Question from Samantha Johnson

Book Title The Beginner's Guide to Vegetable Gardening
How do you stand out when your name fits in? When your name is something super-common, it's next to impossible to find unique domain addresses, and Google Alerts are ineffective because there are so many other people out there with the same name. :) And then there's the Goodreads issue, when other authors with the same name have books that end up in your list (and sometimes they are NOT books you want to have associated with your name--ugh!). My brother and I have co-authored several non-fiction books and we'd love to hear some marketing tips for people with names like Johnson.
Thanks for asking this question. As part of my role with Author Media I end up naming a lot of authors.

Talking Points:

Become the Most Famous Person for your name

Aggressive SEO
Lots of Blogging
Lots of Magazine articles
Pay for PR that sort of thing.

Pivot to a Unique Name You Don’t Have to Fight Over

Hollywood Method: Change Your Entire Name

Marilyn Monroe Used to be Norma Mortenson
Whoopi Goldberg was born Caryn Johnson
John Wayne was born Marion Morrison
Cary Grant was born Archibald Leach

Change Your Last Name

Natalie Portman was born Natalie Hershlag
Author Ben Wolf Used to be Ben Erlichman
Nicolas Cage Used to be Nicolas Coppola

Switch to a Nickname

Carlos Ray Norris became Chuck Norris

Swap in Your Middle Name

Walter Bruce Willis Swapped in His Middle Name to become Bruce Willis

Add a middle name

Edgar Allan Poe
James Scott Bell
Orson Scott Card

Turn your first names into initials

C.S. Lewis,
J.R.R. Tolkien,
J.K. Rowling,

Add a Suffix (Not Generally Recommended)

Thomas Umstattd Jr. (I’ve worked a deal with my dad that he goes by Tom G. Umstattd)

Add a middle initial (Not Recommended)

James L. Rubart (People tend to leave out the middle initial)

Pick a Pen Name (Not Recommended)

This used to work before the days of social media. Now it just causes confusion and keeps you from personally promoting your book in the most effective ways.

GoodReads

Suggest a Change by clicking “edit details” most sites have a fix this method.

Links:

NameCHK.com
InstantDomainSearch.com

Sponsor:

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