Author names: Choosing your pseudonym for success

Author names: Choosing your pseudonym for success

Books as business cards

Pennames, and pseudonyms, branding and search engine marketing, ah, the joys of determining what to call yourself. Of course, it always helps to have your book written first. However, having an author name is always helpful. In fact, it’s kind of necessary for selling your book.

We all come with a name attached. It’s how most societies identify us. Yes, the modern society does stick numbers on us, but in general, society as a whole expects us to have at least one name to call our own.

The good thing is that as authors, we’re not restricted to using our own name. We can pick and choose a name that will help us to market our books (and courses).  Can you imagine watching Marion Robert Morrison in a punch’em-up on the big screen or punching cows? What John Wayne would have against a poor cow that would justify punching her, I don’t know. But I certainly would believe John Wayne as a tough cowboy before I would believe Marion Morrision as one.

Of course, they’re both the same person. And Marion probably went through the same thought process you need to go through as a writer when choosing your name.

Why use a pseudonym?

There are several possible reasons to use an alternative author name or pseudonym:

  1. You may not like your name
  2. You may want to assume a different persona
  3. Someone may already be using your name
  4. You may write in different genres
  5. Privacy.

Your author name is a pure marketing decision. Even if you want to use your own name, it’s still a marketing decision. And like most marketing decisions, you’ll need to balance a number of competing demands until you reach the name you like the best.

There are some factors you’re going to want to take into account right from the start.

Is your author name easy to find?

The name you choose needs to be easily and unambiguously found on Amazon and Google. Twenty years ago, it might not have mattered. But most book sales are now online. So people need to find you online. That means a search.

My own name for example, is Glen Ford. Sounds good. Except when I go searching on Amazon, I get all these references to some cowboy star. Seems a large number of people don’t know the difference between one and two ‘N’s.  Now I can tolerate that particular reference (especially since he is a fellow Canadian). After all, he was a movie star not an author.

On the other hand, it’s the references to an American activist that I find most difficult. Especially since, that particular Glen Ford is a political writer and commentator. Fortunately, it’s a subject I’m not qualified or interested in writing on. It has, however, caused a number of problems with my books being put under his name and his books under my name. Neither of which is a good situation.

Similarly, one of my pseudonyms was based on a bit of a pun in French. Unfortunately, many people use the real word in their descriptions. Especially if the book happens to actually be in French. So a search for that name tends to result in the author page being buried in a long list of books on unrelated subjects.

Before you settle on your author name, do a search in Google and on Amazon. If you don’t like the results (or you get too many results), pick a new name.

Is your website available?

One of the modern realities is that you are going to have to have an author’s website. You need it to build your community. You need it to build buzz. You need it to … I could keep going on but just accept that you do need it.

The problem comes in when you try to register your author site and the name isn’t available. For example, I like to say, “there’s this actor in the States that has my website.” But the truth is, it’s a Ford dealership in the UK. As a result, I get to use http://www.GlenDFord.com as my author site. Fine if you realize my middle initial is D (yeah, my parents must have had a sense of humour). Not so good for most people who wouldn’t realize that I have a Scottish middle name to go with my Welsh first name.

Whatever pseudonym you pick, your author name needs to have a domain available. With the proliferation of extensions (the .com bit) this is less of a problem than it was. But not all registrars sell all extensions. So you need to be careful when selecting your name.  By the way, using the title of your series will not eliminate the need for an author site domain. Remember you probably will want to write other books not in that series.

Is your author name easy to remember?

You could use a name such as Llan Fairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch for your author name. (It really is a name believe it or don’t).  It fulfills the first two requirements after all. Unfortunately, the chances of someone remembering it, pronouncing it, or spelling it is close to zero.  Keep the name simple and easy to remember. Remember this is more than your name. It is your company’s brand. And like every other brand, it needs to be easy to keep near the front of your customer’s thoughts. Five or six letter sound bites are easier to remember than long words.

Are there multiple languages in your author name?

Books used to be limited in their distribution. You write an English book, it would sell in the U.K., the U.S.A., Canada, Australia, and so forth. You write a German language book and it would be sold in Germany. You write a French language book and it would be sold in France. And none of the languages would mix. That’s not true anymore. You can easily buy an English book in Germany or France. Or a German book in Canada or Italy. Most months I sell more books in Germany than I do in Canada (don’t ask, I don’t understand it).

The point is that you want to be careful that your name doesn’t have an embarrassing meaning or issue in other languages. For example, one of my pseudonyms mixes an English first name with a French last name. Fine, except that the first name is also a first name in French – just for the other sex. So people constantly confuse who is writing the book – a male or a female. In most cases, it wouldn’t matter, but for this particular market, it does. Of course, I didn’t realize that at the start and it’s too late to change.

