How to choose the PERFECT author pen name: and when you should!

What are you hiding, and why?

The right way to do it

How to create your author pen name?

• online-generator.com/name-generator
• www.fakenamegenerator.com

The Joy of Branding

• Here’s an article about how to unlock more enthusiasm by finding your brand.
• You should also read this one, of how to create a heroic author bio.

Want to make a living with your writing?

How to Choose a Pen Name (The Decision Framework)

Most writers think “should I use a pen name” is a single question. It’s actually five — stacked in a specific order — and you only get the right answer if you ask them in the right sequence.

I’ve published under three pen names, and exactly one of them was worth the bookkeeping. The other two were vanity decisions I made at midnight because the real-name version of the cover looked weird. So before you go naming yourself like a pirate, run the framework.

Step 1: Decide whether you actually need a pen name

The default should be your real name. Author brands are slow, expensive things to build — every dollar you spend driving readers to “Author A” doesn’t carry over to “Author B.” If you only have one brand to run, run the one that’s already attached to your face, your email signature, and ten years of the internet remembering you exist.

You only need a pen name if at least one of these is true:

• You write in two genres that don’t share readers (literary fiction + erotica, kids’ books + horror, business nonfiction + dark romance).
• Your real name is hard to spell, hard to pronounce, easily confused with someone famous, or already SEO-saturated.
• You have a day job with a morality clause, a security clearance, or a contract that says “no outside writing income.”
• You’re a woman writing in a male-skewing genre (or vice versa) and the data on your category genuinely shows a gender penalty.
• You want hard separation between writing income and family/relationship life.
• You’re writing fast — multiple books a year — and want to avoid burning your one author brand on output your core readers won’t buy.

If none of those apply, stop here. Ship the book under your real name and save yourself the paperwork.

Step 2: Decide what the pen name has to do for the book

A pen name is a job, not a costume. Before you name anything, write down the job description.

• Genre signal: does it have to telegraph romance, thriller, fantasy, literary fiction the second a reader sees it on a cover?
• Memorability: does it have to be hookable in a podcast intro or a TikTok script?
• Searchability: does it have to dominate a Google search for itself, or is it OK to share Page 1 with other people?
• Brand expansion: is this name going to anchor 1 book or 30?
• Anonymity: does the legal-name connection need to stay invisible?

Different jobs lead to different names. A 30-book romance pen name needs to be smooth, warm, and Amazon-friendly. A literary fiction pen name can be more eccentric. A horror pen name can be menacing. The job dictates the shape.

Step 3: Fit it to the genre

Genre fiction has naming conventions and your name is a sales lever whether you like that or not. Walk into Barnes & Noble. The romance shelf is full of two-syllable feminine first names with smooth surnames. The thriller shelf has crisp masculine surnames. The fantasy shelf has triple-syllable last names that could plausibly be from somewhere with castles.

Readers aren’t being shallow. They’re using the name as a fast pattern match. Fight that pattern only if you’re prepared to spend marketing dollars to overcome it.

Step 4: Pressure-test memorability and search

Run the name through every check that matters before you commit:

• Google it in quotes (“Pen Name Here”) — what comes up?
• Search Amazon’s author database — is there already a working author with this name?
• Check .com domain availability.
• Check Twitter/X, Instagram, TikTok, Bluesky, Threads, Facebook handles.
• Run it through USPTO’s TESS trademark search.
• Say it out loud at a noisy bar. If somebody mishears the surname, that’s your problem on every podcast you ever do.

Step 5: Decide on brandability

The last test is the only one that actually predicts whether you’ll still be using this name in five years.

Type the name into a fake book cover mockup with your genre’s typography. Look at it next to the top three bestsellers in your category. If it could plausibly sit on that shelf, you have a brand candidate. If it looks like it was generated by a random fantasy name machine, kill it and try again.

The pen name commit checklist

• [ ] Genre fit (sounds like the books it’ll sit next to)
• [ ] Easy to spell on first hearing
• [ ] Easy to pronounce
• [ ] Three syllables or fewer in the surname
• [ ] No collision with a working author on Amazon
• [ ] .com available (or close enough to claim)
• [ ] All five social handles available
• [ ] No active USPTO trademark held by another writer
• [ ] No SEO collision with a public figure, brand, or random scandal
• [ ] You’d be willing to introduce yourself with this name at a writers’ conference without flinching

If you can’t tick at least eight of those, you’re not ready to commit. Keep iterating.

