I’ve learned a lot in the past seven months of self publishing. Oh, how daunting everything seemed way back in April, and now I have two novels on Amazon shelves and another on the way. However, if there’s one thing I haven’t been careful about, it’s my author name. Continuity is key when you’re developing a platform and creating a brand for yourself, so your author name should also be constant. Unfortunately, in my case, this isn’t true, and it’s got me into quite a pickle.

If Joanna Rowling suddenly published a new Harry Potter book, you might think that it was fan fiction. After all, she is known as J.K. Rowling by millions of people around the world, and it always seems a little odd to hear her called Joanna. Likewise, if an S. Myers released a new fantasy novel, it wouldn’t be instantly obvious that it was the same Stephanie Myers who wrote the Twilight Saga.

Having been attempting to upload my books to Kobo, and hence going through the manuscripts again, I realised that there was no continuity with what I called myself. I was Geoffrey Wakeling here, Geoff Wakeling there, and G. Wakeling on the front cover. It might seem like a small issue, but it’s importance has been highlighted with my recent creation of paperbacks via CreateSpace. My kindle books are listed on Amazon as written by Geoffrey Wakeling. However, my CreateSpace novels are Mr. G. Wakeling, and that has led to some confusion over linking.

From now on, I really need to start paying attention to keeping continuity and will be going through all my literature to correct my author name to G. Wakeling. Call me what you like, and I’ll respond as long as I know that it’s me you’re talking too. But, creating a constant author name is vital if you’re to create that all important branding and it seems that I’ve not been nearly careful ensuring in creating my author name platform.