Pseudonymia

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

so there's a double standard, eh?

[Spriggan]

of course there is, obviously someone failed civics class (ie the one in school that teaches you that white males are evil and you should be ashamed of yourself for having been born that way).

[stacer]

Lots of men write fiction aimed at teen girls. Those girls don't care, actually--they'll read books about boys or girls, by men or women. The people who do care about the gender of their authors are middle grade boys. Thus, J.K. Rowling just used her initials because middle grade boys usally prefer books by men about boys.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

what's the view on really difficult last names?

[Skar]

Like "Ehlers"  (not to be confused with the people who hunt eels or the people who make a hobby of getting tanked on Ale... I presume?)?

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

Yeah, that would be the confusion, if anyone EVER said it right without repeated prompting
"ellers" is what I usually get. I've had things as strange as "Eckler" I suppose it's not as difficult as Dostoevsky though. (not that I've even spelled it right there)

[The Jade Knight]

So, is there any sort of consensus here at all?

Michael Forest or Michael-Forest Meservy?

And no one addressed my question about a single-name pseudonym (eg, "Michael-Forest")

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

I lean toward Michael Forest, myself.

[Spriggan]

Ya and from a marketing standpoint 'F' is a good letter to be listed under.  At least I learned something from Dave's class.

I'd stay away from single name stuff, unless you want it to look like your pretentious.

[Peter Ahlstrom]

I kinda like Forest Meservy or M. Forest Meservy (then you would sound like a general authority).

Piers Anthony's real name is Piers Anthony Dillingham Jacob...

A huge percentage of Japanese manga creators use pseudonyms.

Robert Jordan is a pseudonym, and that never stopped him.

I'm just blathering...

[The Jade Knight]

Forest Meservy was actually my grandfather's name.

More than what people "like", I'm interested in what people think will sell.  If you buy books more because you like the authors name, then that's good.  Otherwise, whatever people will remember better, or are more likely to notice...

[scAri]

"Jade Knight" would sound like you were impersonating a girl. Seriously, if I had a last name Knight, I would name a daughter Jade just to mock you (as the Chinese would do).

[Peter Ahlstrom]

My interest is caught more by author names that are non-generic. For instance, C.J. Cherryh's real name is Carolyn Janice Cherry...that extra "h" on the end makes it stand out to me (and the initials thing was done so men wouldn't shy from buying her books, as talked about above).

I've always thought L.E. Moddesit (or however you spell his name) had a cool name for an author...but I have never actually gotten around to reading any of his books.

Karen says Ursula K. LeGuin is a scary name!!!

Umm... yeah...

[Archon]

I agree with SE on Michael Forest. If you want to be distinct from the other one, you could be Michael Forester.

[The Jade Knight]

I don't know how many people are actually familiar with Michael Forest anyway, and I don't particularly care to go out of my way to sound like a different person (he has never written any books that I'm aware of).

Unless everyone else seems to think I need to?