Christopher Wright
Sage
I've been considering using a pen name of late. I like my real name. Christopher Brennan Wright is a fine name, absolutely nothing wrong with it, I've been using it for 41 years and I have no plans to stop, but when you enter your name in the account windows of most publishing interfaces (i.e., KDP, Pubit, Kobo Writinglife) you generally get two fields: "First" and "Last." And gee whiz, there are a LOT of "Christopher Wrights" publishing fiction.
One is an art history expert.
One is an expert on the Book of Deuteronomy.
One is, apparently, a former aerial reconnaissance photographer for the Royal Air Force -- I discovered this when I found Sony put his author biography on my book in their eBook store.
Obviously, there is a technical impediment to using my name, so I figure "I should come up with an alias just to avoid this crap."
But what name? The problem is, there are a lot of people with names in the world. I wish it weren't true. life would be very simple if there weren't so many other names. But when you try to think of a distinctive name you eventually wind up discovering someone else thought of it first.
Life was easier, I thought, when I was a musician -- you had a lot more flexibility with stage names. Johnny Rotten. Sid Vicious. Slash.
Then it hit me! I could use my music stage name! Back in my punk rock/industrial publishing days I was known as The Baptist Death Ray. I AM ABSOLUTELY SURE NO ONE IN THE FICTION WORLD IS USING THIS NAME.
Perfect! The chance of The Baptist Death Ray being identified as a former member of the R.A.F. is very close to zero. The chance of being confused with the theologian who comments on the Book of Deuteronomy also approaches zero. The chance of having my book accidentally assigned to the Art History guy in Goodreads also, I might add, approaches zero. IT SOLVES EVERY PROBLEM.
Then I thought I maybe I should give you guys a chance to tell me not to do it. I'm not promising I'll listen to you or anything (see "Chaos Lord" designation below) but still, feel free to fire away!

One is an art history expert.
One is an expert on the Book of Deuteronomy.
One is, apparently, a former aerial reconnaissance photographer for the Royal Air Force -- I discovered this when I found Sony put his author biography on my book in their eBook store.
Obviously, there is a technical impediment to using my name, so I figure "I should come up with an alias just to avoid this crap."
But what name? The problem is, there are a lot of people with names in the world. I wish it weren't true. life would be very simple if there weren't so many other names. But when you try to think of a distinctive name you eventually wind up discovering someone else thought of it first.
Life was easier, I thought, when I was a musician -- you had a lot more flexibility with stage names. Johnny Rotten. Sid Vicious. Slash.
Then it hit me! I could use my music stage name! Back in my punk rock/industrial publishing days I was known as The Baptist Death Ray. I AM ABSOLUTELY SURE NO ONE IN THE FICTION WORLD IS USING THIS NAME.
Perfect! The chance of The Baptist Death Ray being identified as a former member of the R.A.F. is very close to zero. The chance of being confused with the theologian who comments on the Book of Deuteronomy also approaches zero. The chance of having my book accidentally assigned to the Art History guy in Goodreads also, I might add, approaches zero. IT SOLVES EVERY PROBLEM.
Then I thought I maybe I should give you guys a chance to tell me not to do it. I'm not promising I'll listen to you or anything (see "Chaos Lord" designation below) but still, feel free to fire away!