I’m sorry in advance for all the earworms this post is about to contain. We’re going to be talking through some potentially scary and also potentially boring material and this is going to help us get through. OK? Fine. Well, as the song says,

Come on and tell me who are you?

No really, who are you? Because this month’s Technique Toolbox is all about pseudonyms. When do you use your full legal name, and should you, and do you even want to, and what if you don’t? Because Facebook’s (kind of transphobic and not always safe) Real Name Policy notwithstanding, there’s a whole lot of internet out there, and a lot of people in it that you’re going to be interacting with.

And there are other reasons not to use your legal name as well, like maybe you married into a family of a different ethnicity and you don’t want to use that name because it misrepresents who you are, or your name is Adam Smith and how do you build a personal brand if there are a million search engine results for that name?

Anyway. Let’s talk.

Why use your legal name?

BUT FIRST, AN IMPORTANT ASIDE:

You’ll note that throughout this piece I’m going to say “legal name” rather than “real name” because identity is a super important thing (and is kind of the heart of the post) and I don’t think they’re necessarily the same thing, although they can be. If a person who I used to know as Larry tells me his name is Ocean now, that’s his real name. But he can’t sign it to contracts or put it on his credit card, because it’s not his legal name.

LESSON OVER.

The first and best reason to use your legal name is that it’s easy. Everything you’ve ever done pops up in one search. You don’t have to explain to editors or agents that Rowan isn’t your real name when you’re pitching. Your checks come to the name your book is published under. You can set up your PayPal account without having to go through a lot of hoops, or risk exposing your legal name when PayPal says “You’ve received a payment from Stacie.”

Another reason to use your legal name is that you’ve already done a ton of brand-building with it. Teachers, parents, and friends know it, so they’re more likely to identify and share publicity materials with that name attached. Nobody’s going to slip and use the wrong name when they’re talking about knowing you back when.

Why use a pseudonym?

Balancing out how easy it is to find and get paid for your work under your legal name is how easy it is to find you under your legal name. While you probably don’t want to delete yourself from the Internet (this article was written last year, are you kidding me) you might not want everyone who reads your off-the-cuff opinions to be able to get your home address and phone number with a quick Google search. And removing that information yourself can be time-consuming and uncertain. There are sites like DeleteMe that specialize in getting your address off the ‘net, but they’re spendy.

Picking a pseudonym can also be a way to make yourself memorable, Mr. Smith. Think about Marilyn Monroe, or Blackbeard. Sometimes it’s easier to build your brand if your name sticks out of the crowd. And – you know what, I wasn’t going to say this, but it’s the world we live in – it can be a way to avoid racism in literary gatekeeping or hiring. There’s a reason Agatha Christie is a household name and Ngaio Marsh isn’t, as I’ve said before.

And there are personal safety reasons to use a pseudonym, too. Maybe you’re avoiding an abuser. Maybe you’ve got a lot of opinions but also need to make money at a very stodgy job, or make sure future employers don’t see Bong Hits over Barbados in your activities list. Maybe Gamergate. Maybe Sad and Rabid Puppies. Maybe your name is incredibly unique and there’s nobody “It Happened to Me: I found a Hamster in my Anus” could be besides you.

So why not just start over with a new name?

Usernames

You probably have a pseudonym already, to be honest. It’s that username you keep using across every site you register for. There are definitely people online who only know you by heyitsbae or whatever you call yourself on Instagram or Twitter. As long as you keep your legal name under wraps and don’t let your friends call you Asha when they @ you or post pictures of the front of your house with the address showing, this isn’t a bad way to have a Lot Of Opinions, combined with Very Little Personal Exposure.

The downside of using your username is that it rarely sounds professional, and everyone knows it’s a username. If you’re Banksy or Madonna or Beyonce, great, but most of us (including you, sexybeast696969) aren’t going to do well with a one-word name in lowercase or camelcaps. Still, for a personal or secret blog that you don’t intend to monetize, it can be a cheap and easy way to handle the name question – and then after you retire and don’t have to care about employability you can do a Big Reveal. HEY EVERYBODY, RICHARD BACHMAN WAS STEPHEN KING ALL ALONG!

Noms de Plume

Words that are also other words crack me up. Noms. heh.

Oh. Right. So, a proper nom de plume, pen name, or pseudonym, tends to be a name that is plausibly a name. You want some storytime about a good nom de plume? Buckle up. I’ll use a modern example, since everyone already knows that Lewis Carroll is the Reverend Dodgson and Mark Twain is Samuel Clemens.

