Story Magic

96 - Using a penname

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Today, Emily & Rachel talk about pennames

What you’ll learn from this episode:

  • What pennames are
  • When to use them
  • Circumstances to consider when deciding

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Rachel: https://www.instagram.com/bookcoachrachel/

Emily: https://www.instagram.com/ebgoldenbooks/

Emily:

Hey, writers. Welcome back to Story Magic, the podcast that will help you write a book you're damn proud of.

Rachel:

I'm Rachel.

Emily:

And I'm Emily.

Rachel:

And today we are talking about pen names.

Emily:

Pen names.

Rachel:

So this one, I feel like, is a pretty common question, but the reason that I wanted to talk about or that we wanted to talk about it on the podcast today is because we got this question in our tenacious writing community, every week, our members can post questions for Emily and I to answer in Slack. So this is one of them. And it's such a great question because you and I both, like, use a pen name. Have gone through this thought process, and I. Yeah, I just feel like it's good to explore because there's so many questions about it. Do's don'ts. Why? Why not?

Emily:

Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I feel like. Okay, so first off, a pen name. Maybe it was a. It is the name that goes on your book. That's what we're talking about. How. What name you use as an author on your books. And some people have many of them, some people have several. Some people just use their name. There's no right or wrong way to do this. And I think. I think oftentimes people get real anxious about this, and I think that anxiety can come from a lot of different places. You know, choosing a pen name makes it feel real. It feels so permanent. It feels like you're choosing your identity. I don't know. For me, it was really anxiety inducing. We could tell our personal stories about how we came up with ours. I don't know if you have a story, but.

Rachel:

Yeah, I do. Yeah, but I think we should, because, like, there. There are reasons that we use them and there are reasons why I. Like, at least for me, I will have multiple. You know. Yeah, you go first.

Emily:

Yeah. So I. My pen name. I'm trying to think exactly when it was my publi. Pub. Can't speak. Publishers Marketplace, like, little announcement about my book went out with my full name, and I just, like, didn't think about it. I mean, I was postpartum by, like, a month. Literally didn't think about it. And then. And then I was filling out. I was filling something out for my publisher and realized, like, oh, I have to, like, choose my name. I think maybe they asked me, like, what name are you going to use? Or whatever. Like, there was some kind of marketing question and I had, like, a mini panic attack because I was like, oh, my gosh. I didn't give this any thought. And I had, like, 24 hours to decide. So I. My mom was visiting. I had a six. Yeah. So Bailey was six weeks old. My mom was visiting. I just saw my book. I was, like, so stressed out, and I was like. It felt like this, like, existential question of, what am I. What am I going to do? Who am I going to be? This is so funny. You didn't know this? No. Because you.

Rachel:

You. Okay, I'm going to interrupt your story for a second, because when you shared pages with me of Undesired Thrones, you used EB Golden.

Emily:

Did I?

Rachel:

Yes.

Emily:

That's so funny.

Rachel:

So I just assumed that was always your plan was to. No, I. We're going to talk about this, but Undesired Thrones was in a genre that, like, made sense for you to use a pen name in. But, like. But I'd never heard of this. Crisis of identity.

Emily:

I know. And then I, like, called my agent. I was like, what do I do? She was like. She was so kind. She was so kind. My whole. Thank you, Laura. She was like, well. Well, because she didn't agree with me. So I. I was kind of going back and forth, and I don't think there's any right or wrong answer, but my options were, like, Emily golden, which is my name. Yeah. But it also is, like, my name as a coach, right? Like, yes. So it's kind of like my. My coach identity. It's also my real name. There's that. So. So it was Emily Golden, Emily B. Golden, or EB Golden. Yeah. And I had always thought that EB golden would be my handle because. Because Undesired Thrones was epic fantasy, and it was, like, solid epic fantasy. And I feel like that's a really common name for that type of genre versus. What's that?

Rachel:

Okay, well, I want to come back to that part.

