Occasionally, the fact I sign my name as the fairly androgynous ‘Ali’ leads people to assume I am a man. This belies the fact that however peppered with links to my online endeavours my email signature may be, most recipients of my missives can’t be arsed clicking them.
I wish I could say that I go by Ali out of a canny sense of marketing – knowing as I do that women who go by initials (E.Nesbitt, J.K.Rowling) or women writing under unisex or male sounding names (George Elliott, Robin Hobb, Alex Gray) have often done so to avoid problems associated with being a female writer. Said problems can include not being taken seriously, boys or men refusing to read your work, and publishers putting inappropriate covers on your books.
Going by a pseudonym to trick damn fool publishers into giving you the same opportunities as men seems a noble endeavour to me, but in fact I haven’t experienced any sexism related to my writing (she said, jinxing it), and the only reason I go by Ali is because that’s what I’ve always done online. Tinternet was originally a social outlet for me much more than a platform to promote my work, and people tended to call me Ali when writing emails or on AIM/MSN because everything must be abbreviated as much as possible online. Also because it’s a fairly standard nickname for someone called Alison.
So what’s in a name? Time was if you googled mine you got screeds of stuff about the Rumble in the Jungle between George Foreman and Muhammad Ali, but due to some pretty concerted effort over the past few years I now appear alongside them. Sorry, confused boxing fans… But would I do better if I chose an exotic pseudonym to write under?
I think it probably depends on the genre. The received wisdom with genre fiction seems to be that never-ending series featuring the same characters by the same authors with very similar covers are the best way to go. However, I’ve written books in 12 genres. This may mean I need 12 different pseudonyms. I’ve come up with a few ideas (always helps to be prepared, after all) but feel free to leave your own in the comments…
Historical Fiction: Caligula’s Blog is more Adrian Mole than Umberto Eco, but I think there’s something for everyone to appreciate in there. Perhaps a gender-neutral name is required, A E George, maybe?
Murder Mystery: my one is a sort of small town, MC Beaton affair, so maybe initials again. A E Gow, perhaps, or MA Shandwick?
Western: no rules here, although than it should probably sound American. Maddison Foster, Cookie Miller, Brick Wilson?
Paranormal Romance: should be a female name for this I think. What about Tallulah Campbell, Portia Docherty, Memory Flanagan or Tabitha Crawford?
Fantasy: there aren’t really any hard and fast rules with author names here… middle initials crop up a bit so could go for Ali E. George could work. Simple.
Scottish: could probably use my own name… But that’s no fun. How about Dougal Douglas? Morag Miller? Fergus Ferguson? Annie Anderson? (it doesn’t have to be alliterative, that just sort of happened)
Children’s: once more my actual name could be fine here… Or, I could start churning out fairy books under a name like Rosie Sunset or Ladybird Lyle. Daisy Meadows eat your heart(s) out.
Science Fiction: Gibson Brady, Kilmarnock O’Neill, Wyn Blair (with thanks to Modest Mouse for the lyric “we named our children after towns… that we’ve never been to”)
Humour: Huckleberry Djinn, Aloysius Kerr (the former being the invention of Mr 12 Books rather than me)
Horror: Lenore Lupescu, Edward Owen, Annelise Von Kleve
Literary Fiction: my own initials or indeed full name could work here once again… but if they’ve already been used elsewhere I’m a bit stumped.
Graphic Novel: The Pigeon Collective
12 Books in 12 Months 
March 26, 2012 at 12:09 pm
I’m not a big fan of my name. I don’t like the idea of Bethany Anderson being written on my books (which obviously will be published one day). But what else to do? My initials are BRA, so that’s no use.
March 26, 2012 at 12:52 pm
You might be able to do something with that if you change direction a little bit… Failing that there’s always this: http://www.behindthename.com/random/ (can’t believe I didn’t look for a name generator before writing this post.. dur.)
March 26, 2012 at 12:54 pm
That link is awesome! Sullivan Gladwyn Bancroft…
March 26, 2012 at 12:34 pm
Picking out pseudonyms is fun, even if I’m still not sure if I’d want one. Great post! 🙂
March 26, 2012 at 12:54 pm
I agree. And if nothing else, they might turn into a character somewhere along the line!
March 26, 2012 at 12:52 pm
Combinations of mother’s.grandmother’s maiden names can be fun. Though ends up being like one of those exercises where you work out your “spy name” or “film star name” by putting the name of your first pet with your mother’s maiden name.
I love the idea of using Memory as a first name. Genius! I love names that are just words like that. Gone are the days of the humdrum Felicity, Verity or Charity – there was a girl at uni called Immaculate and I know a Blessing and have heard of a Happy.
March 26, 2012 at 12:56 pm
Those games are good – I end up with Abdul Sissons which I’m pretty sure hasn’t been taken by anyone else yet!
Also I probably ought to admit I used Memory because I came across a person called that in life and thought it was a brilliant name…
March 27, 2012 at 6:36 am
I thought a lot about this too. Having a pen-name at least frees you up to do whatever you like, knowing that you the writer, is different from you that has their name on a post box and perhaps listed in a phone book. In the end I decided to do all my “radio-friendly, PG rating work” under my own name, and do all the provocative stuff under a different name. But I’m not telling you what that is!
Do you ever find that revealing you are female in fact draws more people to your work? I remember showing my friend something once and they were like “Oh yeah, whatever” and then I said it was drawn by a girl, and suddenly my friend was like “Really? Let me see that!”
March 27, 2012 at 12:10 pm
Ooh, how mysterious of you… I quite like that double identity idea! It might yet happen, I suppose.
Thus far in proceedings I don’t think anyone has cared that much – other than to be slightly embarrassed when they realise they’ve referred to me as ‘he’, but I hear stories like that (ie shock that girls can draw) so often I do wonder how I’ve stayed below the radar, and whether it’s because of sounding unisex or just not doing anything controversial enough to attract interest!
March 27, 2012 at 11:01 am
If I ever write a book I am going to call myself Joey Joe-Joe Junior Shabadoo.
March 27, 2012 at 12:11 pm
A wise and strong name indeed, Joanne. I shall look out for you in a book shop near me.
March 27, 2012 at 12:50 pm
I spent ages trying to work out my writerly pseudonym, and ended up deciding that I didn’t want to stretch it too far from my real name on the off chance that 10 or 20 years down the line, when I’m published (obviously), I’d look at one of my book covers and go, “Why the very hell did I decide to call myself ‘Bitsy Moonshine’?!?!” In the end I figured that while I never was enamoured of my real name (which is why even in real life I go by my shortened middle name, leaving my first name an actual big secret, muaha) it’s far less likely to be something to regret once older and supposedly wiser, and past the point of no return with a book deal under a stupid name!
March 28, 2012 at 9:37 am
This made me laugh out loud. Please release something as Bitsy Moonshine! Possibly a Western.. Also I don’t think your first name is so bad (but your secret is safe with me).