Pseudonym?

The phrase you want to get in your head is pen name. Pseudonym implies deception, fakery. Personally I have no problem with these, but pen name has a more professional ring to it, doesn't it? Many, many people use pen names for their work, for many reasons. I use a pen name, because I value my privacy and because I suffer crippling embarrassment at my own existence. It may also allow me to pretend to be someone better than I am in order to market my book, if I ever get it published. Only advice I could give is to mull it over and choose wisely, then stick with what you've chosen. Ultimately it's a business decision, and there ain't no shame in this game.

This is a slightly (but not completely) drunk post, so take that into account. Have a great weekend!

Nothing wrong with pseudonym, as a word. We use pseudonyms on IRC (nicks that are not real names). These cannot be pen names. Nom de plume (pen name) sounds better for writers, but I believe people understand the word pseudonym (not one's real name), in general, as nothing bad.

I'll never use my real name for my writing, blogging, AW presence, social media, and so forth. I have a bland real name, and I prefer maximizing my privacy (if I ever get published).

Use pseudonyms that sound like real names, instead of words like Phoenix. Stephen King (Richard Bachman) and Rowling (Robert Galbraith) do it.

Evelyn Michelle said:

Do you guys have any advice for someone who really doesn't want to see their full name on their book?

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Don't spend more time on creating a nice-sounding pseudonym than on creating your actual book Because, you know, until you have the book, there's nowhere for that pseudonym to go... If you don't like your name you can also change it legally so you're known everywhere by that new name, no need to write a book for that.

Lots of people use pen names for a lot of reasons. Phoenix is a well-used name, not just a thing, as a previous poster said, so there's absolutely nothing wrong with using it as a name. I write about baby names under a different pen name than my fiction on a well-respected baby name site, and I can tell you Phoenix as a given name was number 268 on the boy's list last year with 1332 boys named it and 898 on the girl's list with 852 girls named it. So its a perfectly good name.
However, if you use an uncommon name in the front like that, I suggest picking a more recognizable name for the surname and bare in mind that Phoenix reads as a masculine name because it's used more widely on boys than girls. So something like Phoenix Alexander, Phoenix James or use your mother's maiden name maybe. Or on the other side of the spectrum, lean way on the other side and just embrace the unusual and go for it like authors Rainbow Rowell, Diablo Cody, Lemony Snicket, Patience Strong, Zig or so on. Then you might do something like Phoenix Orion, Phoenix Evander, or something (of the top of my head, so take them as you will).

I use my pen name because I hate my birth name for many reasons, and I find the name I changed my birth name for one that I don't think is particularly interesting for putting on my books coupled with one of the most common last names in the USA. The name I write under is the name I would have named a son if we had ever managed to have one, but we didn't, and then the surname honors my mother after she passed. It's an interesting name, a little unusual but not too much, with a lot of love and meaning for me. So it serves a duel purpose. Just make sure that whatever you choose is something that you will love and enjoy hearing all the time, seeing all the time, and signing all the time.

mafiaking1936 said:

This is a slightly (but not completely) drunk post, so take that into account. Have a great weekend!

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Almost spit my coffee out laughing. Great disclaimer!

I decided on a pen name because my married name is difficult to spell and pronounce. It's "Owczarek," which roughly translates to "Shepherd" in polish, so I just changed it to Shepherd to make it easier for any potential readers to remember it.

I go back and forth on this, but having used a non-legal name for most of childhood, I think I'm settled into the name I've got (I now use my legal name.)

Besides, all my short stories are under S Dean so, eh, might as well keep with that. Consistency I guess.

I would wait till you have an agent or publisher offer to worry about pseudonyms, though.

You might want to check the literary property status as well. I don't know if it's the same in English speaking countries, but in France, for authors who publish under a pseudonym, the duration of their literary property is limited to 70 years from first publication of the work, instead of the usual 70 years after the author's death. This being because nobody can know when an author with a pseudonym dies...