About Pen Names

 (my new pen name)

 

A writer publishes under a pen name for a variety of reasons, the most common being genre: a male writing romance novels, for example, or an author publishing erotica when they don't want to jeopardize their corporate career. I chose a pen name strictly for privacy purposes. As you know, I possess a very fragile ego, so I didn't want anyone I knew to find out about my books and offer me lukewarm praise. I can always spot the difference between a genuine compliment and pity. 

Choosing a pen name isn't easy. A writer's going to have to live with that name for the foreseeable future, so he or she first needs to like whatever name they pick. Secondly, certain genres lend themselves to certain types of names. For some reason, fantasy, science fiction, and thriller writers tend to use initials a lot. Admittedly, that does make it easier to come up with a pen name, but one has to be careful. I wouldn't choose initials such as, "P.U." or "F.U.", for that matter. That just lends itself to bad reviews. "B.A. Dass" might be a good one, depending on how audacious one is. I, for one, though, like actual names.

Immediately when I got ready to publish, I knew my first name would be April. I have a history with the April moniker. When my best childhood friend and I decided one day that we'd be secret agents, she informed me that my spy name would be April, because I was born in May. (Yes, the logic confused me, too.) But I also later wrote a song called April Days (a good song).

So, April it was. As for a surname, in hindsight I should have kept it simple---Brown or Miller or something else just as common---but I wanted a two-syllable surname because I thought it would roll more easily off the tongue. It would have a rhythm to it: bah-bah-BAH-bah, instead of bah-bah-bah.

I auditioned a variety of names and plugged each of my options into Google to see what came up. Obviously I didn't want my chosen name to be confused with anyone famous or infamous, and neither did I want to pick a name that was shared by 200 people. 

When I tried out "April Tompkins", the Google results came up empty. Cool. April Tompkins it was.

That was a while ago. Now, however, I share that name with at least twenty other April Tompkins's on the web. And one of them is now an author, too. (She started out as a lowly CEO, then apparently decided to write a book.) There are also teachers, bookkeepers, LPN's. Name the profession and there she is!

I set up a Google alert for "my" name, but all I ever get are updates about the other April Tompkins author. She really needs to stop making the news. No one cares that you attended the latest credit union conference or won some kind of corporate award, lady. Okay, some people probably care, but not me. And frankly, she should have done some research and picked a different name. Since I'm not using my own name, she could have had mine.

Luckily for me, since I've spread the word about my books all over the net, I show up first in the Google results. Well, not luckily, per se; it hasn't helped my career at all. Still, I'm number one! 

For those contemplating using a pen name, there are a lot of free generators out there. Here's one. Here's one that incorporates genre. It was so long ago, I can't remember if I used one of these, but whether one uses a generator's suggestions or not, it makes for a good jumping off point. 

So, after nine years of publishing as April Tompkins, do I feel like I'm her? I would say, not exactly. The best way to explain it is that she's an alternate me. I can play the role of April Tompkins when I need to (not in real life; I'm not psychotic), and I don't even blink when I receive all those spam emails and/or non-spam emails that address me as April. April is my professional persona, and I like the separation. It feels comfortable.

It is a big deal to choose a pen name, but no one is stuck with a bad choice unless their book(s) becomes wildly successful. If that happens, well, bad choice be damned. All that money will make up for it.

Don't let experts over-complicate it. Experts love to over-complicate because they usually need to write to a specific word count. I would definitely check both Google and Amazon for a given name, but after that, go with a name that feels right. 

 

P.S. Are you reading my 13-part series? Start here.