Your pen name inside an imprint
For authorsUpdated 3 min read
An imprint can work on your pen name without owning it. An editor drafts and runs things, and every delivery, campaign and letter goes out under your pen name; a letter is sent only after you sign it, unless you allow the imprint's owner to sign for you, which you can take back. The imprint's activity trail records who ran its campaigns and letters, and you can leave at any time and keep everything.
The short answer
The pen name stays yours
An imprint on the Publisher plan can hold several pen names and the people who work on them (Imprints and teams is the owner's side). Joining one changes nothing about ownership: the pen name, its author page, its followers, its books, its reviews and its Journal stay yours. The imprint gets permission to work, not the name.
Readers never see the member who did the work. Every delivery link, campaign, certified send and letter carries your pen name: its face, its byline, its signature. The imprint itself appears only on its own public page, if its owner turns that page on.
What an editor can do without asking you
Inside the imprint, a member with the editor role can, for your pen name:
- create and revoke delivery links, and send certified copies from a campaign;
- run advance-copy campaigns: applications, approvals, files;
- work on books and series, and draft Journal entries.
Whatever they send, the reader's page says the pen name sent it.
What needs your signature
A letter to readers is different: it goes to people who gave their address to the pen name. An editor can draft one and send it to you to sign; nothing leaves until you open it with Read and sign and confirm with Sign and send. The card in your Studio says who drafted it, in which role and imprint, and the title, and when the letter would go by e-mail, how many subscribers it would reach. It offers Decline with a note.
You can allow the imprint's owner to sign letters on your behalf, per pen name, from Settings › Teams › Imprints, with the switch Let Northlight Press sign letters for Ana Reyes. It is off until you turn it on, it names who you are allowing, and you can take it back at any time; the permission itself is recorded in the activity trail.
The activity trail
Studio › Imprint › Activity lists what the imprint did in its own name: a member added or given a role, a pen name joining or leaving, a campaign run for a pen name, a letter drafted, signed and sent, a permission given or taken back. Every line has its time and says who acted. It is written by the imprint's own actions only, never by readers, and it is read by the imprint's members.
Leaving
Leave from Settings › Teams › Imprints, whenever you like, without the owner's agreement. Your pen name goes back to your own account with its books, followers, reviews, Journal, subscribers and analytics. Campaigns and delivery links that were running keep running, under your pen name, and become yours to manage; the imprint's own lists still show what it made, marked as no longer under the imprint. Any permission you gave ends with the membership, letters still waiting for your signature are withdrawn, and imports the imprint queued for your pen name stop.
The imprint's owner can also release a pen name, and you are told when that happens. Either way, what your own plan allows from then on is in Plans and the beta.
Where this lives
Related
- Imprints and teams: An imprint is the Publisher plan's workspace, several pen names and people in one place with roles (owner, editor, marketer, analyst). It invites an existing author's pen name; the author accepts from Settings, Teams, keeps ownership of the pen and its public page, and can leave with one click. Members run campaigns on behalf of a pen, every action is in the imprint's audit trail, and nobody but the reader path ever downloads a campaign's file. A Publisher account uses the same support as everyone.
- Pen names: creating, switching, the primary one, archiving: An author account can publish under more than one pen name on the Pro plan (up to five) and on Publisher (unlimited across the imprint); Author and Creator have one. Studio, Pen names lists them, creates one with a name, address, bio and avatar, sets the primary, and archives one; the pen switcher in Studio's header moves you between them. Archiving keeps that pen's published books public; the limit is stated in a sentence with the plan that lifts it.
- Working with a team on a pen name: From Settings, Teams, the owner of a pen name invites another account by username as an Editor or a Manager; once they accept from their own Settings, Teams, they work on that pen name in Studio (books, campaigns, entries, promotions, analytics). Only the owner can invite, remove or change roles; team members can never rename or delete the pen name or see billing.
- Letters as e-mails, their analytics, and your subscribers: On the Creator plan and above a Journal letter goes to your subscribers as a full e-mail with your name and mark, one button, and open and read counts on Studio, Analytics, Letters; readers answer it in the comments on Booklabria. Subscribers are followers who ticked one box saying you can export their e-mail address; export them as a CSV any time.
- Delivery links, codes and certified sends: a protected copy to your own readers: A delivery link (or its QR code) hands a protected copy of your book to readers you already have, outside any campaign and with no review owed, on the Creator plan and above. From Studio, Advance copies, Deliver to your readers: choose the book, how readers get it (read on Booklabria, a protected download, Send to Kindle, or a choice of them), how many copies, how long the link accepts claims, an optional password, who can claim, and a note. Revoking stops new claims only; claimed copies stay readable and count toward the readers your plan allows. A campaign can also send certified copies to addresses you know; a send counts as a reader once it is claimed.
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