Emily:

Yeah. There's. Yes. Yes. There's reasons. So then. So then the argument I was making for using I was like, emily golden sounds like Emily Henry. Like, it's too contemporary romance. Like, in my brain, I was like, that's. If I ever write contemporary romance, that's where I'm gonna go. And then I was like, okay, well, I'm writing romance. This is me at the time. I know how I feel in the moment.

Rachel:

I know this is me.

Emily:

Postpartum, been weeks, sleep deprived. Like, my mom had been here living in. Sleeping in the bed with me for 10 days, was losing my mind. Love her. She was so helpful, but it was like, I was just, like, in this, like, land of insanity. And. And so then I was like, well, There's a lot of romantasy authors who have like their first name, their middle initial, and then their last names. And then I was like, emily B. Golden it is. So anyway, I was talking to my agents. He was super kind. And then I was like, no, I really think I want E.B. golding. Because I don't know that I always, like, I know I'm always going to want to write fantasy with like, there's always gonna be romance in my books. Cause I'm always drawn to romance. But I like romantasy, like always having happy endings is not something I necessarily like I'm gonna sign up for. And I also feel like it was in line with the authors that I wanted to comp, like V. E Schwab and RF Kuang and like a bunch of, you know, like those types of folks that I wanted to put my book to be on shelves with. So I was kind of thinking genre wise, and I do think it's really common, especially in romance epic fantasy space, to use your first two initials because it's. There's no gender bias.

Rachel:

Exactly.

Emily:

Yeah. And so when I said that to my agent, she was like, I can see where you're coming from. That makes a lot of sense. And so we just kind of. I kind of like got to this point where I was like, I have to.

Rachel:

I just.

Emily:

I just have to choose. Like, I just have to decide. It's not. It's not like, it's not a world ending question. But I think my two. For me personally, my two reasons came down to that, like, you know, the gender bias question and also wanting to distinguish my author self from my coach self. Yeah, I wanted to kind of draw a little bit of a line between those two brands. They're both me. But like, that's kind of where. Where I landed with that. Yeah. So that's my pen name Saga. It was so much more of a saga than it needed to be. But it was funny when it. Because when. When Kayla or asked this question in Tanisha's writing, I was like, yeah, it's never too early to start thinking about it because I do think there's some freedom when you start thinking about it early to experiment with what feels right with no cost. Like, for me, it was like, this is the name that's going on your book.

Rachel:

Right.

Emily:

Right now you have to pick. You have 24 hours to pick. This is a time to experiment. I'm happy with my choice, but I do feel like giving yourself that time to experiment with different names and play and Is always going to help you feel more confident when you. When you land with the book that you or the name that you put on your books.

Rachel:

Yeah. Ultimately, I feel like pen names are way more common than people think.

Emily:

Yeah.

Rachel:

