Friday, September 30, 2011

The issue of pen names

Hallo readers,

In case you don't know already, Liz Davis is my pen name. Liz comes from my first name, Elizabeth and for Davis, I took my father's name (David) and replaced the d with an s. My real name or should I say, names are, Elizabeth Grace Tangi Adewole.
I'm not sure how many of you use a pen name or are considering using one, but I think it's an interesting topic to discuss. Since I write contemporary romance novels as well as children's books,I'll be using two pen names for each genre.

The research I've done online gives several reasons why writers use pen names. Here are a few articles I found useful.

A rose  by any other name: pros and cons of pseudonyms
Writing under a pen name: when should an author use a pseudonym?
Should authors use a pen name?
Pen names: do you know the true identity of your favourite author?

4 comments:

  1. Thank you for posting the interesting links! I think your real name is lovely. Using pen names occasionally can be very liberating :-)

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  2. Fascinating! No, I didn't know that was a pen name of yours! Thanks for the links. :) (and yes, your real name IS lovely!!)

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  3. Hi Liz,

    Thank you for your great post about pen names. I recently have been pondering on the idea of wrting a book and thought about using a pen name. Thanks for the insight. On another note, I would like to invite you to join my blog. I noticed you are married and thought it may be of interest to you. It is www.iwillhonormyhusband.com

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  4. Hey G, that explains a lot. I was wondering which was your real name Grace or Liz?! Apparently both, lol. Make sure to list your various names when you copyright your self published books though. You don't want there to be any legal issue with your names.

    Oh, and I found out that to get an agents notice you have to sell 10,000 copies of your books, if that helps you any. :)

    Anyway, just checking by and love the idea of the pen names. I'm going to use one for my erotic and romance genres. I don't want the YA group tangling into those books, lol. My real name is Larissa Hinton, but for my romance/erotic novels my name will be Ladonna Prince. Since I love that name and my mother's maiden name is Prince. The guys in my family had a problem with that but I calmly explained to them that I've always been a Hinton. Now I want to try out being a Prince. :)

    Oh, and I sent you the email with all of the edits the editor made on my book. Omg, wait until you see it. He said I should rewrite the ENTIRE novel!!!!!! :O!

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