Question for the writers, pen names?

[Kaziarl]

A friend of mine and I have co-written short story sci fi (only about 18.7 K words) and have gotten to a point where we are considering publishing. We've looked at a couple of publishers that do short story work and have narrowed it down (although still happy to look at any suggestions.)

Anyway, she is worried that there may be some complications with using her own name. I won't go into it, as thats private in nature, but one option we are looking at is for her to use a pen name.

So, my question, is there anything she has to do in order to make the pen name hers, and hers alone. Do we have to register it? trademark it? copyright it? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Greg Cox]

Honestly, I've never heard of anyone trademarking a pen name. Most people just go ahead and make one up.

The odds that anyone will try to "steal" a pen name are vanishingly small.

 

[OmahaStar]

The question I have about pen names is, how do the authors get paid? Do the publishers know the real name and send the check to that person? Or is that something an agent would handle?

 

[Greg Cox]

With rare exceptions, the pen name is not a big secret. The publisher knows the real name, the editor knows the real name, and, at least where novels are concerned, the check gets sent to the agent anyway.

Plus, and perhaps a lawyer can weigh in here, I don't think you can sign a book contract using a phony name!

For short stories, you may need to request that the check be issued to your real name, not the pen name. Otherwise someone may carelessly issue the check to your pseudonym.

 

[Trent Roman]

^ That happened to me once, but getting it cashed was pretty simple; I just went to the bank and showed the teller a contract that had both names on it, and they accepted the check as addressed to myself.

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman