Pen names

Two more things (albeit somewhat contradictory things ) to think of:

Your publisher may well want you to do publicity, and so you'll be 'out' under your real name/persona anyway.

And, if you do pick a pen name, pick something unusual enough so that if people google you under that name, only you come up (better chance of the domain name being available too).

Tracy said:

Two more things (albeit somewhat contradictory things ) to think of:

Your publisher may well want you to do publicity, and so you'll be 'out' under your real name/persona anyway.

And, if you do pick a pen name, pick something unusual enough so that if people google you under that name, only you come up (better chance of the domain name being available too).

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Or, to add to the contradictory confusion, your publisher may have you pick a pen name rather than your real name for whatever reason. The marvelous confusion continues.

Jamesaritchie said:

Unless you're very prolific, or write in more than one genre, you may never have reason to use a pseudonym.

If you are very prolific, and write in more than one genre, you may not have a choice.

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I never really understood this either. Why do I need a different name for different genres?

In my case, I think I won't have a choice: I will need to pick a pen name if I hope to be published in English.
While my first name (Emilie) is marketable, my last name (Poissenot) is way too French to end up being anything but "huh?" in American minds. *laughs*
Frenchie wants to tackle the big market. Frenchie will need to translate more than just her book.

Yeah, see, that just seems soooo strange to me. It's a name. I wouldn't think twice about reading a book by someone named Emilie Poissenot.

Glorium said:

Yeah, see, that just seems soooo strange to me. It's a name. I wouldn't think twice about reading a book by someone named Emilie Poissenot.

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But then you publisher wants you to market it and every interviewer you meet butchers the name. And no one is able to talk about you to their friends. *laughs*
It's not the written version of it that's the problem.
I do agree it's not unsurmountable but it's something people in my situation ought to think about.

I guess I understand that.

Also, picking a name that is not hard to spell is something to consider. I work at a bookshop and often have people come in who know an author's name but not how to spell it. If it is a long/difficult name, it makes searching for the book that much harder.

That's why I plan to use a pen name. My surname is Dutch and pretty much everyone mispronounces it. It sounds funny when pronounced correctly, anyway, so I'm using my mother's maiden name and a different spelling of my first name.

Hi, its been again i just have one more question. I was wondering why ppl have pen names? I am going to be writing to different genre's, should I be worried if I don't use a pen name? I was just thinking of keeping my really name.

There a lots of reasons why people chose to use pen names. Some do it because they write in different genres, such as Mystery and Horror, or Horror and Knitting, or Erotica and Children's books. It's basically, very basically, so as not to confuse the readers. Stephan King did this using the Pen Name, Richard Bachman. I think he had another one, not sure what it is though.

Another reason is that they just don't want to use their real name. Maybe so that workmates/bosses don't know they write. Or you don't want your family or friends to know you've just written a book about them that doesn't paint them in the best light.

Of course you may just not like your real name. Maybe it's long and unpronouncable? Maybe your name is the same as another author, or a famous person, and you don't want to be confused with them? Maybe you've published before under your real name and your books sucked big time. Using a Pen Name could restart your writing career without the tag of having bad books in your name. Lots of reasons, really.

Hi, jvc

Thanks, for the info. I will consider it. But i do like my name a lot and I do want the world to read my story's and enjoy them as i do writing them. So we will see.
Thanks, again

I love my pen name....now, if I could just get something published under it...

name games

Aheïla said:

In my case, I think I won't have a choice: I will need to pick a pen name if I hope to be published in English.
While my first name (Emilie) is marketable, my last name (Poissenot) is way too French to end up being anything but "huh?" in American minds. *laughs*
Frenchie wants to tackle the big market. Frenchie will need to translate more than just her book.

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I hear you, but one of my favorite authors has a name I still don't know how to pronounce (Gabaldon). Ultimately it doesn't matter if the author is good. America is the land of immigrants. French is not all that crazy these days.

I've always dreamed of being published and for that reason alone am using my real name. After all, to publish under a pen name means Lori Green didn't get published but someone else did.

