Please help me choose a pen name!

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Which of these author names sound better to you?


  • Total voters
    19

Flat Matt

Deleted User
Apr 16, 2014
518
3,194
Matt Douglas sounds like Mike Douglas. Could help… or not, if people remember the Mike and can't find you. Unless you go with something like Shizzy McCreepy, neither sounds more 'horrorish'

Thanks for your input on this thread, Skimom.

I'm really torn and the poll, which is 50/50 at the moment, hasn't helped much, unfortunately. I kind of want to use Matt Douglas, but as you rightly point out, it would be a whole lot easier to use my real name.

Maybe I should go for something like Psycho Deathman and be done with it?!
 

Mr Nobody

Well-Known Member
Jul 9, 2008
3,306
9,050
Walsall, England
It might be old hat by now, but I'd only use a pen-name if I was stepping (way) outside of my usual genre...like if I had the sudden insane urge (or ability) to write romantic fiction, for example.
I guess I'd probably opt for one if it seemed like I was flooding the market or sliding around, too. Better to add an initial or something than be labelled a hack. (Oh, to be so successful as to be labelled a hack! :biggrin2:)
In that case, I might use my real first or middle name and go with the 'name of the street you grew up on/first street you lived on' method.

As for the choice...I favour FlakeNoir's Secret Option #3: Matt D Seymour.
From the two you listed, though, I went for Matt Douglas.
 

skimom2

Just moseyin' through...
Oct 9, 2013
15,683
92,168
USA
Thanks for your input on this thread, Skimom.

I'm really torn and the poll, which is 50/50 at the moment, hasn't helped much, unfortunately. I kind of want to use Matt Douglas, but as you rightly point out, it would be a whole lot easier to use my real name.

Maybe I should go for something like Psycho Deathman and be done with it?!

LOL! Stabby McStabberston?
 

Walter Oobleck

keeps coming back...or going, and going, and going
Mar 6, 2013
11,749
34,805
Matt Douglas...people cruising the aisle come across the "Ds" before they hit most of the other letters of the alphabet...so they see Matt Batt Douglas...Matt Bat Bo Batt...Fee fy fo phat...anyway...unless they approach from the other end of the aisle then you're screwed cause they stop at SK...maybe have two names. Use both...you get people coming and going.
Matt Douglas.
 

Flat Matt

Deleted User
Apr 16, 2014
518
3,194
Matt Douglas...people cruising the aisle come across the "Ds" before they hit most of the other letters of the alphabet...so they see Matt Batt Douglas...Matt Bat Bo Batt...Fee fy fo phat...anyway...unless they approach from the other end of the aisle then you're screwed cause they stop at SK...maybe have two names. Use both...you get people coming and going.
Matt Douglas.

Well, that's thrown a spanner in the works.

I hadn't considered the alphabetical side of things.
 

Haunted

This is my favorite place
Mar 26, 2008
17,059
29,421
The woods are lovely dark and deep
From that Wiki thingy"

At the beginning of Stephen King's career, the general view among publishers was that an author was limited to one book per year, since publishing more would be unacceptable to the public. King therefore wanted to write under another name, in order to increase his publication without over-saturating the market for the King "brand". He convinced his publisher, Signet Books, to print these novels under a pseudonym.[1]
In his introduction to The Bachman Books, King states that adopting the nom de plume Bachman was also an attempt to make sense out of his career and try to answer the question of whether his success was due to talent or luck. He says he deliberately released the Bachman novels with as little marketing presence as possible and did his best to "load the dice against" Bachman. King concludes that he has yet to find an answer to the "talent versus luck" question, as he felt he was outed as Bachman too early to know. The Bachman book Thinner (1984) sold 28,000 copies during its initial run—and then ten times as many when it was revealed that Bachman was, in fact, King.
 

blunthead

Well-Known Member
Aug 2, 2006
80,755
195,461
Atlanta GA
I named my pen Toby, after another favorite appendage.

I voted for Matt Seymour, dammit, so if you choose Matt Douglas, fine, but I'll refuse to read any of your books. I'll buy them, though, because they'll have greater resale value, since the name Matt Douglas seems more attractive to people.
 

Flat Matt

Deleted User
Apr 16, 2014
518
3,194
I named my pen Toby, after another favorite appendage.

I voted for Matt Seymour, dammit, so if you choose Matt Douglas, fine, but I'll refuse to read any of your books. I'll buy them, though, because they'll have greater resale value, since the name Matt Douglas seems more attractive to people.

I named my pen Ken. Ken the pen. Has a nice ring to it, don't you think?

So, if I go for Matt Douglas, I'm losing a reader, but not a buyer? I had no idea this would get so complicated!