Author Names

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The Naming of Parts
by Puddin'

I've noticed quite a few stories with no titles and/or author names attached.

There may be a title vaguely associated with the story taken from the file name, but those two things are not necessarily the same thing, as you can see with this very blog.

Likewise, there may be a posting name associated with the story, but again, those things may have little or nothing to do with the author.

It's fairly important, if one wants at some point to assert a copyright to one's words, to have something like a real name or pseudonym that one can claim in the actual story display page.

Titles cannot be copyrighted, so a hundred authors can all write books called War and Peace and have no claim against each other.

Likewise, most names are not unique, so a hundred John Smiths can write a hundred novels, all named War and Peace, but you start to see the difficulty, which is why most writers come up with a name that is unique within their own particular genre, and there's a sort of tacit agreement not to tread on each other's toes in this regard.

If one becomes famous (even a little famous) in a particular genre, trademark law becomes an issue, so one might face problems if your real name was Anne Rice and you wanted to write Vampire or Witch novels, unless you happen to be the same Anne Rice who wrote The Vampire Lestat and made the name famous to begin with.

With really famous names, you probably don't want to use the name at all, even if you were given the name at birth, as many people named McDonald have discovered to their cost when they tried to open a restaurant named after themselves.

It's a reasonable precaution, then, to make sure that a reasonable story name and a reasonable author name are included on the page. Most authors are proud enough of their work that they insist upon it, but publishing with no name at all is an invitation to theft.

There are handy little buttons at the top of the story Body: entry box that make it easy to enter a title and an author, the [C] button (fourth from the right) and the [H] button (fifth from the right), which centre and emphasise selected text respectively.

They can be used sequentially on the same text or any single selection.

Right-Justified Title and Author

The Vampire Fred
by Edna Farkle

Centred Title and Author

The Vampire Edna
by Fred Farkle

By the way, when you look at the shelves in any real bookstore, you'll notice close to zero "author names" that look like 'Romeo472.' Part of trying to be a real author is looking like a human being, not a robot with a serial number attached to a model name. Mind you, there is a real book named Ralph-124C 41+, by Hugo Gernsback, but this describes the naming conventions of a dehumanising civilisation of the future, which Ralph himself eventually transcends. The book itself is written very badly, but it's simultaneously one of the most important works of Science Fiction ever written, a very pretty paradox.

Comments

And, if you're interested...

You can do a search for your "pen name" on google (or your favorite search engine).

Searching for "Annette MacGregor" (for example) brings up quite a list of entries... Luckily (I think...) I don't see another author of TG fiction with my name.

Anne

Oh my...

Zoe Taylor's picture

Apparently there is another author out there whose real name is Zoe Taylor, but likewise, I'm the only one writing in TG fiction (Interestingly the book that came up for her was 'Pregnancy Loss: Surviving Miscarriage and Stillbirth')

In the unlikely event that I ever become famous, I am going to have to use a more unique pen name, even if it's something as simple as adding a middle initial. I thought 'Zoe Taylor' (First name borrowed and modified from a Left 4 Dead survivor - I love Horror ;-), last name is a bastardization of my real name) was semi-unique when I first joined.

Another great source is amazon.com book search. Just type in the name and if there's a known author out there, chances are their work will turn up.

* * *

"Zoe, you are definitely the Queen of Sweetness with these Robin stories!"
~ Tychonaut

~* Queen of Sweetness *~

Byline

erin's picture

The "Y" button, eighth from left, uses a different emphasis for bylines, BTW.

By Joyce Melton

Hugs,
Erin

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.

Addendum

Puddintane's picture

Not to mention the [n] button, tenth from the left.

H Content

Y Content

n Content

You can edit the "size" attribute to achieve various effects, or modify the "color" attribute if you want to set off into uncharted territory.

All these choices use differing colours, but they're also jumping off points from which one can make tiny changes to achieve personalised decorative results without a lot of specialised knowledge.

BARSOOM
MY BLUE HEAVEN
IT'S NOT EASY BEING GREEN

HTML Color Specification Web Page

Aqua Black Blue Fuchsia Gray Green Lime Maroon Navy Olive Purple Red Silver Teal White Yellow The [n] button just changes the colour, so it's a good jumping off point to colours within normal text. Note that some colours are easier to see than others, and "White" is rather difficult.

Cheers,

Puddin'

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Cheers,

Puddin'

A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style