: Author changing name Let us suppose an unmarried female author. She publishes something. Then she gets married, and chooses to change her surname to her husband's. Obviously, she can choose not

Vote Up Vote Down

The German author Lucie Flebbe did that: born as Lucie Ringe, she married and became Lucie Klassen, published her first novel under that name, divorced, married again, and published more books as Lucie Flebbe. Those 9 books feature the same persons and are generally considerered as one series.

So yes, it is possible, but I'd say it causes more confusion than it's worth. Personally, I started with book 4 of the series, was quite disappointed that book 1 seemed to be out of print, and it took me years to realize that it actually wasn't.

Her (German) homepage lists the whole series, but the fact the first book used the old name is quite invisible - you can't see it anywhere except on the book cover image, see here: www.lucieflebbe.de/lila-ziegler-romane/.
I asssume that, after a divorce, the incentive of not having the former husband's name on your books, is quite bigger than it just being about your maiden name; but as a reader, I just don't care about the name, or the personal life, of an author. If I like a book, I want to read more from the same person, and I'll use the name to find more; making it harder for me to find your books generally means I'll spend less on them and you'll earn less.

So don't change the name you use to publish your books; your readers won't care about your marriage and name change, but they will care if they can or can't find your books.

The exception being, as mentioned in some other answers, when you're starting to write something "totally different" and don't want to alienate your previous audience by throwing something at them they probably won't appreciate.

(0)

Vote Up Vote Down

One example is Janet Jeppson, who wrote a few books under the name ‘J. O. Jeppson’, but after marrying Isaac Asimov wrote many more (some alone, some with her husband), mostly under the name ‘Janet Asimov’, but occasionally as ‘J. O. Jeppson’ or ‘Janet Jeppson Asimov’.

(0)

Vote Up Vote Down

Presuming maiden is Jacobs, married is Williams:
Mary Williams née Jacobs
Mary Williams (Jacobs)
Mary Jacobs Williams
It isn't like space is limited on the cover or copyright pages; I'd use the maiden name in parentheses, or the appellation née (meaning 'originally', but used almost exclusively to indicate a married woman's maiden name).
I know at least two woman that kept their maiden name as their middle name; and still sign with that initial; For one of them the middle name could pass as a first name ("Royce" as in "Rolls Royce" which is actually two last names!), but for the other woman it is clearly a last name (like "Stephenson") and she doesn't care.
I think the world is getting past issues with weird sounding names; we get actors and celebrities from all over the world, nobody cares. I work in a university (America) with students from all over the world, and many foreign students no longer adopt Americanized names, nor should they: We can learn to say their names just fine. Well, apparently I mangle the Asian languages, but I make the effort!
Name yourself what you want. As B.L.E. says, I wouldn't give up the brand, but it just needs to remain recognizable, adding another name to it will not dilute it.
For an emphasis, you can add a parenthetical "author of" beneath your name in smaller type, or use an asterisk and a footnote at the bottom of the cover: e.g. (author of Forty Ways to Fake Your Death)
As we have seen with sub-titles, there is plenty of room for text on book covers, and spines, and don't forget that your fans don't mind reading.

(0)