Meet the male writers who hide their gender to attract female readers

Women writers have long disguised their gender hoping to get taken seriously but a few male authors pretend to be female to hopefully sell more books

Sean Thomas’s first published books were unsuccessful. They were literary books, mostly, exploring themes of masculinity in the modern world, and they did not sell well. As middle age crept up without financial security, his agent began nudging him towards Da Vinci Code-inspired thrillers. He couldn’t see putting his real name on them. “My own name was associated with freelance journalism about art, sex and politics, and had the taint of literary failure. Also, it just wasn’t butch enough”, says Thomas. Tom Knox, his new alter-ego, was born, and sales soared.

“Tom Knox was the flimsiest of masks,” says Thomas. “And yet, as I wrote the first book, The Genesis Secret, he developed in my mind: a younger, better looking version of myself. I imagined him jogging on a Malibu beach with his pure-bred borzoi dogs.

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