Using a pen name

To use a pen name or not to use one? That's a question that many aspiring writers have to answer. I'm no different. Today I decided to switch from using my name to using "Jason Cringle" for writing. For some folks, this may be an easy decision, but it took me a while to decide to do this.

Here are the tech issues that I ran into and things for you to consider if you are debating a pen name.

Algorithms

You have to consider the algorithms of the major tech companies if you are doing anything online. They control how people find us and the projects we are working on. They are trained on the things that we have been posting about and can get confused when we are talking about work or hobbies, then suddenly start posting about our writing. As a result, they don't know who to present us to. Do they show you to people who have similar work issues? Or do they present you to potential readers?

My online accounts are largely geared towards my career in cybersecurity, so changing gears was a problem. I decided to make a clean break and create new profiles and accounts. This led to the next problem.

Name Availability

This may or may not be a problem for you. If your name is distinctive, you'll have less trouble with getting a domain name and social media profile names. If it's not, then these issues may be a problem. Many folks will use variations of "Firstname Lastname Author." Or you can pick a pen name where this is less of an issue

Jason Wood isn't an uncommon name and I kept running into someone else already using it. I decided to use "Jason Cringle" because it is a name from my family history. I ran through different family names until I found one that had a domain name and simple account name profiles available. The last name has meaning to me and I could keep my first name.

Other Possible Problems

These two issues is what led me to using a pen name. There are other problems that other writers may need to consider. For example, an established writer may use a pen name when they decide to switch genres. They don't want to mess with their readers if they want to try out a genre that their readers may not like. Not a problem for me, since I'm working on my first book.

They may also have problems with over eager fans. I heard Matt Dinniman say that he wished he had used a pen name because he had some fans get too aggressive in pursuing him for information. To the point of having a person nearly accosting one of his daughters for information about an upcoming book. Not cool.

(This) Problem Solved

Switching things like online accounts is fairly simple early on. There's no worry about momentum or losing traffic. The technical changes were simple. Deciding to create a new persona was the most uncomfortable part. I didn't want to change from my name. I just kept running into headaches that finally made making the switch worth doing.