called J.K. Galbraith, something I only remembered by the time it was far too late. I was completely paranoid that people might take this as a clue and land at my real identity, but thankfully nobody was looking that deeply at the author’s name.”
What a shame her cover was blown!
