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Do you publish under your own name, or do you use a a pseudonym?
I ask because I Binged my name today and couldn’t find myself. I started to think that if I had an important story out there and people only knew my name, they’d have a tough time finding me.
This led me to think that a pseudonym should be unique otherwise the same problem would arise.
So how do you create a unique name for yourself to avoid this problem?
Not being findable is an uncomfortable thought. I publish nonfiction under my own name, but I’m somewhat known in the costuming world and I hope that will help my intended audience find me.
Eek! I just googled myself and found that I died on May 29, 2013 — or someone with my name and age did. A bit unnerving.
Other than that, my name in quotes brings up my nonfiction. (My fiction can stay buried.
)Happy writing,
Deb Salisbury
The Mantua-Maker, Quality Historical Sewing Patterns and Books
www.mantua-maker.comThe Art of the Hoop: 1860 - 1869, Dress, Sewing, and Clothing Care Advice
https://www.mantua-maker.com/a---1860s-fashion.htmlDead Wizard's Loot: Wizard Whitewing #1
http://www.djsalisburybooks.com/Dead-Wizard-s-Loot.htmlWhen I was picking out my penname, I did do a Google search, as well as an Amazon search. To make sure there weren’t too many with a similar name. If there are, you risk getting submarined on the search results by someone more popular than you.
If you don’t see many search results out there with your name, then that can be a good thing. It means you can create a web presence for yourself easier.
J.A. Marlow
The String Weavers, Salmon Run, Redpoint One series.Writer alter-ego of Dreamers Cove
I’ve googled my name and I get myself and a Connie Cockrell Kaplan that’s written a self help book. So my web presence would be pretty much my own.
To answer Jim’s question, I decided to go with my own name. I thought about the paparazzi and nut jobs out there should I actually become popular but I’m a terrible namer. Lol, I know, as a writer I should be able to create a name but nope. Just too lazy I think. I’m building my presence slowly. I’ve had a writing blog since Aug 2012. A FB Author page about as long. I started a Twitter account a few months ago and a Google+ account even more recently. None of them have a huge following, less than a hundred probably all together.
I plan to get a web site by the end of this year. I expect that to allow me greater flexibility than a WordPress blog does. Greater visibility too.
Hope that answers the question.
I’d say it helps to know your family history. In most families (all right, not all – I know a woman whos maiden name was Smith, and she married a man named Jones :blink: ) somewhere along the line, you’ll find a few unique names. And, at least for me, it’s easier to think of them as “mine”, because they’re family. (Even the Jones-Smith family probably has an odd name back in the woodwork – if you can track them far enough back to find it.)
Even that is no protection from Google, though. One of the most unusual surnames I’ve researched is Nakler (it derives from a single village in Posen / Poznan) – and those selling pneumatic nailers and their SEO efforts made that a difficult surname to track, until I added “-nailer” to my search terms. So longer and odder is better.
Why do you want to use a pseudonym? Unless there is a good reason for doing so, stick with your name. When I first started publishing I had to use a pseudonym or I would lose my job (boss took a dim view of anyone earning money except from his payroll).
Now I use my name.
My wife, on the other hand uses three variations on her name to separate her books into Romance (first and last names), Science Fiction (first and last names with middle initial), and Fantasy (first and middle initials, last name). Anyone searching for her online would find all three but would quickly notice that the SF titles featured only her first and last names, and so forth. Subtle, but it works.
Magic Seeker wrote:Eek! I just googled myself and found that I died on May 29, 2013 — or someone with my name and age did. A bit unnerving.I’ve had numerous deaths etc. I was governor of (I think) Victoria, Australia. Growing up I often wondered what had happened to my father’s family members from the past, now I think I know. I’m also somewhere in a mugshot ‘lineup’. I didn’t search.
Earlier today I posted a snippit titled ‘Zeniki’ thinking that would be an obscure name. Try it!
Wandering Author wrote:(it derives from a single village in Posen / Poznan) – and those selling pneumatic nailers and their SEO efforts made that a difficult surname to track, until I added “-nailer” to my search terms. So longer and odder is better.Annexations and record destruction must have made the tracing of some names tricky.
I chose to use the name June Dal. Dal is an abbreviation of my middle name Dallmeyer. My reasons are simple. My real name June Drexler Robertson is really really long, so long that I can’t really get it very large on a thumbnail of my bookcovers. General indi-pub wisdom is that you want to get your name large enough to read, so by shortening it I can do that. Besides that, I just like the name.
–June
I started with wanting to use my name: Margaret Fisk, but there were at least 4 other women publishing under that or that with something in the middle in various fields. So I switched to my maiden name, Margaret McGaffey, but my family is too big on the genealogy research and I was hidden under long gone McGaffeys. So I decided to go with my full name even though it is long.
This was years ago.
Since then, I’ve blogged, commented, taught classes, etc. Now, any variant of Margaret + McGaffey + Fisk pulls up some link to me, without the quotes that were necessary at first.
