Pen Names & Projects
A New Pen Name for a New Project
As some of you may remember from earlier in the year, I was on a writing and submitting spree. Novella’s, short stories, writing contests—I was on a writing rampage! And with some spicier romance novellas in the collection, I asked for your help picking a pen name, so that I could differentiate between the standard spicy and the extra peppers brand.
And you came through!
Readers Helping Writers
There was a poll. Everyone responded and the pen name Vivienne Cross was selected as the winner! I was excited to start using it, but decided to hold off on doing any prep work until I had set on my branding strategy and had the right release to go with it.
Well, welcome to fall! Welcome to new contracts. Welcome to having the work I’ve been doing pay off. And now… welcome to wishing I had done some additional work on the pen name.
It was the 21st of September
In September, I went to acquire the domain name (for reasons I won’t discuss until next month) for Vivienne Cross and found that it was not available. Suspicious. I typed in the web address and, low and behold, it was being firmly occupied by someone who had put out a new book in August of this year. Complete face palm. While I had done my due diligence to see if anyone was using the name when I came up with it, there is nothing I can do about someone grabbing the name before me.
Inventing the Skateboard
Once my father said he invented the skateboard. And I know you’re thinking… No, he didn’t. But yes, he came up with the idea of putting his rollerskate wheels on a plank all on his own. And so did at least three other people out there in the 1950s. So, while I could be deeply suspicious that this author stole it from me, I have to admit that my own experience suggests otherwise. Every time I’ve tried to come up with a pen name, I’ve had at least three names that I considered genuine winners only to find that someone is already using it.
Forward Momentum
But I still need a pen name!
So I went back to the list and while I liked the runner up I found that I was no longer willing to take any of the secondary names. So I went back to the drawing board and worked with my business partner and another writer to workshop a new pen name.
The Criteria
We quickly established some guidelines for what I wanted to achieve with the name and assessed which names had ranked higher in the poll to find names in a similar style.
- Must not be in use by another author
- Preferably uses a last name that hits earlier in the alphabet for higher billing in anthologies
- Must resonate with the paranormal romance and fantasy genres
- Brings main character energy
With those boundaries in mind, we developed our list, did some research and settled on (drum roll please)…
Sirena is a name originating from the mythical sirens and Corbeau means crow in French. I liked the symbolism and I liked the sound of the name. And yes, I threw myself on acquiring the domain name without delay. Thank you all for your help in selecting a name and I wish our efforts had not been in vain! But hopefully now we can all enjoy Sirena Corbeau and her future novels.
