The Secret Behind Stephen King's Alias: The Revelation of Richard Bachman

In the spring of 1985, Steve Brown was on his shift at Olsson's Bookstore in Washington, D.C. when his name echoed through the store's intercom system. A call awaited him.

When Brown answered the phone, a voice on the other end said, 'Steve Brown? This is Steve King. Alright, we both know I’m Bachman, you know I’m Bachman—what’s our next move? Let’s have a chat.'

King was acknowledging Richard Bachman, the pen name he had adopted eight years prior, under which he had published four novels: Rage, The Long Walk, Roadwork, and The Running Man. These books had existed on the fringes, receiving little attention beyond a few whispers suggesting that the real author was one of the 20th century's most famous and successful writers. Bachman’s publisher, New American Library (NAL), denied any notion that Bachman was a fictional author.

Brown—a bookstore employee, writer, and fanzine publisher—had read enough of King’s novels to quickly spot that Bachman’s latest release, Thinner, was undeniably a work by King. After conducting some further research, Brown sent a letter to King’s agent, sharing his findings and asking how they wished to handle the situation. This moment marked the beginning of the end for Bachman, who, as King later wrote, would 'die' from 'cancer of the pseudonym.'

By 1977, King had fully transformed from a struggling English teacher to a cultural icon. His first three novels—Carrie, Salem’s Lot, and The Shining—had become bestsellers, with The Stand nearly finished. The film and paperback rights to his works further added to his growing fortune.

King’s professional challenge, if it could be called one, was that he churned out words as easily as most people sweat. His novels were growing in length—The Stand was originally 1152 pages but was cut down to 752—and he was eager to publish more than the standard one book per year.

Editors were hesitant: Releasing multiple books would flood the market, they argued, damaging the King brand and hurting his sales.

Frustrated with the ongoing debates, King opted to send one of his earlier manuscripts to his paperback publisher, New American Library, with the stipulation that it would be released under a pseudonym. NAL editor Elaine Koster agreed to a strict confidentiality agreement, even keeping most NAL staff and their CEO in the dark about the identity of the newly contracted author.

Beyond simply challenging the outdated view of being too prolific, King had another reason for adopting a pseudonym. He had long been curious to see if his work could succeed without the fame he had built up over the years. Getting It On, a completed novel about a student who takes his high school class hostage, would be released with minimal publicity and left to succeed or fail on its own merits. 'I wanted it to go out there and either find an audience or just disappear quietly,' King shared with The Washington Post in 1985.

The first setback came with King's chosen pen name: Guy Pillsbury. Pillsbury was the name of King’s maternal grandfather, but when Getting It On began circulating within NAL, some people made the connection to King. He withdrew the manuscript, renamed it Rage, and had better success remaining under the radar.

As the book neared publication, King received a call asking about the pseudonym. According to King, a Bachman Turner Overdrive album was playing and a Richard Stark novel was sitting on his desk. Stark was the pseudonym of author Donald E. Westlake, which led to the creation of 'Richard Bachman.'

The release of Rage in 1977 was followed by The Long Walk in 1979, Roadwork in 1981, and The Running Man in 1982. Sales were modest, and reader response was lukewarm: King recalled receiving 50 or 60 fan letters a week for himself, and only two or three a month for Bachman. Nevertheless, King seemed to enjoy having an alter ego and took delight in crafting a grim backstory for him. In King’s imagination, Bachman was a chicken farmer in New Hampshire who wrote novels at night, was happily married, but disfigured from an illness—explaining why Bachman was unavailable for interviews.

King's pseudonym lasted surprisingly long. However, the 1985 release of Thinner sparked renewed suspicion about Bachman. Unlike the earlier novels, Thinner felt like a more deliberate King work, a hardcover released with the awareness that it was a 'Bachman book,' possibly more self-aware in its attempt to mislead. And unlike the earlier Bachman works, which often featured bleak, yet realistic situations—a deadly walking marathon or a game show where prisoners could win their freedom—Thinner leaned more into horror, telling the story of a cursed lawyer doomed to lose weight by a vengeful gypsy until he is reduced to nothing but skin and bones.

When Stephen Brown received an advance copy at Olsson’s, he instinctively felt he was reading a Stephen King novel. To confirm his hunch, he went to the Library of Congress to check the copyrights for each Bachman book. Every one, except for Rage, was registered under Kirby McCauley, King’s agent. The lone exception, Rage, was registered to King himself. That was the breakthrough moment.

Brown contacted McCauley, sharing the evidence he had gathered and asking for advice on how to proceed. He had no intention of 'exposing' King, but by this point, the theory that King was Bachman had gained significant attention, and both King and NAL were fielding more and more queries from journalists. That’s when King decided to reach out to Brown personally and offer him an exclusive interview to reveal his true identity as Bachman.

With King’s approval, NAL began printing Thinner with a credit that read, “Stephen King writing as Richard Bachman.” The following year, they re-released the earlier Bachman books in a collection titled The Bachman Books, which saw sales that were much more aligned with what was expected from a King novel. Film producers who had previously secured the rights to The Running Man were thrilled, as they had obtained the film rights at a bargain Bachman price for what was now recognized as a King project.

The only person disappointed by the revelation was the author himself. King felt that Bachman was on the verge of establishing his own fan base and distinct identity, and he had fully intended to keep publishing under the pseudonym. (In fact, King had planned to release Misery as a Bachman novel.) However, Thinner was too much of a typical King work, and there are indications that King may have inadvertently given his pseudonym too much exposure. One character in Thinner reflects, 'You were starting to sound like a Stephen King novel for a while there.'

In the introduction to The Bachman Books, King hinted that there might be more 'undiscovered' Bachman manuscripts hidden away. In 1996, he released The Regulators as a 'posthumous' Bachman novel, followed by Blaze in 2007, a paperback that was originally written in the 1970s. King’s 1991 novel, The Dark Half, was dedicated to his pen name, telling the story of an author whose pseudonym begins to take on a life of its own.

In the end, Bachman may have outlived his purpose. During the 1980s, publishers began loosening their strict rules about how often authors could publish, and King once released four books (all under his real name) in a single year.

Whether Bachman could have ever rivaled King in fame will remain an unanswered question. During his brief time in the publishing world, Bachman occasionally received positive reviews suggesting a promising future. 'This is what Stephen King would write like if Stephen King could really write,' one critic remarked.