Like, if you just walk through a store, a bookstore, there's like no way to know whether the name on that book is a real name or a fake name. But I really think pen names are way more common than people assume. But yeah, I. I had. My story is a little different, but it's. It really did still come down to like, genre market and like my future brand. So I had always intended to publish under my full name, Rachel May. And I. I was writing Romantasy fantasy romance. I was writing that. That's always what I have always written since I was like, started writing in high school fantasy romance. And then I started writing a portal fantasy, a portal fantasy romance. And that's what I was working on. And I was like, I'm gonna publish that under Rachel May. Felt super confident about that. And then all of a sudden I was like, I should write a why choose Mafia romance? And like, in one weekend just was like, boom, I'm doing this now. Like, wrote a whole book and was like, I could self publish this. This is pretty good. Um, and at that point I was thinking, do I want to publish under Rachel May or do I want to publish under something different? Um, and I asked like, a lot of. A lot of our friends. Like, I asked some of my clients that were published, I asked some of the people in tenacious writing that were published, like, what do you think about using your full name versus, like a pen name? And the decision kind of came down to me where the genre that I'm writing, which is very, like spicy, very spicy Mafia romance tends to be really violent. Like, that is for a specific reader group. And like, if I were to write fantasy romance, there is probably overlap, but it's a different reader group. Yeah, it's different. So for me, I decided that I would probably use a different pen name for each genre that I write. So right now, Re May is like my pen name for why choose Mafia? And like, will continue to be. But if I ever end up publishing that portal fantasy or if I publish something else, I will use a different pen name. And there's a couple of reasons behind that. One is like, your. Your reader is going to be different. So I wouldn't want to market like my why choose Mafia romance? To someone who has no interest in why choose? But if I use the same pen name, it's all the same brand. And then you end up like, muddying to readers or potential readers, like, what books are what. And there are some, there are some authors that do that very successfully and there are some authors that like draw a hard line between the different genres that they write in. And I ultimately decided, I felt like marketing would be easier if I had these different kind of brand umbrellas. So I went with Ari Mae. And I also feel like in the coaching sphere, I go by Rachel May. And because I write spicy books, I wanted to be really careful about the overlap between these two spaces. I have no problem talking about spice and sex and whatever, you know, in the study of craft that we do. But I do understand that like, you know, the people following me on my book coach account are not necessarily, you know, wanting to see all of the spicy marketing that I do on my author account.

Emily:

Yeah.

Rachel:

So I do keep them separate for that reason. But I will, I, I think the, the more that I write, I will publish under other pen names. But choosing my name was a little challenging. Obviously R is Rachel R E May. But I have two middle names. And so I played around with like what the initials would actually be and I ended up just choosing an initial for like one of them to like, keep it simple. I, I really kind of wanted to do both, but then that, both of my middle names for like my initials. But then that was like way too long. And I also went with initials because I kind of didn't want all my family to see these books.

Emily:

Yeah. Yeah.

Rachel:

You know, like, it feels, it feels more private this way. My mother in law followed me over the weekend. I was a little weird. I didn't really love that my mom who listens to this podcast, hi mom, like also reads my books. That's a little weird. But like, I do think that because of the nature of what I write, I, I try to keep a little safety for myself. Like I don't think I told my mother in law before, like, these books are not for you. I love you. They're not. You won't like them. Like, you're not gonna, like.

Emily:

It's gonna change your view of me forever.

Rachel:

It's not gonna change the way you look at me. Please don't tell grandma. You know, like grandma. So like I keep them a little separate also. That's why I went with like an initial too. It's also not in, it's not like wildly uncommon in my genre for like authors to, to publish with pen names.

Emily:

That's so fun. You guys never share These stories with each other. So fun. Yeah. So, yeah, that gives you a little insight into, like, different, you know, the ways that. The things that we considered. I feel like there's a lot of other things that people consider when we were. It was kind of cool in tenacious writing, like, watching people respond to how they chose their pen names.

Rachel:

Yeah.

Emily:

Maiden names for women are often really common or, like, family names. Like, I think someone said they use their father's name as their last name name, Something like that. And so I. I was gonna use my maiden name for the longest time. That was gonna stay when I was writing epic fantasy. But golden is just such a good, like, romance, beautiful name that I was like, my husband can get it.

Rachel:

Yeah.

Emily:

But I know a lot of people will do that. I actually. I'm not gonna name her just because I don't. That it feels weird to name her, but there's a very, very famous young adult author I was gonna name her.

Rachel:

I was just gonna say it because she put it on the Internet. Okay. Okay. Victoria. Victoria Aveyard. Yes.

Emily:

Yeah. So when she got married, she was like. I remember her posting that. She was like, oh, my goodness, the anonymity of having my husband's name. She was like, I never, like. I totally underestimated how powerful that is, like, to be able to, like, go to the airport and, like, not have people recognize who you are. Yeah.

Rachel:

She put that on threads, like, a couple months ago.

Emily:

I don't. I didn't.

