What’s In A Name?

Sooo….as I get closer to that incredibly scary day when I publish my first novel, I’ve been looking into things like my pen name. When I started publishing self-help books I just chose a good version of my own name and went with it. But it turns out I’m not the only writer who thought KS Jones would make a great pen name – several other people are publishing under that name too, which has made things difficult on a few different fronts. Goodreads, for instance, has trouble distinguishing my books from the other writers’ books. And if you Google ‘KS Jones’, I’m not the first or even the second writer who shows up.

More importantly – more importantly to me anyway – is that the name KS Jones leaves my gender completely ambiguous. Which was intentional at first, but the angry feminist in me is getting cranky with the idea that in 2016, I should be doing anything except celebrating that I’m a female author. And I’m putting my books out there to be seen and sold, so I want the world to know they were written by a woman.

To that end, I need to change my pen name.

Over the next few days my Facebook page, Twitter feed, Amazon & Goodreads Author pages, and of course all of my books will reflect my new pen name – K. Susanne Jones. There are a gazillion reasons why I chose that version in particular, but the main one is that I like it. It looks right when I type it onto a title page. So there you go.

K. Susanne Jones, coming soon to an internet near you.

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