Pen Name Ideas by Genre

Everything below is starter material — patterns to riff off, not finished names you should grab. The point is to feel the rhythm of what each genre’s audience already trusts so the name you eventually settle on doesn’t fight you on launch day.

Fantasy: 3-syllable, ethnic-ambiguous, slightly mythic

Fantasy readers like names that could plausibly belong to a person from somewhere old. Three-syllable last names work especially well — they have the cadence of an epic. Alliteration (“R.R.”) still does heavy lifting in the genre.

Pattern: initials or short first name + 2- or 3-syllable surname with consonant heft.

Example structures (don’t grab these — make your own):

• N.K. Marlowe
• Alaric Vey
• Rowan Caelis
• T.R. Ashenden
• Mira Hollowell
• E.S. Veridian
• Saren Cael
• Branwen Korr
• Idris Anwen
• D.M. Thrasher
• Kassia Vorne
• Halric Mowbray

Romance: feminine-coded, smooth, evocative

Romance pen names lean into warmth and softness. First names are often two syllables, vowel-friendly, and easy to type into a Kindle search bar at midnight. Surnames are smooth and short.

Pattern: warm two-syllable first name + soft one- or two-syllable surname.

• Emma Hart
• Lila Summers
• Holly Reeve
• Ava Carmichael
• Tessa Grace
• Quinn Bellamy
• Sloane Vale
• Cara Linden
• Esme Marlow
• Wren Calloway
• Iris Ashby
• Nora Bennett

Thriller / Suspense: short, punchy, masculine-coded surnames

The thriller shelf rewards crispness. Surnames that punch. Names that read like an action movie credit sequence. Female-author thrillers often use initials to neutralize gender bias the genre still demonstrably has.

Pattern: crisp one-syllable first name (or initials) + sharp single-syllable surname.

• Jack Ryder
• Sam Bourne
• Lee Crane
• Cole Drake
• Max Steele
• T.J. Mason
• A.J. Reed
• Brooke Steele
• Nick Vaughn
• Claire Locke
• Ethan Cross
• D. Hunter

Literary fiction: traditional, layered, slightly old-world

Literary fiction lets you get more idiosyncratic. Three-name structures work. Slightly archaic surnames work. The reader is buying a sensibility, so the name can carry texture.

Pattern: distinct first name (often longer) + classical or layered surname; initials for gravitas; sometimes a middle name spelled out.

• Eleanor Whitfield
• Hugh Beresford
• E. L. Montgomery
• Margaux Tindall
• Caleb Asher Pryor
• Jessamine Hale
• T. Owen Carrick
• Adelaide Ross
• Henry Foxe
• Maeve Donegal
• Phineas Adair
• Cordelia Wynn

The pattern across all four: short enough to fit on a cover at thumbnail size, distinct enough to remember, genre-coded enough that the right reader feels like they’ve already read you before.

Famous Pen Names — Why They Actually Worked

Every pen name article uses the same examples but never explains the strategy underneath. Here’s what each of these authors actually figured out — and what you can steal from each one.

J.K. Rowling vs. Joanne Rowling — gender-neutral initials for the boys’ market

Rowling’s publisher told her young boys wouldn’t pick up a book by “Joanne Rowling.” She didn’t have a middle name, so she borrowed one — Kathleen, after her grandmother — to manufacture the K. The result: J.K. Rowling. Initials, no obvious gender, no distraction. The strategy: when your target reader has a documented bias against your demographic, mask it without lying. Don’t pretend to be someone you aren’t. Just stop giving the bias something to grab onto.

Steal-this-move: if the data on your genre shows a measurable gender penalty, switch to initials. It’s not deceit. It’s removing friction.

J.K. Rowling → Robert Galbraith — pen name as creative escape hatch

After Harry Potter, Rowling wanted to write detective fiction without the world judging it against the most successful book series in modern history. She launched as Robert Galbraith — a fully separate brand — and the first book sold modestly until the cover was blown. The point: she got the experience of writing as an unknown again, briefly, before the marketing machine caught up.

Steal-this-move: if you have a successful brand and want to write something off-brand, a pen name lets you fail privately and improve in peace. Don’t burn your main author audience on an experiment.

