The Perils of Pen Names

Paul Whybrow

Go Set A Watchman - the digested read.

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Katie-Ellen

'What is Written Without Effort.....

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Paul Whybrow said:
Pen-name generators are fun, but there's nowt as strange as folk. I've known in real life a Rob Fuke, Ted Ramsbottom, Tony Throcking and a Sylvan Pook - his name always made me think of an aged elf who lived in the woods.
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There was a coach in Montana with the last name of Tinkle, I heard of a women's basketball player named Bowser. Strange!
 
I thought it would be a simple plan. The name "David Steele" is everywhere, and there are two existing authors on Goodreads using the same name. It made perfect sense to switch to David Parkland (Parkland being the street name for my house).
Trouble is, it's such a hassle. I now need to build up a twitter following from scratch, as well as develop a new website. It may only be a small detail but that's twice the administration and twice the expense for hosting (I know it's only pocket money, but it's still a factor).

Cap it all, I came up with that name when I had no intention of writing anything but family-friendly adventure stories. Trouble is, I've got another MS which is anything but family friendly, and I don't feel it will be appropriate to release it under the same author. This means I'm going to have to do the same thing again next year when I start trying to get published as David Newland.

I'm a great bunch of guys.
 
Some famous authors have come out from behind their old pen names, resurrecting the books that they wrote in the fifties and sixties. Among them are Lawrence Block and the late Donald Westlake, best-known for their novels on crime, but who started out their careers by writing soft-core pornographic paperbacks. They used an array of pen names, for writing such tawdry reading matter was more a matter of shame then, compared to the public excesses of today's erotica. With titles such as Sin Hellcat, Man Hungry, Pads Are For Passion and The Sex Shuffle, these were aimed a titillation. Some of them have been republished, particularly those featuring hardboiled detectives : http://www.hardcasecrime.com/
As the old saying goes - Sex sells.
 
David Steele said:
I thought it would be a simple plan. The name "David Steele" is everywhere, and there are two existing authors on Goodreads using the same name. It made perfect sense to switch to David Parkland (Parkland being the street name for my house).
Trouble is, it's such a hassle. I now need to build up a twitter following from scratch, as well as develop a new website. It may only be a small detail but that's twice the administration and twice the expense for hosting (I know it's only pocket money, but it's still a factor).

Cap it all, I came up with that name when I had no intention of writing anything but family-friendly adventure stories. Trouble is, I've got another MS which is anything but family friendly, and I don't feel it will be appropriate to release it under the same author. This means I'm going to have to do the same thing again next year when I start trying to get published as David Newland.

I'm a great bunch of guys.
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Mr Jeckyl, Mr Hyde and pal :p We all love your multifacetednessness lol
 
David Steele said:
I thought it would be a simple plan. The name "David Steele" is everywhere, and there are two existing authors on Goodreads using the same name. It made perfect sense to switch to David Parkland (Parkland being the street name for my house).
Trouble is, it's such a hassle. I now need to build up a twitter following from scratch, as well as develop a new website. It may only be a small detail but that's twice the administration and twice the expense for hosting (I know it's only pocket money, but it's still a factor).

Cap it all, I came up with that name when I had no intention of writing anything but family-friendly adventure stories. Trouble is, I've got another MS which is anything but family friendly, and I don't feel it will be appropriate to release it under the same author. This means I'm going to have to do the same thing again next year when I start trying to get published as David Newland.

I'm a great bunch of guys.
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Yeah but you'll be a wild success and able to hire and assistant to handle all that mess.
 
Aw man, the pen names I generated weren't that fabulous, which is my own fault for not thinking of more interesting words for the form, I guess. The best was K. A. Knife-Blackwatts.
 
Paul Whybrow said:
Pen-name generators are fun, but there's nowt as strange as folk. I've known in real life a Rob Fuke, Ted Ramsbottom, Tony Throcking and a Sylvan Pook - his name always made me think of an aged elf who lived in the woods.
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SYLVAN POOK FOR THE WIN.

I read that after The Lord of the Rings was published, a real-life Samwise Gamgee contacted Tolkien. That was really his name!
 
The best real-life name I've ever come across was Poppy O'Guin.

I went to college with her, or at least heard her name on campus. I never me her, but always thought she must have been one fascinating person.

I've also noticed that I don't see many interesting American names--seems like all the good names are British.
 
Meerkat said:
SYLVAN POOK FOR THE WIN.

I read that after The Lord of the Rings was published, a real-life Samwise Gamgee contacted Tolkien. That was really his name!
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It's a wonder to me the way that some people keep surnames that must cause them grief. I once knew a Suffolk family with the surname of D'eath - which they pronounced as Dee-Ath. There really was a Doctor Death who worked as a dentist when I lived in Portsmouth. He was very popular, though more than a few people did a double-take at an advertising hoarding which he placed on the main road into the city. It was black, with a grinning skull on it mouth full of pearly gnashers, and the slogan Visit Doctor Death - He'll Get You Smiling Again.
 