The lesson here is that unless someone else is actively “living” in your namespace, the more you interact with the Web, the higher your profile is. It doesn’t matter what name you end up with.
She remakes mechanical devices, and he dreams of becoming a steamship captain in The Steamship Chronicles. Book 1 is free in eBook.
https://margaretmcgaffeyfisk.com/the-steamship-chronicles/This is the good part about having an odd first name. You search for me and you’ll find me. I had no reason to use any other name.
MarFisk wrote:I started with wanting to use my name: Margaret Fisk, but there were at least 4 other women publishing under that or that with something in the middle in various fields. So I switched to my maiden name, Margaret McGaffey, but my family is too big on the genealogy research and I was hidden under long gone McGaffeys. So I decided to go with my full name even though it is long.This was years ago.
Since then, I’ve blogged, commented, taught classes, etc. Now, any variant of Margaret + McGaffey + Fisk pulls up some link to me, without the quotes that were necessary at first.
The lesson here is that unless someone else is actively “living” in your namespace, the more you interact with the Web, the higher your profile is. It doesn’t matter what name you end up with.
There’s some truth in what you say. However, even Margaret Fisk (or Margaret McGaffey) is not a terribly common name. (Yes, I know, there are a lot of them. As a genealogist, however, alarm bells wouldn’t have rung when I heard those names.) If you have a really common name – almost any semi-common first name with Smith or Jones or Johnson or… – or if you have a name (take Nakler as an odd example) which is the focus of intense SEO effort, then no matter how active you are, you’re going to have trouble being that easy to find.
Every one of us has to figure out what works for them, and what they’re comfortable with. And even if your name is John Jones, you’re going to be easier to find if you’re active online – but that’s relative. There is no amount of activity which is going to really help you there. (Zette’s comment about unusual first names set me to thinking, though – there was a girl whose father was a mining engineer whose first name was Nitroglycerine. I don’t remember what her last name was, but I don’t really think it matters much. Although I’m not sure what the SEO activity is on that term. Or my Aunt Violet’s aunt would have been golden – Martha Etta Outhouse. The surname seems to have quickly vanished somewhere around 1900-1920, so I assume at least a few people changed their names. Of course, if she’d become a writer, she might not have wanted to use that name anyway.)
I think the thing to do, though, is pick a name which isn’t ridiculous – Michael Sullivan, Patrick Sullivan, or even Michael Patrick Sullivan all come to mind as hopeless (I had to research the first two of those names in Lowell in the 1920s… got a line on them, too, but I really had to work for it) and which you’re comfortable with, and then use it online. As much as you can. There are no guarantees. Unless you have an entirely unique name, there is always the risk someone with the same name will become truly famous. A writer named Justin Timberlake would have had it pretty easy – until the celebrity came along. Then, all the activity in the world wouldn’t really have been enough to keep up.
(I’ll add, by the way, that genealogy isn’t the worst interest for a writer, in case you haven’t picked that up already from this post. It teaches you all sort of odd details about different time periods, and you get exposed to a wide range of pretty strange names. Not just for use as pseudonyms, but to use for your characters. Even poor Martha might be of some use in the right comedy. Of course, as accurate as that name is for the late 1800s, modern readers just couldn’t take it seriously. So you do have to use your judgement.)
I enjoy reading the posts here. This particular thread motivated me to look up my initialed writer’s handle, RWGoldsmith, on Google. To my surprise, I found two of my blogs and a picture of myself on the first page. I guess I’d better get on the ball and finish a story before some other author commandeers the name. 😆
This is both true and not true.
First of all, Fisk is the equivalent of Smith in the UK, and Margaret is a British name. Rankings of the two together are incredibly high. Margaret McGaffey, however, only has my family as contenders
.But yes, ultimately you should choose a name you’re comfortable with, yours or a pseudonym. People are too quick to assume their names (as I was) won’t work and end up with one or several identifiers to keep track of. Now with a name like Outhouse, it’s a no brainer unless you write comedy because you don’t want readers distracted. But most people’s names, even the most common ones like Fisk, Smith, Brown, etc. are fine if you want to do the work to get the recognition…and here’s the kicker…no matter how “perfect” the name you choose is, you’ll need to do the work.
So go with your gut and inclination. Make sure it’s something you’ll feel comfortable being called at conventions, and then run with it.
She remakes mechanical devices, and he dreams of becoming a steamship captain in The Steamship Chronicles. Book 1 is free in eBook.
https://margaretmcgaffeyfisk.com/the-steamship-chronicles/Weird Jim wrote:I ask because I Binged my name today and couldn’t find myself. I started to think that if I had an important story out there and people only knew my name, they’d have a tough time finding me.I guess there are really a lot of Weird Jims out there.
My name is a pretty rare combination. If I google my name (“Stuart Etter”) or the way I’ll have my name shown on books (“S.A. Etter” or even “saetter”) my website, blog, etc. comes up.
Now if I only could finish revising to get a book to go with the google search, website, etc….
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