I've read through this and found the use of pen names interesting. I can see the desire to use pen names. I especially liked the comment about not painting the family in a good light.

I desperately need to publish under a pen name. When I wrote my ms, I changed everybody's name - including my kids. I'll submit everything under my real name but it is imperative that my book not be published under that name. No, I'm not in WIT-SEC, although sometimes it feels that way.

Is it publishers only that pick the pen names or do you have a choice in selecting the pen name?

Candy

To prevent crossover, I use my real name for my children's projects and a pseudonym (that only my husband and agent know *wink*) for my adult stuff.

Erotic writers with day jobs (especially day jobs that would be in danger if the employers find out about the erotica) often use pen names.

That's my situation - I am a consultant, and one of the things I consult on is products/services for children. Someone googling me and finding explicit material isn't going to give me money, and until the day comes where my fiction pays better than one single day of consulting, I need to be careful.

My SFF will be published under my real name, though

I don't really have a reason...mostly I just think it would be cool!

Well from the time I started writing I considered a pen name. My maiden name is too difficult to pronounce (a woman I worked for for TWO years that is still the manager at my home branch of my bank STILL pronounces it wrong.)...and my current one is...well...it's not exactly something that makes you think "Awesome". It's actually a word more often associated with old beat up cars.

So in the end I will probably use one, but I'll probably draw it from my family tree and it will be all I use.

(I'd worry about offending my husband but he even hates the name and pondered taking my name when we married)

CraftyCreations411 said:

Is it publishers only that pick the pen names or do you have a choice in selecting the pen name?

Candy

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You always get to pick your own, unless you come up with something overly cute or silly that the marketing department knows won't sell.
Don't go with "Storm Maelstrom" or "Rock Harde" or "Sally Sister", all of which I've seen come in on manuscripts.

Glorium said:

Yeah, see, that just seems soooo strange to me. It's a name. I wouldn't think twice about reading a book by someone named Emilie Poissenot.

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The trouble comes not in the reading, but in the asking and telling. When you walk into a bookstore and ask if they have books by a given writer, it helps to be able to pronounce the writer's name.

And word of mouth is what sells books. It's easier to talk about a book with other people if you can pronounce the name. Strange as it sounds, some people actually won't talk about a book they like for fear of embarrassment in saying the author's name wrong.

I plan to use a pen name. My reasoning is mostly because I don't want to use my maiden name and I don't want to use my married name. So I chopped of my last name and used one of my middle names as a last name. Morgan is also a family name so i'll still pay heritage to my family without using my maiden name

Allison Woodworth has a nice ring to it. Unless you switch between say Romance to Scifi i would keep your name as is.

I already have a pen name and a domain. It was set up a few years ago, when I sold a short story. Now, if I could only find an agent

Anyway, I chose Sybil Simon as my pen name because it's easy to remember, and I'm writing books for teens. My real name was made up by my husband's great-grandfather when he came to America. My husband is an internet security specialist and super paranoid. If you do a web search of our last name, you'll find only us and my husband's two sons from his past marriage. Hubby was afraid crazies would find us, show up at our house, and stalk us. As much as this may seems nutty to some of you, it is something that I considered when hubby explained how easy it is for a crazy person to find you via the internet.

ILSinTexas

I have a pen name (see my signature below) for my latest novel series because my publisher wanted to distinguish these books from my prior novels. The new ones are a whole different genre and feel. Plus the publisher wanted the cachet of a "debut" author. But they haven't been rigid about revealing my real identity at all and in fact the books pubbed under my pseudonym have my real name on the copyright pages.

Choosing my pseudonym was an interesting process. I gave some thought to shelf position and neighboring books--my real name always gave me excellent shelf position--but eventually I decided to just pick a name I liked that meant something to me. For the last name I used my son's first name and for the first name I used a reversed version of my real name, which is Elizabeth Anne, to come up with Annelise. Consequently, Annelise was also my German name in German class in high school.

Beth