Rachel:

I've never heard her say that. I'm sure this is something that she's mentioned a couple times, but she posted on threads a couple months ago, like, some author. I think it was Rebecca Yarros, like, when all this drama was coming out, because as far as I know, and I. I could be mistaken, I'm pretty sure Rebecca Yarros's name is Rebecca Yarros. So someone found her house, the Internet found her, and, like, there was this huge discourse on, like, book threads, you know, book talk, whatever, because obviously that's a huge breach in privacy. Right. It's inappropriate to, like, find. I mean, Rebecca Yaros now is this huge celebrity because of fourth wing. So that's when Victoria Aveyard posted and was like, my name is not my legal name. That's what she said. Like, the. The. The. The name I publish with is no longer my legal name, and this is a way better choice for me. So then she. She was talking about, like, that dynamic of how it's safer. Right. It's literally, like, safer for some of these really Big name authors to use pen names, like, to use not their real names, because it's not that hard to find someone on the Internet. Yeah, I know. Like, I've seen Rebecca Yaros's pictures online and be like, you. I know you live really close to me. I know you do, because I recognize this.

Emily:

Yeah, she.

Rachel:

I'm sure she lives, like, within an hour from where I live. It's not that hard to find people, especially when you're, like, very famous.

Emily:

Yeah, Yeah.

Rachel:

I don't mean to.

Emily:

No. But it's important because there was another author that I was. There was another author. I was listening to her podcast. I think it was Rachel Heron.

Rachel:

Okay.

Emily:

And she was talking about how, like, someone commented on a picture of her that she took at her favorite cafe and was like, is this blank and blank cafe? And just like. Like some. Just total random stranger. And it's like, oh, my goodness, somebody can find me. So I think it is important to, like, think about that and think about how difficult you want it to be for people to find you. And like, the pictures that we post online, right? Like, they. They show information. They give information about where we are and everything. And in today's climate, that feels like something that's important to mention. So pen names are not like they are. They're so much more normal than you think, and they are not like some kind of cowardice of hiding because you're ashamed of your books. Like, it's. It's incredibly normal to get a pen name and all. And probably advised.

Rachel:

Yeah. Yeah.

Emily:

This day and age. Other. Other things to consider the pen name. Um. Oh, someone. I thought this was really beautiful. So someone in the. A couple people in the comments on this question were talking about how you can, like, pick a name. You are kind of creating an identity and you can kind of lean into that to, like, lean into the kind of person that you want to be and, like, find, like, if that excites you and get, you know, like, becoming somebody else. Like, I don't think there's anything wrong with, like, leaning into that excitement and like, letting that help guide you towards the author that you want to be. So giving some thought to, like, you know, like, who is it that you want to be as an author and what do you want your brand to look like and how do you want that to be shown through your pen name?

Rachel:

I love that. Aspirational.

Emily:

Aspirational. Cool.

Rachel:

I mean, that's cool.

Emily:

I have one last thought, which is like, don't overthink this. If you haven't fit. Like, if you're still working on your first draft and you're just starting your social media account, you can Change your handle 10 times. It really, really nobody will care. You just do a little post and say, I changed my handle too, but I've changed my handle so many times and you can end my name on my handle. So you can just tell people what you're doing in a little post and like, nobody cares.

Rachel:

Yeah, nobody cares.

Emily:

They'll remember if they, you know, they'll remember you. They're not going to be confused. You're not like, harming anybody by changing your handle. So, like, take that as permission to play around. You know, use the name this month. If it doesn't feel right, try a different one next month. Like it's. There's really no consequence.

Rachel:

Yeah.

Emily:

Cool. Alrighty. If you want to build a successful, fulfilling and sustainable writing life that works for you, you've got to get on our email list.

Rachel:

Sign up now to get our free email course, the Magic of Character Arcs. After seven days of email magic, you'll have the power to keep your readers flipping pages all through the night.

Emily:

Link in the show notes. We'll see you there.

Rachel:

By.