Stephen King → Richard Bachman — pen name as production capacity

In the 1970s, King was writing faster than his publisher would publish. Industry wisdom said one book per author per year, max. King didn’t want to slow down, so he invented Richard Bachman (named after the band Bachman-Turner Overdrive playing in the background) and shipped the surplus under that brand.

Steal-this-move: if you’re high-output and your publisher (or your audience) can’t absorb your full pace, a pen name is a release valve. Especially relevant if you’re a fast self-publisher writing 4–8 books a year — you can split between two pen names to avoid blowing out your main list.

George Eliot — Mary Ann Evans navigating Victorian gender bias

Evans wrote Middlemarch, The Mill on the Floss, and Silas Marner under the name George Eliot. The reasoning was layered: Victorian women were boxed into “light” fiction, and she wanted serious literary reception. Plus she was a working editor and wanted her novels judged separately from her editorial work.

Steal-this-move: if your real name brings cultural baggage that interferes with how the work gets read, a pen name is permission to be evaluated on the page, not on the demographics.

Mark Twain — Samuel Clemens building a brand persona

“Mark Twain” was a riverboat term for safe water depth. Clemens picked it because it was punchy, memorable, vaguely mythic, and it became the seed of an entire public persona: the wry frontier humorist. He wasn’t hiding. He was branding.

Steal-this-move: a pen name can be a deliberate persona — a tighter, more entertaining version of you, optimized for stage, page, and quote. If your real name doesn’t sound like the writer you want to be, a chosen one can.

Lemony Snicket — Daniel Handler turning the pen name into the character

Handler made Lemony Snicket a character inside the Series of Unfortunate Events books. The pen name wasn’t just a byline — it was part of the storytelling. The strategy is unusual but powerful: when the narrator is a character, the author name becomes a piece of the world.

Steal-this-move: if your books have a strong narrative voice that’s bigger than you, the pen name can be that voice. Especially relevant for kids’ lit, comedic fiction, and any series with a strong meta-conceit.

Nora Roberts → J.D. Robb — clean genre pivot

Roberts was already the most prolific romance author alive when she decided to start a near-future detective series (“In Death”). She didn’t want to confuse her romance audience and didn’t want crime readers prejudging the books as romance dressed up. She launched as J.D. Robb. The “J.D.” is from her sons, Jason and Dan; “Robb” is a sliced version of “Roberts.”

Steal-this-move: if you’re doing a hard genre pivot, don’t ask your existing audience to follow you into territory they didn’t sign up for. Build the new brand fresh, link the two later if it ever helps.

Anne Rice — Howard Allen O’Brien switching to a name that fits the work

Rice was born Howard Allen O’Brien. The “Howard” was after her father; she changed her name in first grade because she hated it. By the time she wrote Interview with the Vampire, “Anne Rice” was already her chosen identity, and it fit gothic horror in a way that “Howard O’Brien” simply didn’t.

Steal-this-move: sometimes the pen name isn’t a marketing move — it’s just the name that fits the writer you actually became. That’s a valid reason on its own.

The pattern across all of these: every working pen name solves a specific problem (gender bias, genre confusion, output capacity, persona, identity, audience separation). None of them are decorative. If you can’t articulate the specific problem yours is solving, you’re solving the wrong problem.

The Legal & Tax Side of Pen Names

This is the part most pen name articles either skip entirely or get embarrassingly wrong. I’m not a lawyer or a CPA — go talk to one before you make decisions about real money — but here’s the practical landscape, with sources, so you know what you’re walking into.

Copyright registration with a pen name

The U.S. Copyright Office expressly supports pseudonymous works. On the registration form you can check “Pseudonymous” and enter your pen name in the author field without listing your legal name in public records. The protection still flows to you — copyright is automatic upon creation regardless — but the public-facing record shows the pseudonym only.

Two notes from Circular 32:

• A pseudonymous work has a longer copyright term in some scenarios (95 years from publication or 120 years from creation, whichever is shorter), though if you eventually disclose your real name to the Copyright Office, the standard “life + 70” applies.
• Your real name is recorded internally for the Copyright Office’s records, but doesn’t appear in the public catalog if you don’t authorize it.

Bottom line: copyright registration handles the pen name cleanly. This part is solved.

Royalties, 1099s, and the IRS

This is where most authors get hurt. The pen name on the cover doesn’t change anything about your tax obligations.

