Picking a new Author Name

[Mike]

It's worth being aware of one technical point about picking your new pen-name, alluded to by SJ here.

If readers hear about you somewhere, but don't have the info to hand any longer, how will they find you? One obvious answer is that they'll type your name into a search engine. Which raises a few issues:

1. Is your name memorable?
Which of these is a reader likely to remember later?
"Jane Smith"
"George Bush"

2. Is your name easy to spell?
Okay, they remembered you. But if you're
"Jayne Smythe"
how likely is it that they'll also remember that?

3. How much competition?
You cleared the first two hurdles--good job! But when they enter
Jane Smith
in Google, they get 3,760,000 results [that's what I got just now]. How likely that you'll be in the top 20-30?

Trying
Jane Smith author
brings it down to 778,000--um, we're not winning yet!

Some experienced searchers might try
"Jane Smith" [87,000], or
"Jane Smith" author [12,200]
--much better, but still of no practical use, and many readers probably won't know to use quotes.

It can be done!

I just tried one of our new authors, Shara Lanel, in Google. No quotes, I typed
shara lanel
and Google showed 36 matches, but actually only displays 12.

The best part? Our Shara occupies the top five positions in the Google results!

shara lanel author
gives only four results, all for our Shara.

Fairly memorable name, no obvious spelling trip-wires, and no competition in Google--nice!

So how does your prospective name fare?

[Blaise Kilgallen]

That was a fun exercise, Mike. Googled Blaise Kilgallen and came up with a load of them...but the first 30 (I didn't go any farther) all related to Blaise Kilgallen.
Whoever googles it will be sick of seeing the name!!
Blaise laughing.

[Shara Lanel]

Cool!

Actually someone mentioned googling to me when I was agonizing over what to use for a pen name. For example, she recommended that I would want to make sure my name didn't belong to a famous missionary or something since I write romantica I was amazed at how many people have the same real name that I do. Interesting.

Shara

[Kayelle Allen]

How fun! I googled on "kayelle allen" and it came up with 437 entries - after 6 pages, I still hadn't found anything that referred to anyone but me.

I've checked for kayelle on google before and found tons of entries, but it looks like my writing name was a good choice. *happy dance*

[huwthehero]

It can be hilarious. I 'made up' the name Hundak in a fantasy story I once wrote and thought it would be an unusual enough name to use as a pen name.


It turns out that Hundak is actually a moderately popular Czechoslovakian surname. Still, with S J Hundak, I still get 5 or 6 of the top hits. Phew.

SJ

[Rhiannon Neeley]

Thought I'd try a Google on my name, since I haven't in a while and it sounded like a neat exercise. I've got the first 39 spots! Can't beleive it.
Rhiannon

[Rae Monet]

Okay mine had 118,000 entries. He he, and the top 5 were me. That was fun.

[Tracey West]

I am not an author but when I google my own name...I get the children's writer, artist....LOL....


I WISH.....

I am waaaaaaaaaaaay down the list after all her stuff, with my reviewing....not quite THAT famous yet.


I just check to see if I hit #1....someday <G>

[April Martinez]

Take Mike's advice!!

Do you have any idea how many April Martinezes there are in this world? Too many! WAY too many. High school and college basketball players, community play actresses, brides, psychologists, etc. Even if you decided to search where the results wouldn't be so broad, like among the Amazon wish lists, you'd get a ton of April Martinezes. Thank God for my middle initials, G. and E., or I'd feel so generic!

Anyway, with a name so common, it took me a long, looooong time to get to the top spots on Google for that name (currently, except for #7 and #10, the entire first page is mine). It doesn't help that Martinez is probably the most common hispanic name (I'm Asian, so what's up with that?!) or that April is a month, either; you tend to get a lot of Cuban baseball player references that way. Ironically, I used to be #4 for "April" alone, but alas, the April Fool's holiday eventually beat me out when Google changed their algorithms.

So listen to Mike when choosing your name! The whole common name thing almost makes me wish my name was Lirpa Zenitram.

[Mike]

Okay, everyone's doing well on #3 "How much competition?", but what comes before 3? Yep, you guessed it, 1 and 2--have a cigar

How would you do on those? People will never get to #3 if you tripped them on hurdles 1 or 2.

