J is for Jones Girl

I have conflicted emotions about my maiden name, Jones. Boys at school sometimes called me "Jonesy" and I hated that.

I think I have a boring author name. Karen Jones Gowen. There's no ring to it. No imagination. It happened when I wrote Farm Girl, the story of my mom as a girl growing up on a 1920's Nebraska farm.

She didn't want her name on the book as co-author. Since it was a sort-of memoir, I needed to use my real name and utilize the Jones as credit to my mom, right? Which is how I got my official author name. Once done is done, and now it's done.

Writers should think very carefully about what to put on that first book. To establish author recognition, you want the same name since life's just easier that way. It will go on your website, your blog, your Facebook page, and all the rest. Some use different pen names for different genres. I can barely keep track of my passport, I know I couldn't manage another identity.

Since Farm Girl needed my real, full name, I am now officially Karen Jones Gowen, Author.  If I had it to do over again, I'd choose something with more flair. I would be Samantha St. James or something like that. My daughter's author name is L.A. DeVaul. How very cool is that? She didn't even have to make it up, it is her real name. Lucky!

Fantasy Pen Names

If you're like most authors, you always wanted to do this and so you made up cool writer names for yourself. Patti Pinecone (nature writer) or Taralee Ann Ford (romance writer) or Kathleen Joneston (literary genius).

If you could name yourself, what would it be? What would be the ideal author pen name? I mean, think of JK Rowling. Would Harry Potter have sounded as good written by Joann Rowling? Truman Persons was Capote's real name. Truman was thinking ahead when as a young man he chose to take on his step-father's last name.

I'm not a fan of the maiden name combo. I like the first and last. Period. The 3 name combo just sounds too la-de-da. I'm jealous of Southern author Carson McCullers. What a cool name. Why couldn't I have a tag like that? Her parents give her an awesomely interesting first name, then she marries Mr. McCullers. Bingo-- an ideal author name.

My real name was Karen Jones. Awful, awful pen name, thought I, too plain and boring. I kept trying to change it and come up with more clever, creative versions (see above paragraph). My married name turned out to be not much better, Karen Gowen. When you say it out loud, there's not much of a ring to it, so I ended up with the maiden name combo of Karen Jones Gowen. It's okay, but does it measure up to all those made-up pen names written over my school notebooks? Not really. Still, it is my name so I may as well go with it, right?

Okay, I've admitted it. I'm not crazy about my author name, but there it is. It's my name and I'm sticking to it.

How about you? What kinds of gymnastics did you go through to settle on your current author name? Do you like it, love it, hate it, plan on changing it? Or maybe people don't think too much about this, and I'm a freak who overthinks everything.