Pen names.....

You don't need to set up a separate LLC or any other legal aspect. Your pen name is your "property" just like your books are. When you register a copyright, there is a spot for you to put your pen name and then you use your real name for the signature and documentation.

As for females using male pseudonyms, yes it's still done. This is especially done in male-dominated fields like hardboiled mystery fiction, military books, and similar.

Likewise, occasionally men will use female pen names when writing romance novels.

I'm not exactly sure what a pen name is. Is that if I didn't want my real name to go on a book cover, I could invent a name, similar to actors creating a stage name, and use that instead?

Wendy, I went with a penname because my real last name is difficult to pronounce. Several things I considered when choosing a new last name was I wanted one that was easy to pronounce, spell, write, and I also checked to make sure that the dot-com domain name was availible. I wanted to keep my initials the same, because in many writing communities I was already known as Susan G.

Somehow I came up with Gable, which met all my requirements.

I had considered changing my first name, too, but another author friend of mine said: "Don't do that. If we're at a writer's thing, I won't know what I should call you. Also, if people yell 'Susan!' in your direction, you know to answer them. It will take a while to train yourself to answer to something else for part of the time."

She was right. I'm really glad I kept my same first name - it makes life a lot easier.

My publisher had approval rights over my penname, and I know some people have had to offer several suggestions before there was one that the publisher approved.

Also, a while back, Harlequin, by way of their contracts, actually owned the rights to the penname. That meant that if you wanted to write a book for another publisher under the same penname, you had to get their permission. You can guess how well that went over. But authors spend a lot of time discussing this issue with the company and they changed their contracts a few years ago to give the control of the penname to the author, where it rightly belongs.

Yes, men still take female (or androgenous) pennames when writing romance. There is a Superromance writer who writes as K.N. Casper - his real name is Ken Casper.

Copyright can actually be issued in the legal name or the penname - although I do believe there *may* be some distinction in how long the copyright lasts if you do it in your penname as opposed to your legal name. I'm not sure on that.

Susan G.
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www.susangable.com
The Pregnancy Test - Harlequin Superromance - July 2005

Puddle Jumper said:

I'm not exactly sure what a pen name is. Is that if I didn't want my real name to go on a book cover, I could invent a name, similar to actors creating a stage name, and use that instead?

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Yes, that's exactly it. It's a name under which your works are marketed to the public. There are numerous reasons why authors might consider using a penname instead of their real name.

Susan G.
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www.susangable.com
The Pregnancy Test - Harlequin Superromance - July 2005

Yeah, like having my first name...

I'll be using a pen name because my last name is just too difficult for people to get right. I've had a lifetime of experience with this and I'm rather tired of it. Plus, I want to write for kids and a name with one syllable is a lot easier to deal with than one with three syllables.

Depending on what your real name is, you may consider a pen name to give you an advantage in business. Check out

http://www.drspock.com/article/0,1510,6024,00.html
which states "People tend to make judgments based on first impressions, and names often affect such impressions."

I guess it's conceivable that the same book title with two different author names on the exact same cover could have different rates of sale. I've never done the research, but it would be helpful for those of us considering a pseudonym.

Pen names that are difficult to pronounce

Now there's a point I never thought about. I love my born last name, I think it would make a keen name to publish under - heck, I've been publishing under it all my life (which doesn't, unfortunately, amount to a lot of publications). In the world of Short Fiction and Essays and Articles, no one seems to have a problem with it. But when I get into publishing Books, then (I hope) people might have to ask bookstore clerks, "Excuse me, where do I find Nicole J. LeBoeuf's novels?" which will inevitably get sidetracked by the whole "LeBOH.. LeBOOF... LeWho?" thing I generally use to identify telemarketers.

(For the record, it's "LeBUFF.")

If I am fortunate enough to have a publisher A) not insist I change it, and B) not insist I spell it using English phonetics... well, how likely will I be to find such a publisher? And what techniques have authors with difficult-to-pronounce last names used to educate the reading public? All I can think of is a helpful little blurb in the "About the Author" section, which doesn't much help someone who hasn't found my (hypothetical) book yet. Oh, and an easy-to-find web page that explains the situation. That I can take care of

three seven said:

Yeah, like having my first name...

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Well, I like Three very much, you know

What about names that sound very similar, such as Coonts and Koontz ?
If your name was, say, John Greysham, would you keep it just because it's your real name or would you choose a pen name ?

I don't write under my own name because I don't like to be bothered with a lot of the garbage that goes with being an "author."

Like: People thinking you are rich. People thinking you can introduce them to celebrities. People complaining about what you write. People telling you to start writing something "worthwhile."

I'd just as soon the people around me do not know what I do and that they keep their opinions on what I do to themselves.

Nicole, I have never heard a case where a publisher has asked an author to change their name. They don't care what your name is. It's up to the author if it should be named... and quite honestly if you do find that one publisher who wants you to change your name, that's just silly. If they want to change your book title, that's an entirely different story.

I thought about using a pen name, but then I thought: Darnit, I want people to know I wrote this darn thing.

I use pen names. "Zane Curtis" is one of them -- it's the name I've decided to use on internet forums, so nothing I say here or on another board will come back to haunt me.

I use yet another pen name on my novels and short stories, but for a different reason. My real name is rather common, and memorable only for its tendency to cause gender confusion. I've settled, instead, for something distinctive and unique. By unique, I mean that googling my pen name will take you straight to me, and nowhere else.

For me, choosing a unique and memorable pen name is a straight-forward business decision. Branding and product differentiation are two of the basic principles of marketing, and I'm simply choosing an effective brand name (for a writer, the by line is the brand). And yet, I find that some people react badly to the idea; it's as though they think I'm forsaking my given name. I don't know why that is. Perhaps it's an ego thing: they want to see their own name on a by line, and can't understand why anyone would willingly forego that.

If you have a very common name - Mary Jones, Richard Harris, Don Smith - you may want to take a pen name so that your books don't get mixed up on the shelf with already exisiting authors with similar names.

As for choosing a name, go and and get one of those baby name books -- you know, one of those things that expecting parents buy, along with the plush toys and baby clothes. Out of all the reference books on my shelf, Bruce Lansky's 10,000 Baby Names is the most useful. It's good, not only for choosing your pen name, but also for naming characters.

Susan Gable said:

My publisher had the same concern I did - that my last name was hard to pronounce.

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"Gable" is hard to pronounce?

Hee-hee.

OK, serious question: Do you think "Raymond K Wong" is too common?

Wong

Not really, but it would be without the K.

You might try googling it and variations (e.g., "Ray Wong") to see how many come up, or go to a bookstore and look at the W shelf in your genre.

I have an author friend who changed her (first) name because her publisher requested it of her. Their thinking was her name was not 'serious' sounding enough. She did it, and now people call her by her pen name.

I've written under three different names, and one of them is female. I only use my real name for book-length fiction.

Reph, I don't think there are too many authors with my name (in the US market anyway). I know when I go to IMDB there are at least five or six people with my name (but not the middle K). But I can't really think of any author with my name -- not even the last name... So I guess I'm okay?

Susan, you learn something new everyday.


But, Nicole, I wouldn't be too worried about something like this in your case. I've met a few people with your last name, and I believe there's an actor (the star of the book-turned Disney movie a couple of summers ago) with the last name as well. Come to think of it, his first name is rather unusual. Point being, Nicole, I think you're in the clear.

You're okay as far as I'm concerned. The K is distinctive. The problem, if any, would be that there are a tremendous lot of Wongs.

Somehow, James Jones did all right.

And Dan Brown... and Dale Brown. Their covers even look alike in small paperback versions, sitting side by side on the shelf.