I think you are grossly overestimating the audience of this author. They are a “self published” author whose books are free and not read by many people.
If anything, she will see a massive spike in readers just because of curious people checking her out.
It would suck for the author, Lena McDonald, if anyone who searched for
“Lena McDonald author”
found out about this story.
I get what you’re doing but they can just change pennames
They can, but that would at best be a hard reset on their reputation as an author, and unlikely to work long-term
I think you are grossly overestimating the audience of this author. They are a “self published” author whose books are free and not read by many people.
If anything, she will see a massive spike in readers just because of curious people checking her out.