Are there gender and credibility issues?

One of the realities is that gender often affects your reception as a writer. It’s not right. It’s not fair. It’s unacceptable. But it is also a reality. And because it is in the mind of your customer, you’re not going to change it. You can only work with it.

Sometimes there is a rationale behind the prejudice. Usually not a particularly good rationale but at least there is one. For example, in erotica female authors are better received than male authors. (Male = porn, Female = erotica). In women’s studies, women authors are also better received.  In men’s studies, male authors are better received.

On the other hand, many professions are still locked in a chauvinist mindset. A book on cars won’t be as well received if a woman writes it as it would be written by a man. A book on makeup by a man wouldn’t be as well received as one by a woman. In academia, a textbook by a man will often be better received than one by a woman.

Now let me be very clear, the capability of the author doesn’t agree with these prejudices. A female writer is just as capable of writing porn as a male is of writing erotica. In fact, a study done not very long ago indicated that people were capable of correctly guessing the gender of the author less than 50% of the time. (I know one erotica author who enjoys pretending to be Victor/Victoria squared. At least I think it’s squared — after the third gender switch it’s hard to keep track. )  The same thing applies in every other area. There are great female mechanics and engineers. There are extremely capable male makeup artists.

What I’m talking about are the conscious and unconscious prejudices of the audience. If you want to sell, there is no point in fighting those prejudices head on. Let the next generation explain how stupid they were. Your job is to sell books … and laugh from the bank manager’s office.

One solution to this prejudice is to pick a pseudonym that is gender neutral. J.K. Rowling is a great example of this. Another is to pick a pseudonym that matches your readership’s prejudices. Mrs. Murray (Joanne Rowling’s married name) is also a great example of the second option.  She chose to write hard-hitting detective novels under the name Robert Galbraith.  (You can read about Ms. Rowling/Mrs. Murray’s reasons for choosing Robert Galbraith here.)

What feelings does your author name invoke?

If you write fiction, you already know that your character’s name needs to be well chosen. It reflects the character and helps to define them. A good name helps to solidify your character’s personality in your reader’s mind. I mean, who would be afraid of a magic doll named David? But Chuckie … that’s another story. You would expect a dragon named Peter to be a completely different character from one named Puff. Your author name has the same issue. It needs to evoke the character of your author persona. James Bond by Ian Fleming has symmetry to it. Both are hard names evoking the hard characters of spies. James Bond by Johannus Hellevoetsluis on the other hand, not so much.  For that matter, I don’t even have to get silly. Neither James Bond by I.L. Fleming nor James Bond by Lancaster Fleming has the quite same ring that Ian Fleming has. Choose a name that fits with the genre you are writing.

What market segmentations do you need to worry about?

So far, we’ve indicated a couple of the possible reasons you might want to choose a particular name. What we haven’t addressed directly is the reason for picking one or more names at all.

Market segmentation refers to breaking your readers up according to some form of group that allows us to connect with them better.  In books, we call this genre.

People (in general) expect you to be a specialist in your writing. You write vampire fiction, you can’t possibly write erotica. You write business non-fiction, you can’t possibly know anything about health. Again, it’s a foolish prejudice. Writers tend to be ADHD when it comes to knowledge. They bounce from one interest to another. And the truth is it only takes about five to ten years to become an expert in any field.  So by the time you are sixty, you could easily have mastered a dozen fields. Even if you aren’t a writer.

In addition, when people buy books from a particular author they are actually looking to buy more of the same. I buy Poul Anderson books because I want one more Flandry book. I buy Tanya Huff because I want one more Blood Ties.

One of the worst things we can do to our readers is to disappoint them. Even if they are being unreasonable. (The last Flandry novel was in 1985). By using the same name for multiple genres, we risk doing so. A very famous example is Anne Rice author of the Lestat novels. She wrote a series of erotica books under pseudonyms (A. N. Roquelaure and Anne Rampling). Unfortunately, the publisher decided to cash in on her name and linked the pseudonyms with her name. This resulted in a severe backlash from shocked fans who thought they were buying a vampire novel and ended up with porn. Well written porn but porn nonetheless.

Countering that pro for separate names is one simple con. The more books you have the more sales you will have. One book leads happy readers to other books. Generally speaking, you need between eight and ten books under any author name in order to build up a readership that is self-supporting. If you are trying to write and earn enough money from other activities to pay for your writing, there usually isn’t enough time to publish a half-dozen books a year. With self-publishing, you can cheat to a certain extent and cross-advertise but it will never be enough to actually match the growth that multiple books under one name give. If the books are even slightly related, you may be better to use a single name for multiple genres.

So there you have it. The choice is yours. Enjoy. Whatever you decide to call yourself.