Experiences with Real Name/Pen Name? (Scottish writers in particular)

Im from Edinburgh.First book coming out October.I thought of using a pen name but then decided to go with my real name.
Tell you why.It makes it a hell of a lot easier for your facebook Author page and your blog.
What you gonna do? Put up your real photo with a false name?
Anyway, In this day and age, if you become succesful people will find out your real name through the power of the internet in 5 minutes.


http://stevechristieauthor.blogspot.co.uk/

zornhau said:

(Hi guys - it's been a while - but now I need a tap your collective wisdom and experience again and will be grateful for your responses...)

To those whose fiction goes out under their real name: what are the professional, practical and social pros and cons?

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There are more advantages to using a pen name than otherwise. You can control who knows your real identity, for example, and you can avoid having your writing life impinge on your working life. Writers, of fiction in particular, might be considered a little spacey by conservative, tough-minded managers. They may even wonder how much time on the job you spend thinking about your stories instead of working.

Here is a short manual I wrote on choosing and using pen names (and character names, too):

Pen names:

1. Choose a list of about 20. This is also a good time to choose the gender of your other self.

2. Winnow the list down to 3 or 4.

3. Check out the names on howmanyofme.com This database uses census data to give the numbers of persons with the first, last, and entire name in the USA. If there are 20 or more people with that name, it's good. One person with that name, not so good. No one with that name, you can't be sure.

4. Google the remaining names. If the name belongs to someone prominent or vulnerable, you might want to eliminate it. By vulnerable, see below.

5. Choose the name and immediately purchase the URL for that name: www.mypseudonym.com Also open blog, Facebook and Twitter accounts.

6. Take steps to be sure that your real and fake names never occur together in the same document. Google has a long reach.

I had what I consider a close call with one of my character names, RoseAnn X (we'll call it X). When the work was about to go on sale at femdomcave.com , I Googled the name and discovered that there was only one person in the US named RoseAnn X. She is about 18 and had a blog in which she revealed herself to have a very poor self-image. She moaned on and on about not having a boyfriend, and someday maybe her prince would come. I imagined that when the book was released, the name would end up in Google. One of her friends sooner or later would Google her name (don't we all do that?) and find that she's a porn star.

I could only imagine the effect it might have on an insecure person.

So I contacted the editor and did a global name change to RoseAnn Perez, of whom there are at least 20 in the US, none of whom are electronic engineers, like my character.

My point is that both pseudonyms and character names should be properly vetted before using in published work.

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There is also the fact of course that once your works out there, and your proud of it some people might not believe its yours!

Pen names are a routine part of the publishing biz. If you want to use one, use one.

My wife is clergy. I used to live in a catholic monastery. I don't want my work even being a topic of discussion among her congregants and colleagues as it will color her entire ministry. She should get to define her ministry, not me.

Also, I don't want anyone to interpret my work (about a religious Brother) as being a "tell all" thinly veiled as a novel. I write fiction. I draw on my experiences for settings,interactions and character development, but the stories are all from my warped imagination.

So, I use my middle name instead of my legal first name.

If one wans to know my legal name, they need only look up my work at the US Copyright Office (public record). I'm not hidden, I'm just not waving a banner over my head letting people know where I am.

I like to think of my,approach as maintaining privacy, but not going so far as embracing secrecy.

Unless you become super famous (I hope you do, if that's what you want) I can't imagine your kids would get your work quoted at them. It's kind of a leap to think some high school kids would be randomly searching for books, come across your name, make the connection and use it to harass your kids.

It is much more realistic to think that your kids might go to school and say "My dad's an author" and when pressed, reveal your pen name. I can tell you that I would have told everyone in high school if one of my parents was a published author. Especially if they published anything racy.

As for spouses. Again, I don't advertise in my back yard and my work is not immediately tied to me because of the difference in names. I imagine her coworkers and employees don't spend large parts of their day googling me to see what they find.

My ex published two books under her legal name. No one knew about it unless she told them. Publising a book, even a pretty successful one, does not necessarily make your name immediately recognizable to the public. You may be well known within your genre, but locally, the state farm agent with the most billboards probably runs a greater risk of scandal.

There is the perfect person on AW to answer this... wonder if they will come in here... or have they already? dun dun dun

I would choose a pen name mainly because I don't want peoples opinions of me to affect my work, I want it to stand on its own merits, I also dislike my name. And there are many successful writers and artists that work under pen names.

zornhau said:

(Hi guys - it's been a while - but now I need a tap your collective wisdom and experience again and will be grateful for your responses...)

