Samuel Langhorne Clemens or Mark Twain?

[E McD]

Or better yet, "Would a rose by any other name smell as sweet?"

Pen Names.

Cool or cheese ball? Discuss.

[christi]

Well, pen names can be useful to authors who want to keep their privacy or jump into another genre that might make their regular fans feel betrayed. (e.g. if King suddenly felt like doing YA romance)

[E McD]

I like pen names to some degree, but what's the point in having one in this day and age if people can figure out who you are anyway, you know?

I do love the idea of an alternate persona though. But not like that weird thing Garth Brooks did. LOL

[Scott]

I love them, because it's another way to be creative and who doesn't like an alter-ego? In fact, mine has a much more interesting life and has seen things I could only dream of.

[E McD]

Scott -

Ooh, ooh, I wanna hear stories about your alter-ego! LOL At least give us his name!

[r louis scott]

There are some practical considerations to this to think about.

What if you have a very common name? If someone runs a google search on you, what will they find by that name? Would a variation of that name give a smaller result? That's my situation. My first name is Richard, and Richard Scott yields millions and millions of hits. My middle name is somewhat different, since "Lewis" is the more common spelling. Ah, but r louis scott narrows the search considerably, and so I have reserved that as a domain name and plan to use that name should I ever be published.

My critique partner, a very talented woman that never ever rubs my face in the fact that she has already signed with a high-profile agent, has a very Germanic name. She writes quite brilliantly about 11th to 15th century France, however, and made the conscious decision to adopt a very French nom de plume. I think that it both suits and serves her well.

One last thing. I met a very bubbly and very sweet woman at the second North American Historical Novel Society conference. She is Asian, and writes steamy romance novels based on Eastern historical settings. When she got her first book contract they wanted to know what name she wanted to publish under. She chose the name Jade Lee. Now at the time ( and I only know this because I was a sailor mind you) Jade Lee was a very popular porn star. To this day, the writer uses the url of "jadeleeauthor" because of the obvious conflicts that could possibly come to mind.

So, a pen name could be a lot more to think about than you might expect. In these times, an author is going to be expected to have a web presence. Wouldn't it be nice if your name was the very first hit on google?

[NickB]

Good point about being the first hit...mine is so uncommon I think there are only two of us who would come up at all. However, here are my reasons for still leaning toward a simpler name: 1. People would hit it in a cross-reference sort of way, since it's more common. Some of my most fun finds on the net have been this way...especially music 2. Privacy--especially with kids and possibly offended readers [not particularly inflammatory stuff here, but you never know...i know, what a weinie] 3. I can be sexually ambiguous without an operation...just kidding...androgynous would be the word I'm looking for. And that might be a really good thing for the genres of my current wips. Or just in general. Would like to read that research.
All that said, Samuel L.C. is positively poetic, but maybe it would have gotten in the way of the titles. Missed the point, so to speak.
Thanks for the forums, Nathan. This is fun.

[mmcdonald64]

I thought about using my maiden name for a pen name, but then my brother went and married a Mary, so now she has my pre-marriage name. Everyone would think she was the writer, which, come to think about it, may not be a bad thing. ;-)