Every royalty statement, every advance check, every 1099 your publisher generates is keyed to whoever signed the contract — which is the legal you. If you publish 12 books under “Marigold Hartwell” but the contract says Jane Smith, the IRS sees Jane Smith’s income on Schedule C. Your Social Security number is the unique identifier the entire system runs on.

You report royalty income on Schedule C if you’re treating writing as a business (most self-publishers should), or Schedule E if it’s purely passive. Both flow through to your 1040 under your legal name.

There is no separate tax identity for a pseudonym. None.

When to set up a DBA

A “Doing Business As” filing is the lightest legal wrapper. You file at the county or state level, declaring “Jane Smith doing business as Marigold Hartwell.” That filing lets you:

• Open a business bank account under the pen name (so royalty checks made out to “Marigold Hartwell” can actually be deposited)
• Apply for an EIN tied to that DBA, so you provide the EIN — not your SSN — on W-9 forms publishers send you
• Receive 1099s with the DBA on line 2 (your real name still goes on line 1 — that’s required by IRS rules, but the DBA gives you a legitimate business name on the form)

The catch: a DBA usually shows up in your state’s public business records. So if “Jane Smith DBA Marigold Hartwell” gets filed, somebody who really wants to dig can find the connection. For most authors that’s fine — total anonymity isn’t usually the goal.

Cost: $10–$100 depending on state.

When to set up an LLC

An LLC is the heavier wrapper. Instead of a direct legal-name-to-pen-name link in public records, you form a company (e.g. “Marigold Hartwell Books LLC”) and the LLC publishes the books. The LLC has its own EIN, its own bank account, its own contracts. You’re the sole member of the LLC, but unless somebody pierces the corporate veil they don’t necessarily see you.

If full anonymity matters, file the LLC in a state that doesn’t publish member names: Wyoming, New Mexico, and Delaware are the most common choices. You’ll use a registered agent service (typically $100–$300/year) so your home address isn’t on the filing.

Annual costs: $100–$800 depending on state, plus the registered agent fee. Tax treatment: LLCs default to “disregarded entity” or partnership status — income still flows through to your personal return — but you can elect S-Corp treatment to potentially reduce self-employment tax once your royalties cross roughly $40K/year. Talk to a CPA before electing anything.

International publishing and pen names

Foreign tax wrinkles are real. If you sell books on Amazon UK or Amazon DE under a pen name, the platform asks for tax forms (W-8BEN for non-US, W-9 for US) under your legal name regardless of the pen name on the cover. The pen name doesn’t change your foreign withholding rate. Treaty-based reductions apply to the legal entity, not the byline.

Translation: pen names work fine for international publishing as a brand decision, but the tax compliance still operates on your real identity.

When the pen name needs to be public vs. anonymous

Three levels of disclosure:

• Open pseudonym: the publisher knows, the IRS knows, and you eventually tell readers (Stephen King + Bachman after a fan figured it out). Marketing benefit: you can sell to your existing audience plus the new one.
• Confidential pseudonym: the publisher knows, the IRS knows, but readers don’t. Most working authors with multiple genres operate here.
• Anonymous pseudonym: the publisher knows, the IRS knows, and you’ve structured the LLC and DBA in a way that makes the link very hard to find externally. Used for sensitive topics, day-job conflicts, or genuine personal safety reasons.

Pick a level. Don’t drift between them.

Trademarking a pen name

You can register a pen name as a trademark with the USPTO, but only after the name has been used as the source identifier on a series of works — typically two or more books with the pen name on the cover. The USPTO won’t trademark a pen name on a single book; it has to function as a brand across multiple titles.

The application requires you to disclose the actual name of the person behind the pseudonym (under USPTO rules for marks that include the name of a living individual) and to provide consent. So a trademarked pen name is no longer fully anonymous in USPTO records.

Cost: roughly $250–$350 in USPTO filing fees per class, plus attorney fees if you use one. Worth it if your pen name is genuinely a major commercial brand. Overkill for most working authors.

A note on Authors Guild guidance

The Authors Guild’s standard contract advice (which is broadly used in traditional publishing): always sign with your legal name, request a clause specifying the pen name as the credited author, and confirm royalty statements are issued in a way you can match to your records. This is the same logic — the contract is between real legal entities; the cover is a brand decision.

