Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling, who was recently outed for writing a book for adults under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith, apparently is now revealing why she did it.
After the Sunday Times broke the news that the Galbraith book “The Cuckoo’s Calling” was actually written by Rowling, the detective novel went on to become a bestseller.
On the Robert Galbraith website, under Frequently Asked Questions, Rowling apparently addresses queries about her alter ego. “I’ve always loved reading detective fiction. Most of the Harry Potter stories are whodunits at heart (‘Order of the Phoenix’ is more of a why-did-he), but I’ve wanted to try the real thing for a long time,” reads one answer. “As for the pseudonym, I was yearning to go back to the beginning of a writing career in this new genre, to work without hype or expectation and to receive totally unvarnished feedback. It was a fantastic experience and I only wish it could have gone on a little longer.” Another answer addresses why she choose to write with male persona: “I certainly wanted to take my writing persona as far away as possible from me, so a male pseudonym seemed a good idea. I am proud to say, though, that when I ‘unmasked’ myself to my editor David Shelley who had read and enjoyed ‘The Cuckoo’s Calling’ without realizing I wrote it, one of the first things he said was ‘I never would have thought a woman wrote that.’ Apparently I had successfully channeled my inner bloke! “
Her pen name, according to the FAQ, was picked deliberately. “I chose Robert because it is one of my favourite 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’…Galbraith came about for a slightly odd reason. When I was a child, I really wanted to be called ‘Ella Galbraith’, and I’ve no idea why.” There had been speculation that the true identity of the author had been leaked to pump up sales. But according to the Associated Press, the original leaker was Judith Callegari, who heard the information from her best friend’s husband, Chris Gossage, a partner at the entertainment law firm Russells, which had worked with Rowling. The Times then used some computer sleuthing to confirm the information.
On the Galbraith site, this answer is given to the question of whether Rowling engineered the affair to spur sales: “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. I hoped to keep the secret as long as possible. …If sales were what mattered to me most, I would have written under my own name from the start, and with the greatest fanfare.”
The answer goes on to state “At the point I was ‘outed’, Robert had sold 8500 English language copies across all formats (hardback, eBook, library and audiobook) and received two offers from television production companies. The situation was becoming increasingly complicated, largely because Robert was doing rather better than we had expected him to, but we all still hoped to keep the secret a little longer. Yet Robert’s success during his first three months as a published writer (discounting sales made after I was found out) actually compares favourably with J.K. Rowling’s success over the equivalent period of her career!”
This statement was posted on Rowling’s own website: “I hoped to keep this secret a little longer, because being Robert Galbraith has been such a liberating experience! It has been wonderful to publish without hype or expectation and pure pleasure to get feedback from publishers and readers under a different name. The upside of being rumbled is that I can publicly thank my editor David Shelley, who has been a true partner in crime, all those people at Little, Brown who have been working so hard on The Cuckoo’s Calling without realizing that I wrote it, and the writers and reviewers, both in the newspapers and online, who have been so generous to the novel. And to those who have asked for a sequel, Robert fully intends to keep writing the series, although he will probably continue to turn down personal appearances.”
The final answer on the Galbraith site says that Rowling will continue to write as Galbraith and will publish the recently completed sequel next year.
