First Novels that Really Aren't
You know, I don't at all mind that writers publish books under new names in an attempt to get back into the market and escape the death spiral. I don't even mind when they write something in the author's bio like, "The Totally Generic Story of Kings and Queens is Jane X's first novel," because at some level (the level that treats a name as if it can write a book) it's true. It's the first novel published under that name at least.
What I do object to is then blurbing the book as if it's a great first novel. Because it's not. It's a fifth or sixth or tenth novel. And everyone who's blurbing it and many of the people reviewing it know perfectly well who the author is behind the pseudonym and they know that it's not a first novel. And they still write things like:
This remarkable debut novel captured my imagination.
or
This is [blah-blah's] debut novel and it ranks with the works of [greats of the field].
Those are just lies (it is possible some reviewers don't know, but it is absolutely not true for all of them. When I know that someone's using a pseudonym, it's pretty much a guarantee that everyone in the genre and most everyone outside it also knows.). Say it's a pretty good novel. Say you're sure we'll be seeing lots more of Jane X. But don't say it's an exceptional first novel if you know that it's not a first novel at all. It's annoying.