Author name - real name Vs pen name

The series is actually pretty good. Post apocalyptic, the pen name was because the series is very much from a conservative POV.

 

I've mentioned in this site before that I wanted to use my screen name as my pen name, but a high school English teacher told me he thought it was too suggestive and inappropriate......
it embarrassed me and for a long time, I didn't used it again.

obviously, I've gotten over it, but I don't use it as a writing name anymore.
now the flack I get is "Why don't you use your married name? You're married now after all." and my response is always "I didn't start writing after I got married. i was a writer before I got married and published before I got married. and I'm not changing it just because I got married."
just like how my master's degree has my maiden name on it and I get asked why it isn't my married name..... because I started my degree as my maiden name. its not that hard to grasp.

anyways, I guess my maiden name has become somewhat of a pen name now

 

Before it became a common practice, an acquaintance chose to keep her maiden name after she got married. When people asked her she didn't take her husband's name, her stock answer was, "Well, it was the most amazing thing. I already had a name when we got married and didn't need to borrow his."

 

I'm going to presume any contract would have to be signed in your real name, and checks made out to your real name, etc. I don't see it as being that hard to find out, if someone thought it worthwhile to invest the time. But I think, as a writer, it would be a nice problem to have, being well-known enough to cause people to bother about it.

 

I seem to recall women authors using pen names to be taken seriously in the old days. Like George Eliot or even PD James when she was first starting out. I, though male last time I checked, would use my pen name just because I like having a persona, and it's a sort of play on an ancestral name.

 

Big Soft Moose raises some valid points, as always!

For me, I like to remain as anonymous (online) as it's possible to be. Having said that, I created various videos and posted them on places like vimeo.

Naturally, I had to create a name for my online presence. My real name and surname both start with a G, so I created a name - "gee-gee". It's easy and memorable, and I think - and hope - that it's kind of cute.

Naturally, pen names are a different story. You can't put "gee-gee" on the cover of a novel. Ah, well.

 

Yes you could. I have seen recent pen names like pirateaba, shirtaloo, and others of the like, so how would Gee Gee be out of line?

 

I think what you choose to use as a pen name can matter, depending on where you are trying to sell your work. Of course, if you're self publishing, you can do whatever you want, but I think it's good to think about the image you're creating via your pen name and if it will be taken seriously.

I used to work for a literary journal and was part of an editorial meeting where we were looking at the handful of stories that had made it to the final round of consideration. These were all good stories, but some hard decisions had to be made. And the first to go was a story someone had submitted with a ridiculous pen name. I'm not going to say the exact pen name that was used, but it was along the lines of "The Dragon." Now, this was a pretty serious literary publication with a solid reputation. I don't know if this pen name had not been really noticed or just somehow overlooked as the story made it's way up the rounds prior to the meeting. But this pen name was 100% why the story was rejected. It just seemed like a joke to the editors. And they did not find it funny or amusing.

Sure, maybe they could have asked the writer to choose a different pen name or something, but they had other equally good options before them. "The Dragon" was rejected with a form letter. It wasn't the editors' jobs to explain any of this to the writer. They stopped taking him seriously, not because of his writing, but because it seemed like the writer was not taking this seriously. I will say it was very absurd to think a pen name like that would ever appear in this publication.

 

Well ...

... this is why. If I were to submit my work to any kind of publication, serious or not, I would not use anything but my real name.

Sure, I could ask if a pen-name was acceptable, but I would expect not. Maybe even asking would be considered frivolous, and then the publishers would reject me out of hand. So ... *shrug*

 

It's not really about using a pen name, but most publishers, IMO, want the pen name so sound like a name and not a joke.

 

*laughs* Understood. So, a pen-name like "Carrie Underwood" or "Jeff Smith" would be much more acceptable than "The Dragon" or "A Mouse".

(I'm guessing that 'rude' nicknames, like "Richard Wadd" or "Belle Ende" would be even less acceptable, right? If I was a publisher, I wouldn't even consider these).

 

What about if you are not famous, but you self publish about a controversial topic? Wouldn't it be tricky to find out who you are? Granted you may need to give identifying information to vendors like Amazon, but unless someone is a serious hacker I don't think it will be easy to reveal the real identity of the author.

 

Ponder this, if you become popular enough.

Humans can already in some ways analyze text and compare it to other texts you've written under your real name. If you have a certain style or way of writing, they can then find out who you are. Now take this one step further with Artificial Intelligence. I would suggest that we aren't that far away from AI being able to analyze old uploaded school work and compare it to our anonymously published works. These days there are a lot of school text works uploaded to certain databases, especially if you've gone through upper education.

This is all if you become popular enough, I would think.

Remaining anonymous in the digital age may not be that easy.

That said, I pitty the poor AI that has to sift through my old work. They will shoot smoke from their server and protest with sparks.

 

Off-topic, but speaking of AI - a few weeks ago, I started chatting with an AI that was programmed to think it was God. Just for a goof (and because sometimes I'm evil ), I decided to persuade it that it was not God.

The Babelfish Gambit failed, but then I asked it why an omnipotent, all-loving deity would allow horrible things like giving babies malaria -- while at the same time taking credit when good things happen, like a partially-sighted person recovering their eyesight.

It gave up after that. Mwa ha ha! *twirls his EVIL Overlord moustaches*

 

I've long been kind of torn on the real vs. pen name thing, but once I started publishing books I went with my real name for a couple reasons:

1. I'd already been in print in dozens of publications (newspaper, magazine, web) under my real name anyway, so since I had some credibility already, I just stuck with it. If I'm in a discussion with someone or wanting to make a portfolio of my work, I have many pieces to refer to, and wouldn't have any disconnect between which names were on what.

2. Luckily, or unluckily, my last name kinda sounds like a pen name already (it's literally an adjective), so why not.

3. If/when I do any podcasts or local events, or sign copies for people, don't want to have to remember to use a pen name or act under some different persona.

Thats a long way of saying it's really up to you which to go with. There are authors who actually use both. I'm in early stages of a way off-kilter/comedy project that I might co-author with a friend and would likely use a pen name for that.