What's in a name? (And it ain't Rose.)

That Shakespearean thing...a rose, is a rose, is a rose... Except when it comes to being recognizable and relatable to readers, if you're a Rose that writes young adult, you'd better be a Lily that writes romance.

According to Author Russell Blake's recent blog about pen names, readers expect writers to write what they expect writers to write. For instance a Young Adult author that writes romance, basically will alienate potential readers because of the other genre he or she writes.

Pen Names, Pseudonyms. Noms de Plume. For clarity for the readers, Mr. Blake is of the opinion that if an author writes in different genres, they should use a different pen name. For romance, for instance, an author could write under R.E.D. Rose, while for YA fiction Rosie Red, and maybe for mystery Rosaline Reddington. (Hmm, what fun pseudonyms!)

While I am building a brand around an awesome pen name, I also took into Mr. Blake's take on other reasons to use a pen name, such as privacy issues and safety concerns.

In  our lives, we all encounter someone who doesn't like us. (Gasp!) Someone we've rubbed the wrong way in a passing encounter... Or an ex-friend or ex-family member (yep, you can have those too). Or a fellow jealous author (really?), or even someone that is prone to resent other people's possible successes.

Just starting out as a published author, do I want to make myself a target of the aforementioned list?

Nah, I want my writing and my books to have a change to stand on their own merit, without being subjected to being a target of some sort of, er, person, on the list above.

So pen names or pseudonyms it is!