Pseudonyms and Branding: Jacqueline vs. Jackie

Fairly soon after I started writing seriously enough to think I might have a shot at getting published, I decided I needed a pseudonym. There were a lot of reasons for that, including: my real surname is difficult to pronounce, I work in a very conservative industry and wanted to distance my writing life from my professional life, and finally, that I feel rather protective of my private life and family.

Jacqueline Barbour had a lot of thing to recommend it as a pseudonym. To me, at least, it sounds like a historical romance writer's name. It's also relatively easy for me to remember. (My father, who was an anti-smuggling detective in the Border Patrol, used to say that the biggest mistake criminals made when taking aliases was that they chose names they'd never remember to answert to.) In this case, since my real first name is Barbara (but you can still keep calling me Jacqueline or Jacq or Jackie; I'll answer!), so Barbour is a riff on that and, as a bonus, gets shelved at the beginning of the romance section. Jacqueline is also a riff on a real name, in this case, my maiden name. And last but not least, the domain name was available. (This is actually very important. If you can't buy the domain for your real name, you need to consider a pseudonym you can buy.)

I didn't think much about pseudonyms again until I sold Carnally Ever After. I could certainly have published that story under the Jacqueline Barbour name, but I wasn't sure I wanted to do that. Although there's an argument to be made that I'd be building my "brand" by using my existing pen name, I wasn't sure the brand I'd be building was the right one for the books I've been writing under that name. They're traditional historical romances, set in the Victorian era, and while I'd like to think they're pretty hot, they're not erotica. Carnally Ever After, however, is Regency-set and it's definitely erotica. That being the case, I decided it was probably better to establish a second pen name and publish any erotica titles under that name, thereby reserving the Barbour brand for my traditionals.

And thus, Jackie Barbosa was born.

Of course, this isn't to say that pseudonyms are a necessity for branding. There are successful authors who've done it both ways. Lisa Kleypas is now writing both historicals and contemporaries under the same name. Nora Roberts, however, is also J.D. Robb, and even though most readers are probably aware that they are the same person (in fact, I think I've even seen J.D. Robb book covers that state this fact), readers also know what type of book they're getting when they buy a Robb versus a Roberts.

It seems to me that the advantage to branding by a pseudonym is that readers know what type of story to expect based on the name it's published under.

YOUR TURN: Are you considering using a pseudonym? Multiple pseudonyms? Are there any authors you read who have multiple pseudonyms you were surprised to discover are one and the same person?