Author Identity Crisis…

Meet one of my favourite artists… click the picture and visit his website…

*grins* That headline makes it sound so dramatic…

It’s not a true identity crisis of course… it’s one of those where my author identity is clashing with the real life me. I have two Pen names – Kira Morgana and A. E. Churchyard – but they don’t get  much notice to be honest.

If you google Kira Morgana, you get  404,000 results. Only the first page (the important one really) will have exact results from me. There will be others scattered through the next 3 pages – mostly because Kira Morgana is the main focus for my publishing.  Any others will be about other people.T
This is completely normal when you’re what the Publishing Industry & HMRC calls a “Hobbyist” Author.

Why do they call me that? Well, it’s because I don’t earn enough money off my books to live on. *eye roll*

If I google A. E. Churchyard, I get 354,000 results. On that one  only the first page will be about me. Again, that’s the important page, but the reason there aren’t many other posts is that Churchyard is less prolific (she’ll have a few more if I can manage to get them edited and get covers…) and tends to deal with darker subjects.

If you google my real name – Mandy Ward – you get everyone and anyone other than me…

This is both a good thing and a bad thing.

Good – it means that I can go for Teaching Interviews without my writing being discovered unless I want to mention it.  This was the whole reason that I started in publishing using pen names. I have a private life this way… not that it’s all that necessary – I don’t exactly have paparazzi wanting to find me to take my picture… *grins*

Bad – I am on a lot of social media as myself. If you become friends with me on Facebook for example, you aren’t friends with Kira Morgana or A. E. Churchyard,  you’re friends with Mandy Ward.
The problem with that, is that if other Publishing Industry people are trying to contact me and they know me from facebook, they don’t tend to know my pen names.
Also, when I mention to a friend that I write and publish books, they tend to look me up through my real name… which doesn’t exist in Publishing (well, unless you go right back to my first publications as a teenager) and then they can’t find my books.

It’s a tricky subject.