TL;DR on the legal/tax stack:

• Copyright: pen name fine, just check the box.
• Bank account: get a DBA at minimum.
• 1099s: real name on line 1, DBA on line 2, EIN preferred over SSN.
• Anonymity: LLC in Wyoming/New Mexico/Delaware with a registered agent.
• Trademark: only worth it if the name is a multi-book brand.
• International: tax follows the legal entity, not the byline.

Pen Name FAQ — The Real Questions Authors Actually Ask

These are the questions that actually come up once you’re past “should I use one.” None of them get answered well by the SEO content already on Page 1, so here we go.

Can I have multiple pen names?

Yes — and most prolific authors eventually do. The standard pattern is one main brand (often your real name) plus one or two specialized pen names for genre detours. The limit is operational, not legal: every pen name needs its own author page, its own newsletter list, its own social presence, its own ad campaigns. Three brands is realistic. Six is a part-time job. Ten is a full-time staff.

Should I tell readers about my pen name?

It depends on whether the genre overlap helps or hurts. If you write thrillers as “Kate Reed” and cozy mysteries as “K.M. Reed” — same audience, similar genre — yes, link them publicly. Cross-promotion is free traffic. If you write children’s books under your real name and dark romance under a pen name, no — segregate the audiences and don’t let the link go public.

Can I trademark a pen name?

Yes, but only after you’ve used the name as a source identifier on a series of books (USPTO requires multi-book use). Trademarking a one-book pen name will fail. Once you have a multi-book brand, the application requires disclosing your real name in USPTO records. So a trademarked pen name is no longer fully anonymous.

What if my pen name is already taken?

If somebody else is publishing under it and has even modest sales, pick a different name. Sharing a name with a working author is a permanent SEO and reader-confusion problem — your books will surface on their author page on Amazon and vice versa. If the name is held by someone in a different field (an actress, a businessperson) you can sometimes coexist, but expect to fight for search results for the rest of your career. The cleaner move: pick a name nobody else is using.

Pen name on social media — separate accounts?

Yes, separate accounts. Even if the pen name is openly linked to your real identity, give the pen name its own Instagram, X, TikTok, Bluesky, and Facebook author page. Reasons: each account builds its own algorithmic signal, readers prefer to follow the brand they bought (not the human behind it), and if you ever need to retire one brand, you can mothball the accounts cleanly. The exception: a single newsletter is often fine if you’re transparent about which brand each issue covers.

How do I cash royalty checks under a pen name?

Open a business bank account under the DBA (or in the LLC’s name). Most banks let you deposit checks made out to “Marigold Hartwell” if your account is registered as “Jane Smith DBA Marigold Hartwell” — bring the DBA filing to the bank when you open the account. If you’re operating without any DBA, you’ll have a hard time depositing pen-name checks; most publishers will reissue them in your real name if you ask, but it’s friction every time.

Pen name for ghostwriting clients?

This is a different beast. If you’re ghostwriting for someone else, you’re not the author — they are — and “their” name on the cover isn’t a pen name in the legal sense. It’s their real name (or their own pen name) attached to writing they paid you to do. You sign a work-for-hire agreement, get paid a flat fee or a royalty percentage, and walk away with no public credit. The pen name questions in this article are for authors who own their own copyrights. Ghostwriting is a different contract entirely.

Do I need to renew or maintain a pen name?

The pen name itself: no. Once you start publishing under it, it’s just a brand. The legal wrappers around it: yes. DBAs in most states need to be renewed every 1–5 years. LLCs require an annual report and (usually) a small annual fee. EINs don’t expire but become inactive if unused. Trademarks require Section 8 and Section 9 filings between years 5–6 and 9–10, plus every 10 years after. Set calendar reminders the day you file each one or you’ll forget and have to refile from scratch.

Bonus: Can I change my pen name later?

Technically yes. Practically painful. If you’ve built any audience, switching pen names mid-career means rebuilding the email list, the Amazon Author Central page, the social accounts, and the readership. Most authors who switch end up running both names in parallel for a year or two, then quietly retiring the old one. If you suspect you might want to switch, hold off on tattooing the original name on your business until you’re sure.

How to Pick a Pen Name in 30 Minutes

If you’ve worked through the framework and you actually need a pen name, here’s the process I use. It takes about half an hour if you’re focused. Don’t drag it out — the longer you marinate on this, the worse the name gets.