1. Is your name memorable?
This is probably very subjective--is what's memorable to me also memorable to you? I doubt it in the main, as it likely depends on 'hooks' which tie in with our individual life experiences. So don't take this too seriously

Author George Bush or Tiger Woods will be memorable simply because they're the same as you-know-who. But don't all rush out and bag Julia Roberts or Maggie Thatcher--you'd be killed on #3, wouldn't you?

If one of your names is memorable, that could be enough. You know the way once you can remember part of a name or title, the rest comes back to you? Dakota Cassidy is like that--nothing memorable about Cassidy really, but Dakota will work for most people even passingly familiar with US geography.

Same with Indiana Jones. I can still remember that Charles Bronson's wife was Jill Ireland--well, I would, wouldn't I?

I can see it already--submissions soon from Minnie Sota and Ali Bama
Okay, that's a giggle--but it's serious too. Think about it!

Blaise Kilgallen Blaise is an outstanding name for a writer of hot romance! Blaze, get it? Sure you do Kilgallen, nothing special to me. But if one name will trigger the other... I'd rate it Very Good.
Kayelle Allen Um... It's a difficult name for me, Kayelle is unfamiliar and no hook for either. Poor.
SJ Hundak Who Who? SJ is difficult to remember, but Hundak might work--short and strong. Don't think Hundak would bring back SJ easily though... Poor.
Rhiannon Neeley I always have trouble with this one, even with two books out and two on the way! Very Poor--sorry Rhiannon
Rae Monet Monet is good if you know the artist, possible confusion with Manet. Rae rhymes, so Monet should bring it back easily. Good.
Tracey West Tracey is a bit nondescript, but West has a bit of a hook--I remember Oliver North! OK--but you should'a gone for Mae
April Martinez April is pretty good, immediate hook. Martinez should work for non-Hispanics who haven't been over-exposed to it. Good.

So how subjective is that? Do you have a very different opinion? And no, you can't protest your own name's memorability!

2. Is your name easy to spell?

Blaise Kilgallen Blaise is fine, short and well-known. Killgallen? Kilgallon? Killgalen?--that's a bit of a problem. OK.
Kayelle Allen Allen is fine. Kayelle is likely to cause plenty of problems. OK.
SJ Hundak Well, it's gotta be SJ Hundac or the real thing, doesn't it? Only one chance to go wrong, so Very Good.
Rhiannon Neeley Can I skip this one? Pleeeeease... She'll kill me!
Rae Monet There'll be a bit of Ray and a bit of Money [or a lot, you hope!] and I suppose Mone, but shouldn't cause too many problems. Good.
Tracey West Only one way to go wrong with Tracy, so Very Good.
April Martinez I think Martinez is well enough known to be little trouble, maybe a few Martines and Martinaz, but Very Good.

And especially for those seeking revenge...
Mike Feury Even my life-long friends still get it wrong. Rating: Bloody Awful

[Tracey West]

Everyone spells my first name wrong....it's criminal

I would rather have had Tracie .... don't like Tracy ..... Tracey -- is ok, I live with it, but like Tracie best

Mike....what about a name like Ashlyn Christopher? What's the opinion on that??? <G>

[Jennifer Cloud]

My real name is Jennifer Cloud. I stuck with it for writing because my husband thought it was just different enough to stick in someone's head. Ha! There are tons of other Jennifer Clouds out there. My maiden name was McCale. None of those. I should've stuck with it but I think it would've hurt my husband's feelings. Oh well.

[Mike]

Hmm, only one victim response so far... Oh dear, am I in the dog-house?

Originally Posted by Tracey West

Mike....what about a name like Ashlyn Christopher? What's the opinion on that??? <G>

I think a surname which is usually a first name would be trouble. "Oh yeah, I remember ... Christopher Somebody ... wait, it'll come to me ... Christopher Ashe?"

Ashlyn has some spelling problems too, and would likely be recalled first as Ashley. Overall, Poor.

[Mike]

Originally Posted by Jennifer Cloud

just different enough to stick in someone's head.

