Pen Name and a Facebook Faux Pas
When I decided to start this writing thing, I determined that I was going to use a pen name. For a couple reasons:
- I have a professional career already, and don’t really want to intertwine my writing with that career.
- If I actually become really good, sell bazillions of ebooks, get signed to lucrative print contracts, do book tours, and all that, I really don’t want my family to be exposed to lots of limelight. I’m down with riches. Fame? You can keep that. From everything I’ve seen, fame is far too annoying.
I know what you’re thinking: aren’t you getting ahead of yourself with concern #2? Well yes, probably. But it’s better to be prepared early than to have to scramble to make adjustments later. It’s the Boy Scout in me. 🙂
So I decided on Michael Kingswood as my pen name. That came out of a funny little game we played back in the day to figure out what our porn star screen name should be. It was either in college or on my first submarine, I don’t remember which. The way you determine your porn star screen name is to take your middle name as your first name, and the street you grew up on as your last name. My middle name is Michel, but that’s French for Michael, so Michael it is. When I was a wee little one, we lived on Kingswood Road. Hence, Michael Kingswood. That would be a totally kick-ass porn star name. But it also makes a decent pen name. It’s easier to say and spell than my real name, for one thing (everyone’s always mis-pronouncing my real name). And it has a nice ring to it.
So I dutifully started this blog, set up a twitter account and a goodreads account, and started a new Facebook account.
There’s where I went wrong. After a few weeks of getting friends and joining a couple groups on Facebook, I discovered the rule that a single person can only have one personal account. I should have started a page instead, since I wouldn’t qualify for a business account. So late last week, I went through the convulsions necessary to extricate myself from that faux pas. It wasn’t that hard: I just had to re-friend everyone as myself and explain what happened. But I felt like a jackass.
Then I set up My Author Page on Facebook. It exists now, and I’ve got a couple people who apparently like me. So it’s all good.
Of course, I need at least 25 people to like it in order to get a username for that page. The username bit will make it easier to link to (and I think allow me to automatically post to it from WordPress; right now wordpress posts to twitter and my personal facebook account. It’d be nice if it posted directly to the author page, though). So if you’re reading this, stop on by my facebook page and like it, will ya?
Oh, and if you want to be pals on Goodreads and twitter, I’m down for that, too.
🙂
Ok, I’ve slacked off enough now. Back to work.