Even Stephen King has written under a nom de plume. The king of horror published seven novels under the named Richard Bachman — the first one came out in 1977 — and he explains why on his website: “I did that because back in the early days of my career there was a feeling in the publishing business that one book a year was all the public would accept.” King explains that he came up with his pseudonym on the fly while on the phone with his publisher. He had a Richard Stark book on his desk, and a Bachman Turner Overdrive song was playing. He combined the two names and boom, Richard Bachman was born. The move allowed King to covertly produce several novels a year. In 1985, a bookstore clerk named Steve Brown noticed the similarities between the two author’s styles and, after some snooping, determined that they were the same person. Stephen King soon confirmed this, and, as the story goes, announced that Bachman had died of “Cancer of The Pseudonym.”