Head in the Cloud? I think it's fairly memorable, causes an immediate mental pic of a cloud, right? For this genre, a great first name might be Blue... No spelling probs either. Even with Jennifer not being memorable, I'd say it's almost Very Good. [McCale would have definite spelling issues]

One way to enhance a problem name could be with a clever tag line, like Cyndi Redding's "Original Cyn". She's got a Poor name I think, but a great tag line.

Jennifer, maybe you can do something with cumulust? Or maybe not...

"Hot Blaise"

[Blaise Kilgallen]

Yeah -- I was going to go with "Blaze" but I thought that was too cutsey...and I remembered there was a Saint Blaise (a man, though) so I changed the spelling and gave it the same sound so it would still sound "hot" . My mother's maiden name was Kilgallen (see, Mike, I've got some Irish in me. Don't know from what county.) and I thought it rolled over well on the tongue with the extra syllables (well, mine, anyway.)
How about changing Feury to "Fury?"
Blaise giggling.

[Tina Burns]

Allright, lets see Mike rip these apart...

Trinity Scott
Rory Jaden

I thought of using Black for a last name but it's way over used. These are one's I've been thinking of using if I ever pen anyting! Have at it!

T2

[Tracey West]

Ah schucks....

IF and WHEN the time ever comes that my own stories would be published <blush - shudder, feeling nauseous>

I had thought of Ashlyn Christopher since
My daughter is Ashley
my middle name is Lynn
and my youngest is Christopher.

Never have figured out how to work my 2nd child - Jacob - in there yet....

<sigh>

Back to the drawing board!!

[Kayelle Allen]

FYI - on the name game, Allen is my real last name, and Kayelle is a phonetic spelling of my real initials: KL.

[Cyndi Redding]

Tracey,

How about Chris Ashley Jacobs ??
Well, at least I like it!

Cyndi

[Cyndi Redding]

Okay, I just did the google thing. That was wicked fun! There are over 4,000 things responding to Cyndi Redding, but I'm in the top 15 about 10 times! 7 me, a few for Cyndi Lauper (Whom I adore for her fearlessness!) Then about 3 more me, and a couple for Otis Redding (whom I adore for his 'Dock of the Bay.') At least I like the company!

Mike, What if we all misspelled out names on purpose so google would pick us up no matter what??? Brilliant or idiotic?

Cyn
Experience an original Cyn.
www.cyndiredding.com

[Rhiannon Neeley]

Originally Posted by Mike

Rhiannon Neeley Can I skip this one? Pleeeeease... She'll kill me!

Ah, Mike...I won't kill you. I know that Rhiannon is a hard one. There are lots of different spellings and I probably should have thought about that one for a while but, being that 'Rhiannon' is a witch well known in folklore, I kind'a liked it. And Neeley...well that relates to my heritage.

So, the lesson to be learned is...think long and hard before you choose a name. I probably could have done better with my choice but hindsight is 20/20.
Rhiannon

[Rebecca Williams]

Okay, just a quick 'weird' thing to happen. A different publisher has just updated their website and the site designer accidentally used my real name on the site. I originally started using my partner's surname because I didn't want my high school students 'googling' me up and reading my erotic romances! Now I'm pretty sure I did the wrong thing. As "rebecca realname"+author I'm top of google's first page. As "rebecca williams"+author, there are seven hundred of me and one of me is only ten years old (published by the way...naturally a prodigy). Now I'm in a quandry!

Rebecca

[Mike]

Originally Posted by Tina Burns

Trinity Scott
Rory Jaden

Hey Tina, you already have a hot name, why not just get a new first name? Paige Burns?

Both your suggestions are good for spelling, but I can't see any 'hook' to make them memorable.

How about changing Feury to "Fury?"

Hey it's a name I want, not a reaction By far the most common spelling of the name is Furey, and there are some Fury as well. People who finally twigged there was something odd about my spelling invariable produce Fuery.

Just as well it doesn't bother me in the slightest, as it's a battle which just couldn't be won

[Mike]

Originally Posted by Cyndi Redding

Mike, What if we all misspelled out names on purpose so google would pick us up no matter what???