Paul Whybrow said:
It's a wonder to me the way that some people keep surnames that must cause them grief. I once knew a Suffolk family with the surname of D'eath - which they pronounced as Dee-Ath. There really was a Doctor Death who worked as a dentist when I lived in Portsmouth. He was very popular, though more than a few people did a double-take at an advertising hoarding which he placed on the main road into the city. It was black, with a grinning skull on it mouth full of pearly gnashers, and the slogan Visit Doctor Death - He'll Get You Smiling Again.
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I would totally, totally go to any doctor named Death. Absolutely fabulous.

There was actually a politician here in my state named Dick Sprinkle.
 
My headmaster was a repellent creep called Burridge. This was quickly altered by the boys to Buggeridge - which is what he was caught doing to a 14 year old boy, about ten years after I left. This was back in the days when this sort of thing was hushed-up, so he was allowed to resign.
Your high school principal's name is eye-watering, and reminds me of the old joke about the porn star called Ivor Biggun.
 
Nicole Wilson said:
I have a friend who knew a guy named Richard Less. Middle school must have been rough...
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I knew a Richard, whose parents obviously hadn't thought of the consequences of naming him this, what with their surname being Bird. He was known by one and all as Dicky Bird, and he may have become as mad as a box of frogs because of it. There was actually a Dickie Bird, who became famous as a cricket umpire.
Worse still, was a schoolmate called Peter Ian Gates. Nothing wrong with that you say, except that his parents gave him a brown leather briefcase to carry his books in, which had his initials embossed and highlighted in gold on it - PIG. It didn't help that he was rather a rotund and greedy boy.
 
Paul Whybrow said:
It's a wonder to me the way that some people keep surnames that must cause them grief. I once knew a Suffolk family with the surname of D'eath - which they pronounced as Dee-Ath. There really was a Doctor Death who worked as a dentist when I lived in Portsmouth. He was very popular, though more than a few people did a double-take at an advertising hoarding which he placed on the main road into the city. It was black, with a grinning skull on it mouth full of pearly gnashers, and the slogan Visit Doctor Death - He'll Get You Smiling Again.
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There was a dentist here "Dr. Pane". Not one I'd go see...
 
I know a lot of people think it's strange that I've given myself a pen name when I haven't published anything - they don't usually say anything - they just mispronounce it or look at me weird - as though consonant vowel consonant vowel is really a series of letters to pronounce ....but... I've been using it for over 20 years and pretty much consider it mine.

I put up a website with a different pen name....just for fun one day. I'm not attached to that name at all.
 
I just realised you guys are using the pen name generator! Lol! And here i thought you were all anagram wizards..that you are that too off course, just had no idea it came from that link! :oops:

Just did my own and not quite sure about the cauliflower one!
 
A couple of writers have a formula for pen-names - Lee Child certainly did this and another one that I met did the same thing.

First of all, pick something in the first three letters of the alphabet, so in the absence of any other sort order you'll be near the top. I think Lee Child wanted to be next to a famous thriller writer, maybe Chandler. Then pick something short, one or maybe two syllables at most. And something that can be remembered and doesn't have a whole host of alternative spellings.

Hence, Lee Child! It's actually harder than you think to choose one based on those rules!

Graham
 
Graham H Miller said:
A couple of writers have a formula for pen-names - Lee Child certainly did this and another one that I met did the same thing.

First of all, pick something in the first three letters of the alphabet, so in the absence of any other sort order you'll be near the top. I think Lee Child wanted to be next to a famous thriller writer, maybe Chandler. Then pick something short, one or maybe two syllables at most. And something that can be remembered and doesn't have a whole host of alternative spellings.

Hence, Lee Child! It's actually harder than you think to choose one based on those rules!

Graham
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After working in libraries for many years, I can well believe that authors whose name begins with one of the first three letters of the alphabet would do well. People are surprisingly robotic in the way that they search for things, scanning from left to right, beginning in the top left corner of the shelves. It's how we read a page, of course, which is one reason why there are so many businesses beginning with 'A' in the phone book. Some take it to extreme lengths to be first in the queue - I worked for AAA Taxis in Portsmouth for a while. We answered the phone by saying "Triple A", which given how many of the drivers were hardened drinkers used to make me think that it stood for Alcoholics Anonymous Altogether.
Some readers like to search at the end of the alphabet, perhaps looking for something unusual written by someone whose name begins with a Q, U, V, X, Y or Z. This may have benefits for me, as a W, and as my name is almost a form of question, that could be a marketing advantage too. I noticed in experimenting with the titles of my ebooks, that those which posed a question, such as What Would I Do Without You? were the most popular.
 
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Paul Whybrow

Go Set A Watchman - the digested read.

  • Paul Whybrow
  • Replies: 3
Katie-Ellen

'What is Written Without Effort.....

  • Katie-Ellen
  • Replies: 8
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