I am not sure there will be a right or a wrong answer to my question, so your opinions and guidance is what I am really seeking. My book is ready, so I am in the process of looking for an literary agent to represent me. The question is, should I use my real name or a pen name? The reason I am asking this question is, there is already an Adrian Spalding out there writing books. Admittedly, they are about butterflies and insects, whereas my genre is thrillers. So unless I am going to write a book about killer butterflies ( there's a thought, make a quick note of that one), there should not be too much confusion. Yet a change might still be called for. Plus is the name Adrian Spalding, with all those syllables not racy enough for the cover of a thriller? Would a tighter name, hook an agent, or is it solely those first three chapters? As I said, I doubt there is a right or a wrong answer, but I would be very interested to hear your opinion.
Thanking you in advance
Adrian Spalding or maybe Tom Butler.
Let the record show that I am an admirer of Mr. Banks in both of his "identities" and all of his genres (all the ones that I've read, anyway: I look forward to his surprising me again and again)..
Hey! How about Spalding Butler? Or Spalding Maybe?
Or you could call youself Andrew Lord Webber. Become a best-selling author entirely due to short-sighted and/or in-a-hurry fanatics of "Cats" and "Jesus Christ Supertramp" grabbing your books in airport bookstores. (If you ever write a thriller under this pen name and with the title "Jesus Christ Supertramp", I want it dedicated to me... and a part of the royalties. Slap a photo of a half-naked redhead [NOT Mick Hucknall!] lying in a pool of blood (while a Barack Obama LOOKALIKE blows the smoke from an automatic) and we're onto the NY Times best-seller list. It's got EVERYTHING!)
Alright, Officer, I'll come quietly.
Wait a minute, Wait a minute!... And "Fayer Copp"?
Hey! Can I be your agent?
You could add a middle initial. It used to be in the Actors' Guild (or whatever) 2 professional performers weren't ALLOWED to have the same name. But there was a Harry Corbett and a Harry H. Corbett. And most [British] people managed to tell them apart. (in fact, a lot more easily than telling apart their respective co-stars: Wilfrid Brambell and Sooty. Even though their nsames were so different, their personae were almost identical. (Wilfrid Brambell was the glove puppet and Sooty was a rag and bone man: easy to remember when you see it written down like that, but if they both showed up at the same cocktail party? Oh how we larfed!
Then again, in literature there's also a precedent: Iain Banks and Iain M. Banks. One writes nasty little horror stories and the other writes spurious sci-fi.
As there is already an Adrian Spalding, I'd find a pen name. If you're trawling Amazon for a particular author, and you find abstruse psychology books when you're hoping for historical mystery, it's very off-putting.
Aidan Spalding? Ade Spalding? If your middle name is John, how about Adrian Jay. Or George - Adrian Gee. That sort of thing keeps it close enough that you don't feel alienated by it.
Try a few mock-up covers and see how the letters sit on the page. Some names just don't lend themselves to that kind of artwork (mine, for example!)
The name alone won't hook an agent. It's the work that sells. On the other hand, if you're writing hardboiled thrillers under the name Henrietta Golightly, an agent may invite you to reconsider.
Lorraine