Being in Google is like having a book in Amazon--absolutely worthless unless people can find you among the millions. So your idea works if people search for the misspelled version, otherwise not.

Y'all could use a trick I've used before, which is to have common misspellings of your name mentioned on your website. Let's take Kayelle as an example:

On her "About me" page, Kayelle puts a paragraph near the end which has something like "People often tell me they thought my name was KL Allen or Kay L Allen--one even came up with Kay Elallen."

If you can fit something like that naturally into your page, then Google should pick it up. However, it won't do you much good unless the competition is low for them. But worth a shot, nothing to lose.

[Mike]

Originally Posted by Rhiannon Neeley

'Rhiannon' is a witch well known in folklore ... hindsight is 20/20.

Like I said folks, don't take this too seriously--it's only one factor among many to consider when choosing a name, and hindsight is indeed great

Rhiannon is a good example. If you were writing witchy tales, especially if they were centered around the relevant environment, then Rhiannon would probably be a briliant name in that it would be known to your target readership.

Amidala would ordinarily be a bit of a mouthful, but probably excellent if you're writing that kind of Sci-Fi. Venus for romantic mythology, etc. Mind you, they're probably too competitive to rank you well, but combined with the right other half of a name...

[Mike]

Originally Posted by Rebecca Williams

Now I'm in a quandry!

Get them to change it Rebecca, and Google will eventually drop it.

Btw, I edited your real name in your post. Google will pick up anything in this public area

[Jennifer Cloud]

Originally Posted by Mike

Jennifer, maybe you can do something with cumulust? Or maybe not

Mike
YOu are too funny.

[April Martinez]

Well ... I'm not sure about #2 -- "Is your name easy to spell?". Unless your name is twenty letters long and has only one vowel, I wouldn't worry too much about it. Leigh Wyndfield isn't easy to spell if you've only heard the name and have never seen it written, but its spelling is what makes it stand out when you do finally see it in writing. I remember thinking that when I first saw it. Same with the name Feury and Kayelle (though I mistakenly thought, "Kayelle" must be one of those made-up black girl names, like Shawneequa, Latrina, or Chantelle, and never even thought it would be pronounced K. L.; were it my choice, I might have stayed with the initials).

Anyway, if your name is hard to spell, take heart; I've had people spell my first name Aprull or Aprile once or twice. They were obviously too bright by half, but I offer their misspellings as a consolation to you all on the name-spelling issue.

[Tina Burns]

I like Paige Burns Mike. I may just use that if that's ok. Besides, Paige Davis is so popular now that it's catchy! I just needed something other than me since I've got a minister for a Dad!

T2

[Kayelle Allen]

Originally Posted by April Martinez

Same with the name Feury and Kayelle (though I mistakenly thought, "Kayelle" must be one of those made-up black girl names, like Shawneequa, Latrina, or Chantelle, and never even thought it would be pronounced K. L.; were it my choice, I might have stayed with the initials).

April, you are too funny. I want to know how you thought Kayelle was supposed to be pronounced. When I picked it I thought how easy it was.

One thing to remember is not just how a name looks on paper, but how it sounds when you say it. Kayelle Allen has all those L sounds in it - if you say it without pausing very long between the two names it has a nice rolling sound.

I hesitated to use kayelleallen.com because I thought it would be confusing with all those e's and l's, but it actually looks pretty good. Anyway, Mike, once I'm a rich and famous *cough* author and everyone knows my name, you'll cringe when you remember that you said my choice was *poor*. LOL

[April Martinez]

Originally Posted by Kayelle Allen

April, you are too funny. I want to know how you thought Kayelle was supposed to be pronounced. When I picked it I thought how easy it was.

LOL, don't go by me. It probably IS very easy to pronounce. But I tend to mispronounce a lot of words. I read books out loud to my boyfriend every now and then, and when I first read Harry Potter to him (this was before the movies were made), I pronounced Hermione's name as HER-me-own. To compound the idiocy, I pronounced it that way for weeks before he saw it in writing and laughingly corrected my pronunciation, LOL. I don't know; I think it goes hand in hand with my hearing problem or something.

