The Marketing Behind Choosing a Pen Name
You should seriously consider whether or not you need a pseudonym. There are reasons for choosing one.
First, how common is your name? If your name is “Mary Brown,” no search engine will ever find you until you have built a reputation. Type in “Michael Jackson” and an overwhelming majority of the results will be for you-know-who. Ask for “Mary Brown” and you get page after page of mixed results. There is a writer named Mary Brown but she doesn’t show up until page two and thereafter, her name appears randomly here and there, mixed in with all the thousands of non-writing “Mary Browns.”
Interestingly, “Mary Brown” gets some 400,000,000 hits whereas “Michael Jackson” gets several billion fewer hits. “Mary Brown” is a stunningly common name.
Now it’s time to make some decisions. Are you already writing under this name? If so, are you at the top of page one leading off with your author website, followed by your Amazon author page, followed by all your other social media, Amazon links, and then many, many glowing reviews, discussions, mentions, etc.? If not, you need to do some serious work on your search engine optimization skills. Darn few people go much past page two of Google’s search results.
If someone can’t find you, they can’t buy your book. You need to be on page one and you should be filling that page up, from top to bottom. Nobody but you. Good search engine optimization techniques will make sure Google notices you and ranks you high above all the also-rans with your name who don’t do this hard work. It is work, but if you already have a website and a social media presence for your name, you already have a head-start. This is such an important skill for businesses that you can easily find classes in the subject if you want to do it yourself.
If you are not yet writing under your own name, then you have to decide: your own name with mega-search engine optimization? Or a pen name that isn’t so common?
If you choose a pen name, think about the following:
1. Is your name easy to spell? Easy to remember? Easy to pronounce? A first name like “Siobhan” fails this test. “Siobhan” is pronounced “Sha-VAN” by the way. You could tell at once, right?
2. Will it look good on a cover, fitting in nicely and legibly without squeezing?
3. How does it sound when you say it aloud? Is it easy for a reader to pronounce it? This comes into play when they’re asking for your title at the bookstore, or talking to their friends about that great new story. Think of it as a virus, passing from person to person, only it’s a great disease to catch!
4. Is it appropriate for your chosen genre? “Annabelle Kingsbury” says romance. “Jane Slayer” implies a thriller, although you may like “Joan” better since there is no internal rhyme.
5. Most important, is your name unique? You want to be unique for Google so you pop at the top when people search for you. If someone else shares this name, then your pen name plus the word “writer” or “author” should fill page one.
You really need to be unique on Amazon. You should be the only person writing under your chosen name so there is no confusion for the buying public. As it turns out, there is only one “Mary Brown” on Amazon, although when you type in “Mary Brown” you get a wide variety of results since “Mary” and “Brown” show up many places. Mary Ward Brown and Mary Lou Brown added their middle names to distinguish themselves. While Mary Ward Brown fills her Google search page, Mary Lou Brown does not. They both fill up the first page on Amazon when you search for their complete name.
So that’s your first reason for using a pen name: to be unique and memorable, but still easy to find.
Are there other reasons for adopting a pen name? Oh, boy, is there! Let’s explore that next week.