To those whose fiction goes out under their real name: what are the professional, practical and social pros and cons?


Background:

I'm male. I write masculine full-on Sword and Sorcery with episodes that are raunchy and often transgressive, with descriptions that are specific if not explicit.

I'm also have a wife with a conventional career and a son and a daughter who are not yet at high school.

So it is that I am receiving conflicting advice regarding whether or not to use a pen name.

On the one hand, I am proud of my work, the pen name would be barely a fig leaf, might cause practical difficulties, and might give off the wrong message.

On the other hand, I prefer my family not to be defined by my fiction, e.g. when daughter is a teenager she may not enjoy having people quoting my work at her. Plus if you google my real name, you get a well known artist in another medium.

My work is hovering around the edge of publication, so this is a decision I would like to make sooner rather than later.

(Help!?)

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I think you are maybe worrying about this too much. The chances of anyone quoting back your writing to your kids are so slim it doesn't bear thinking about. Unless you end up being the next Stephen King.

For the most part, a pen name is a sensible option for someone who is worried about their day job and their writing life merging, so by all means, i would encourage you to explore that option. I completely get the worry and the desire for separation from your day job/life.

I have considered it, but had decided that I wouldn't use a pen name, despite the fact that I absolutely loathe my real name (stupid hippy parents...).

My husband works in a Catholic school, and my current WIP has a lot about religion in it, generally very negatively, and also has some m/m sex 'n' stuff. But that wouldn't be a reason for using a pen name, it's my writing not his. In any case, he's had fiction with (m/f) sex scenes in it published in the past under his real name and it's made absolutely no difference to anyone.

However:

dangerousbill said:

1. Choose a list of about 20. This is also a good time to choose the gender of your other self.

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It had honestly never occurred to me that I could use a male name. Seriously. Which makes using a pen name much more appealing...

I picked my pen name ages ago. I set an email on google under that name so I could separate my writing from my day-to-day stuff. Anything to do with my writing, I use my pen name, even here.

I have a facebook account under this name and a google profile, and a blog I don't even use yet. I did it because of many of the reasons listed above. I really want to be a Mum (I'm 20 and still at uni), and have a family, maybe even do teaching as a job. So I want to be able to keep my life separate from my writing even though I also want to see my name in print.

I'm a private person, I don't really like strangers probing into my life, so I decided this ages ago so that I would be more comfortable. And so what if all those kids at school who thought I was a loser never know how successful I (hopefully) become in the future? As much as I'd like to show them up, the important thing is I (will) know I succeeded.

Anyways, it does involve a lot of thought. But I do think that the pros outway the cons on this one. And hey, if in the future you decide you want to use your real name, you can always change your mind. It's easy to let people figure out who you really are, not so easy to change to a fictional name.

If it's bothering you that much than you should use a pen name.

Quiessa said:

It had honestly never occurred to me that I could use a male name. Seriously. Which makes using a pen name much more appealing...

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Be careful about switching genders. It probably depends what genre you're writing in, but there has been some significant backlash against writers "misrepresenting" themselves and using "an identity they're not entitled to".

I've seen this mostly in m/m Romance, with women (straight, gay, or otherwise) representing themselves as gay men. Obviously there's the added appropriation issue when they're falsely claiming to be part of the group they're writing about, so it may not be a problem in other genres, but I thought I'd mention it in case.

Captcha said:

Be careful about switching genders. It probably depends what genre you're writing in, but there has been some significant backlash against writers "misrepresenting" themselves and using "an identity they're not entitled to".

I've seen this mostly in m/m Romance, with women (straight, gay, or otherwise) representing themselves as gay men. Obviously there's the added appropriation issue when they're falsely claiming to be part of the group they're writing about, so it may not be a problem in other genres, but I thought I'd mention it in case.

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Yes, that's a very good point and I've read some interesting stuff about gay men reacting against female authors writing gay fiction/romance, it's a sensitive area indeed.

I write fantasy, it just happens that my MC is - well 'gay' is anachronistic, but you know what I mean, I hope. My main reason for being attracted to using a male name is that I don't want to be read as a woman writer but just as a writer - too many memories of studying English at university, and certain people who instantly read texts differently if they're written by women.