By the way, I thought it was pronounced ka-YELL.

[Raven]

Your journal entry is hilarious April...loved it

[Raven]

Well...I decided to google my name Raven Moore - had not ever done that.

To my surprise, many references come up for this name referencing the porn movies I've supposedly starred in

I hadn't a clue

[April Martinez]

LOL, Raven. Good thing you're not publishing children's books!

[Maggie Casper]

I just Googled Maggie Casper and came up with 36,300 and I was #1. I hadn't done that before. Exciting!!

Maggie

[Mike]

Originally Posted by Kayelle Allen

Anyway, Mike, once I'm a rich and famous *cough* author and everyone knows my name, you'll cringe when you remember that you said my choice was *poor*. LOL

Nice try Kayelle, but no I won't. I'll point out the thread title and very first paragraph to you

[Mike]

Originally Posted by Maggie Casper

Maggie Casper

Pretty good name, but wouldn't it be great for ghost stories?

[Kayelle Allen]

Originally Posted by Mike

Nice try Kayelle, but no I won't. I'll point out the thread title and very first paragraph to you

Mike,
Okay, fine. Go ahead and be right. Spoil sport. LOL.

April, my family thinks I ka-yell a lot. Never saw it that way. btw, I have a sister with the last name Martinez and a niece named April, so seeing the two of them together for the first time made your name stick in my memory. Sometimes, we remember names for the oddest reasons.

Kay-ell

[Maggie Casper]

Originally Posted by Mike

Pretty good name, but wouldn't it be great for ghost stories?

No telling what the future holds, Mike. My mind is always whirling with ideas.

Maggie

[April Martinez]

Originally Posted by Kayelle Allen

April, my family thinks I ka-yell a lot. Never saw it that way.

You'll be amazed at how certain people or cultures will pronounce a word upon seeing it the first time. For instance, the word "tagalog" (the Filipino language) is pronounced tag-AH-log, but most non-Filipinos will look at that and immediately read it as TAG-a-log. A very, very old piece of world literature called "The Epic of Gilgamesh" might be pronounced GIL-ga-MESH, but scholars today, after studying how the language may have been spoken at that time, now theorize that it may actually be pronounced gil-GA-mesh. (It's a foreign way of speaking for us; it would be like saying meh-LOW-dee or meh-LAH-knee instead of melody and Melanie.)

But anyway, since I'm originally from the Philippines and have lived in Japan, and also because I'm familiar with the IPA (the International Phonetic Alphabet), I tend to use the short vowel sounds more often than most people. So, Kayelle became ka-YELL for me.

LOL, had it been spelled Kei-Elle, I might have pronounced it the way I was supposed to. The "ay" part of it was what screwed me up; "ay" is close enough to "ai", and the IPA way of pronouncing "ai" is "aye", as in "Aye, aye, sir!" (Plus, I had a friend named Maila, and her name is pronounced MY-LAH.)

Anyway, I totally went off on a tangent, didn't I? lol. But, for everyone else, how your new author name is pronounced might help or hinder getting your name out there, especially if your popularity growth is based largely on word of mouth.

Since I'm here anyway, I'll also touch on how author names look as domain names. KayelleAllen.com does look good, but for anyone else out there, be careful. Someone I know was so fired up by the idea of the name "Writer USA" for a writer's site, and he wanted to get writerusa.com. When I looked at it in writing and said out loud, "Write Rusa? Who's Rusa?", it totally and completely ruined his day. He got himself another domain name instead.

LOL, so you may want to think about stuff like that and run your names by someone before making a final decision.

[Mike]

Is there a mute button on this thing? Sheesh April, that's nearly as long as one of my rambles!

Btw, your pal should get writer-usa.com and park it on his current domain.

Re domains for authors, it does help with the search engines to have your author name as a domain name. SEs give extra weight to any domain names which contain the search phrase. So it's an extra goodie if your name is easily spelled.

