Re: 'Some Other Stephen King'

[RichardX]

There goes my plan to make a fortune writing under the pseudonym William "Billy" Shakespeare "best selling author who has read the cliffs notes to such books as Hamlet."

 

[Neesy]

I know I am late to the party on this...but just checked that guy's Amazon page...he (or his publisher) clearly knew what they were doing. He had two titles published back in 2014. If you look at the cover art on those, it clearly said "Stephen L. King" on them. Suddenly in 2016 there a bunch of titles released with the "L" no longer there and the "Grave Decisions" title is clearly trying to rip off SK including the font choice. What an unethical jerk this guy is! SMH

I think it is high time I legally changed my name to Quentin T. Arantino. Hell, just need one good script to make it on a producer's desk right? hahah

But on a serious note. If your name was the same as someone as famous as SK and you decided to also become an author - might've been a better move to credit yourself as S.L. King. Or as others have said, use a pen-name or even just drop the King and use your first and middle name if it sounds decent.

There is a "Stephen B. King" on page 2 of the Amazon search - it is before "The Wastelands" and after a book called the Best Horror of the Year Volume 4 - I find this rather misleading

Stephen B. King's book comes out on October 25th as a Kindle edition

So now there are two?

Stephen L and Stephen B?





https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_pg_2?rh=n%3A283155%2Cp_27%3AStephen+King&page=2&sort=relevance&ie=UTF8&qid=1477143117

 

[Neesy]

I don't know, Ive always had a weird name- it took me a long time to like the sound of it. Stephen (Edwin) King has a family member with the same name. I guess that's a remote connection.(my name isn't Joe, so it's a little different) Most people don't experience the problematic social exchanges that happen when you grow up with a weird name. My last name starts with his last initial. Since I have children children, I'm keeping it. It's too much trouble to change your name. I've done it before (marriage, for example) and it took me forever to learn how to sign my last name again. My name is part of my identity.
I think the issue with this author is marketing. I don't care enough about this other author to feed into the hype.

"I think the issue with this author is marketing. I don't care enough about this other author to feed into the hype"

I think the issue is the poor dumb people who get ripped off, more than anything

 

[Spideyman]

Neesy -- At least he has a middle initial and if you go down his page you can clearly see it is not our SK. My objection is
Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought and it shows all of our SK books. It is going to be "buyer beware and look carefully at the authors name.

 

[Neesy]

Neesy -- At least he has a middle initial and if you go down his page you can clearly see it is not our SK. My objection is
Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought and it shows all of our SK books. It is going to be "buyer beware and look carefully at the authors name.

 

[Geminii23]

There is a "Stephen B. King" on page 2 of the Amazon search - it is before "The Wastelands" and after a book called the Best Horror of the Year Volume 4 - I find this rather misleading

Stephen B. King's book comes out on October 25th as a Kindle edition

So now there are two?

Stephen L and Stephen B?

What the?

Could be that a couple of serious SK fans had sons and decided to name their kids after him since they already shared the same last name. And now here we are with two other authors who are sharing the same name. Not like anything could be done about it. How to force someone to change their real given name. Glad they are differentiating themselves by using the middle initial, but I think it would have been better for them to just use pen name. Also the fact the one of the guys clearly tried making his cover art look like SKs with the font choice is suspect to me.

Now, if it turns out that these guys changed their names later in life...or are using the SK name as their pen names...yeah someone needs to shut them down ASAP.

 

[Neesy]

What the?

Could be that a couple of serious SK fans had sons and decided to name their kids after him since they already shared the same last name. And now here we are with two other authors who are sharing the same name. Not like anything could be done about it. How to force someone to change their real given name. Glad they are differentiating themselves by using the middle initial, but I think it would have been better for them to just use pen name. Also the fact the one of the guys clearly tried making his cover art look like SKs with the font choice is suspect to me.

Now, if it turns out that these guys changed their names later in life...or are using the SK name as their pen names...yeah someone needs to shut them down ASAP.

This Stephen B. King said something about taking 60 years to become an "overnight sensation" so who knows what is going on?


About Stephen B. King

"It only took me sixty years to achieve overnight success and publish my first novel, so my advice to anyone is: don’t let anyone tell you are too old, or young, to fat or thin, too ugly or whatever to achieve your goals in life".

I guess he is entitled to be on Amazon as much as the next guy, actually - just wondered why he popped up - perhaps a computer thing