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Ten Things I Hate About Your Writing Pseudonym

By Suggestion: As with writing by committee, allowing your editor or agent to pick out your pseudonym is probably a bad idea. Unless you want to be called L.E. James, of course.

CopyCat: Naming yourself after a character is never a good move. Esepcially one of your own characters. Editors are going to make you their favorite cocktail party joke.

Doctor Doctor: That hip nickname you've given yourself to sound tougher or avoid gender recognition? Is the medical term for wart.

E-Name: Using the brand name of a popular e-reader as your first or last name doesn't look clever. It looks goofy, which makes me think you write like that, too (and if it's trademarked, probably not a financially wise idea, either.)

Miss Pell: If reading your name out loud results in a pun, a political statement or any other nonsense, I'm not going to buy your book. I might name an idiot in one of my books after you, though.

NickNabbed: If you steal a great family name from someone, chances are they're eventually going to find out. Like your Aunt Martha, the Catholic nun, who isn't aware you're writing erotica under her name, and just got an e-mail from Smut Tales asking for an author interview for their all-strap-on weekend.

One & Only: You know how people say that using only one name instead of the standard two is snotty and pretentious? They're absolutely right.

Porno-no: Don't come up with your pen name by playing the porn star name game. Really, the porn stars hate it when you do that, and they've asked me to tell you to stop.

Pranking Yourself: Never take the last name Hunt or Hunter and pair it with a first name that ends with a hard C consonant. If you don't understand why, say the entire name very fast and you will. And please, don't name a series like that and then trademark it (unless you want me to laugh myself into the hiccups every time I see your books.)

Uh-oh: That lovely pen name you put together from those pretty words you found in that cute foreign language book? Means Giant Ass Rabid Monkey in English.