And yeah, I assumed Kayelle was pronounced Kaye-Yell too, with the 'aya' as in 'aye, aye sir'

[Maggie Casper]

Hi April,

My hubby is Filipino. Doesn't speak any of the numerous dialects though. His granfather was born there but migrated to the US when he was in his teens. He's always wanted to visit there and I hope he does one day. He and my FIL cook all the traditional meals even down to butchering a pig/goat/whatever to accomplish it. It's always a big thing.

Anyway Just thought your post was interesting.

Maggie

[April Martinez]

lol, I don't speak any of the dialects either. I can barely understand tagalog -- enough to get me by, maybe -- and I can't for the life of me speak it above the village idiot level. Worse, I can't cook Filipino food except for lumpia (LOOM-pih-ah, the egg roll), so I miss all the traditional meals you're probably getting to eat regularly. Well, MOST of the meals, lol. Not sure about that "dinuguan" dish now that I'm a closet vegetarian. Ask your husband what that is if you don't know what it is; I'm sure I butchered the spelling somehow, lol, as it's pronounced dih-noo-goo-ahn.

[Maggie Casper]

Originally Posted by April Martinez

Well, MOST of the meals, lol. Not sure about that "dinuguan" dish now that I'm a closet vegetarian.

Hi April,
Oh yes, the blood/chocolate meat as us white folk call it is a specialty. I don't eat it but then again I don't care too much for vinegar. I've seen them whip the fresh blood and vinegar into a pudding enough to know what you're talking about though.

My FIL and DH cook the dishes outside in huge woks usually for a huge bunch of people several times a year or on any given occasion deemed "special".LOL

The other dishes they usually make are Adobo and Sarciado and of course, rice. My oldest daughter(15) says a day without rice is like a day without sunshine. I like potatoes myself.LOL

Maggie

[Kayelle Allen]

To all those who thought my name was pronounced like "Aye, sir" - just keep that in mind when I ask for something.

My real first name is only six letters long but you wouldn't believe how many people mispronounce it. Kayelle is a huge improvement.

This blood pudding stuff sounds... well, never mind. I'll just mention that my first newsletter had a recipe taken from my feline Kin characters' cookbook and was called "Sweet Chicken Gizzard Pie". It contained dried and powdered chicken skin, lard, sugar, and whipped cream. Yum.

Kayelle

[April Martinez]

My boyfriend, who is Irish, says that the Filipino are like the Irish, except instead of potatoes, they have rice, lol.

Uh ... mm-MM, that Sweet Chicken Gizzard Pie sounds just about as good as Dinuguan! lol

I do miss Adobo, though. If I were a writer in the Philippines, I think I'd consider Adobo Dinuguan as a pen name. Doesn't look half bad as a domain name, lol.

Oh, btw, Mike? He went with writerpage.com instead.

[Vanessa Hart]

This is an interesting discussion. Before I ever decided on my erotica pseudonym, I did a search. The only Vanessa Hart to come up was a character in a soap opera. I don't watch soaps, but apparently Vanessa Hart was a well-known character. Since there were no authors or celebrities listed, I made my next move, which was to do a domain search. vanessahart.com and vanessahart.net were both available, so I grabbed them.

Why did I pick Vanessa Hart in the first place? I wanted Vanessa because Vanessa was the name of my young cousin who was murdered. Hart wasn't my first choice for a last name. Buick was *LOL* because hubby had just bought me a new Buick. Surprisingly, there is a dealership or something called Vanessa Buick because the domains were taken and the search yielded Vanessa Buick all over the place! So I chose Hart because it's a homonym for heart, and I write romance, after all.

And that's the story of my pen name, Vanessa Hart. I do show up well when I Google. So how about it, Mike? Does Vanessa Hart meet all the criteria for a good pseudonym? If not, it's too late now!

Nessie

[Sable Grey]

I cheated and took the name of one of my characters. The story was crap and has long been trashed but I liked the name. And I think it fits me. *smile*

It was mentioned that there was a Rita Sable. Very close but I think we are safe from being confused. And she and I could always write a collection together called Sable's Fables *giggle*

-Sable Grey

[Rae Monet]

Don't worry Sable, we have Rae Monet and Rae Morgan. We love it!!! Confuse them into reading both our books.

[Sable Grey]

Hahahahaha! Now that's some creative marketing!

-Sable