A QUICK ASIDE:

If you’re considering picking a pseudonym because there are scary people on the internet, that’s a really legitimate reason to do it. On the other hand, if you don’t really want a pseudonym and you’re nervous about those people, take a minute to weigh the likelihood of you writing something they’ll ever notice. The Rabid Puppies aren’t reading confessional personal essays and memoirs. Identify who you’re worried about and then pay attention to the kind of things they target. If that’s not you, and you want to use your legal name, go for it.

BACK TO THE STORY.

Once upon a time there was a writer named Jennifer Armintrout, who had achieved some small measure of commercial success and who enjoyed blogging. These things are related, because once upon another time she started hatereading a little book you might have heard of called 50 Shades of Grey, and her hateread went a little bit unexpectedly viral. (Seriously though read this because besides being one of the funniest things on the internet it’s a master class in what you should be looking for in your own work and why it matters and yes people notice and make fun of you when you use the same word a whole bunch of times be right back deleting about 50,000 instances of “shoulder” from my novel.) Well, it turns out that 50 Shades has… let’s call them avid… readers. Readers who were appalled that someone thought their favorite book was less than great literature. (Rant #2: your favorite book can be bad. You can still enjoy it. Those aren’t incompatible concepts.) Anyway these readers launched a campaign to give every one of Jennifer Armintrout’s reviews a low rating on Goodreads.

One problem:

There is also a writer named Jennifer Armentrout who was in no way involved in the entire controversy, until whatever you’re supposed to call 50 Shades fans descended on her Goodreads account and started sending her hatemail. And Jennifer Armintrout felt terrible about this. She didn’t mind if a bunch of people wanted to yell about her writing, but dragging the Other Jennifer in was something no-one had anticipated.

It was one of those cases of a name that’s unique, but not unique enough. In the end, Jennifer Armintrout started writing and blogging as Jenny Trout, which despite being easier to spell was a name that she didn’t have (almost) in common with other authors. And, you know, happy ending, she got another book series out of the whole mess.

Jenny followed pretty much all the rules of picking a good pseudonym: It’s memorable, it’s easy to spell, and it’s fairly close to her own name. Another way to manage this would be to use your birth name if you changed your name when you got married, or to use a grandparent’s surname. You’ll end up with a name that you know means you, that you’ll remember and recognize. You can also pick a name that you’ve always wanted, from Abigail to Zvi. What you don’t want to do is pick a name like Starfreak Moonsparkle (you’ll be embarrassed by it eventually, trust me, and you don’t want to put all the effort into building a brand for a name you cringe every time you hear), or the name of your favorite living pet (you’re going to be wrecked when your puppy dies, you don’t need to see their name every time you look at your work – if the pet is already dead, go for it).

Either way…

Having a pseudonym takes some work. You’ll need to either register it as a business name or “doing business as” (in the USA at least) if you want to open a bank account under that name. Your jurisdiction may have other rules about what names you can do business under and how you have to disclose them. You’ll also need to disclose your legal name to anyone who’s going to pay you for your work, and if they’ve known you by the other name for a long time, stuff can get weird and awkward between you. Before you pick a name, do a quick search to make sure you’re not going to be confused with someone else.

Whatever you choose

Choose consciously, and make decisions that let you build your name as a writer. Don’t change your name five times in five articles. Some authors have different pseudonyms for different genres, because it could for some reason really bother a reader of Westerns that their favorite author also wrote a gay vampire romance. Others never use a pseudonym at all and are perfectly happy.

Good luck, and I look forward to seeing your name – whatever it is – in print!

About the author:

Rowan submitted exactly one piece of microfiction to YeahWrite before being consumed by the editorial darkside. She spent some time working hard as our Submissions Editor before becoming YeahWrite’s Managing Editor in 2016. She was a BlogHer Voice of the Year in 2017 for her work on intersectional feminism, but she suggests you find and follow WOC instead. In real life she’s been at various times an attorney, aerialist, professional knitter, artist, graphic designer (yes, they’re different things), editor, secretary, tailor, and martial artist. It bothers her vaguely that the preceding list isn’t alphabetized, but the Oxford comma makes up for it. She lives in Portlandia with a menagerie which includes at least one other human. She tells lies at textwall and uncomfortable truths at CrossKnit.

rowan@yeahwrite.me