Step 1: Genre brand audit (5 minutes)

Open Amazon. Go to the bestseller list for the exact category you’re publishing into — not “Romance” but “Steamy Contemporary Romance” or “Epic Fantasy” or whatever specific shelf your book lives on. Write down the top 20 author names. Do not pick a name yet. Just look at the pattern.

What lengths are the first names? What lengths are the surnames? Are initials common? Are there hyphenated names? Three-name structures? What’s the vibe?

You’re not copying. You’re calibrating. Your pen name has to live next to these names and feel like it belongs.

Step 2: Memorability test (5 minutes)

Generate 15–20 candidate names that hit the genre pattern. Mix and match: middle names, grandparent names, names from other languages you have a tenuous connection to, cool-sounding street names, characters from books you love. Don’t filter yet. Just brainstorm.

Stuck? Run a few rounds through the Promptoria name generator to seed candidates by genre — it spits out structured first/last combinations you can then pressure-test for fit. Treat the generator output as starting clay, not finished names.

Now wait three minutes. Get a coffee. Pet the cat.

Come back. Without looking at the list, write down which names you can still remember. Those are your candidates. The ones you forgot are dead — they failed the most basic test a pen name has to pass.

Step 3: Domain + Amazon + social handle availability (10 minutes)

Take your top 3–5 candidates. For each one, check:

• Domain: is firstnamelastname.com available? (namechk.com or just direct WHOIS)
• Amazon: search the name in quotes on Amazon Books — any active author already using it?
• Google: search the name in quotes — what’s on Page 1?
• Social: is the handle free on Twitter/X, Instagram, TikTok, Bluesky, Threads, Facebook?

Drop any candidate that fails on more than one of those. You want clean lanes everywhere or this name will fight you every day for a decade.

Step 4: Trademark search (3 minutes)

Go to tmsearch.uspto.gov and check your remaining candidates against active and pending trademarks. You’re looking for any registered mark in Class 16 (printed publications) or Class 41 (entertainment services) using your name. If somebody else has trademarked it for a book series, walk away. Pick a different name.

Step 5: Friends-and-family test (5 minutes)

Text three people you trust. Don’t tell them which name you’re leaning toward. Ask: “If you saw a [genre] book by [Name 1], [Name 2], or [Name 3] — which one would you pick up first, and why?”

You’re not looking for consensus. You’re looking for friction. If everyone says “I don’t know, they all sound fine,” your names are too generic. If everyone gravitates to the same one, that’s your candidate. If one of the names triggers a “wait, isn’t that a porn star?” reaction — kill it immediately.

Step 6: Final commit ritual (1 minute)

Open a new doc. Type the chosen name at the top in 36-point Garamond. Type the title of your book underneath. Look at it for thirty seconds. If you don’t flinch, that’s your pen name.

If you flinch, go back to Step 2.

Step 7: Set up the legal stack (30 minutes, separate session)

Once you’ve committed, lock the wrapper before you publish:

• File a DBA in your county (or form an LLC if anonymity matters).
• Apply for an EIN at IRS.gov — free, takes 10 minutes online.
• Open a business bank account using the DBA/LLC paperwork.
• Buy the .com domain.
• Claim every social handle.
• Set up a free Gmail under the pen name.
• Update your tax software to track this brand as a separate cost center.

Everything else — author website, newsletter, Amazon Author Central — can come later. But the legal/financial stack should exist before the first dollar of royalties hits.

The whole process: roughly 30 minutes of decision-making, plus another 30 minutes of paperwork. After that, the pen name is a tool you use, not a question you keep asking.

Related — More Author Career Guides

If you found this useful, the rest of the system lives in these:

• 25 Best Book Writing Apps — what to actually write the book in once you’ve named yourself.
• Best Online Writing Courses — if your prose isn’t carrying the pen name yet.
• How to Self-Edit Your Novel — the unglamorous middle of the process nobody talks about.
• Atticus Formatting Review — how to make the inside of the book look as professional as the cover.
• Plot Outline Guide — for the ones who hate plotting and need a system.

The pen name is the brand. The book has to do the rest of the work.

Derek Murphy

Derek Murphy has a PhD in Literature, is a USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestselling author, and has spent over a decade helping authors write, publish, and sell books through Creativindie. When he’s not critiquing manuscripts or building writing tools, he’s probably in a castle somewhere with cats.