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Bedroom Short Stories For Discerning Adults, Indie author, Nom de plume, Pen name, Pseudonym, Self-publishing, Social media, Writer

What’s in a pseudonym? And what’s behind it? Part II

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A couple of days ago, I had a great convo with a former Rugby Union legend, Enrique ‘Topo’ Rodríguez, which in itself deserves at least three blog posts. We discussed how a persona can preserve the person, in other words, how a pseudonym—my pseudonym, FF Jensen—allows a human being—in this case, the ‘real’ me—to strike out into a new arena—creative writing—keeping all other aspects of my private life away from intruding eyes—in other words, still private.

There’s also a very pressing reality: I need to pay my bills and I can’t make a living out of my creative writing just yet. My current supervisor-coordinator, or whatever you want to call them, has given me enough proof of narrow-mindedness and judgmentalism (Yuppy! I have invented a great word) and I never know what may come in my direction. Someone said, ‘Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to getcha.’ Problem is that in this case I’ve got more than enough evidence to mistrust this person.

In any case, there’s a fun story behind my nom de plume that I’d love to share with you: As soon as I finished writing ‘Bittersweet Symphony’ and knew that publication under my real name was a no-no, I started ‘shopping around’ for a pen name. I whiled my time away on the Behind the Name website, marvelling at how all the different random combinations kept coming, but there was nothing there that truly tickled my fancy. No ‘Yes!’ or ‘Eureka!’ moment.

A rather unconnected event brought in exactly what I was after. My partner is a member of a specialist forum where his nickname was abbreviated to ‘FF’. On a couple of occasions, I posted messages under my partner’s username, and one of his mates suggested I get my own username for that forum. It was the first time in my life I posted online under someone else’s name, which isn’t like me at all. I’ve been online since 1995 and never used ‘proxies’ (I surely used proxy servers, though). I’ve always been me, never anybody else (Hehe, my ‘digital fingerprints’ are everywhere now … If I were a ‘person of interest’ for the NSA, they’d catch me at the drop of a hat).

Whatever, you must be thinking. Cut to the chase, FF! Where does your pen name come from?

Jensen FF I 119/007 by Nigel Honey, available at https://www.flickr.com/photos/azenis/. Commons Attribution 2.0. Full terms at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0
Jensen FF I 119/007 by Nigel Honey, available at https://www.flickr.com/photos/azenis/. Commons Attribution 2.0. Full terms at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0

One of my partner’s friends posted a pic of a Jensen FF on that specialist forum. I can’t remember how it happened exactly, but the suggestion was that since I am Mr FF’s missus, I should join that forum as Jensen FF. The joke was over in less than ten minutes, but a ‘little seed’ was planted in my subconscious.

Back in January this year, I had a weird eureka moment. One morning, as soon as I woke up, I told my partner, ‘I think that my pseudonym should be FF Jensen.’ His reply was, ‘Honey, that might work.’ In a matter of days, I got the domain name for my website and started developing it. I even received an email from someone who wanted to buy spare parts for the Jensen FF! Hilarious …

Mind you, FF Jensen is pretty well established, but I sometimes find myself thinking whether I should publish my raunchy short stories under a different nom de plume. Or whether at some stage I’ll be happy to flaunt my real name. Who knows…? In any case, who cares? I don’t. The main thing is to keep on writing and enjoying it, all the while keeping the ‘head honcho’ in the dark.

Cheers, FFJ (from the Blue Mountains train)

Indie, Indie author, Self-publishing, Vanity presses, Writer

Beware of ‘sharks’—and not only when you take a swim: vanity presses are out to getcha!

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'Lemon Shark' by Willy Volk, available at https://www.flickr.com/photos/volk/. Commons Attribution 2.0. Full terms at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0.
‘Lemon Shark’ by Willy Volk, available at https://www.flickr.com/photos/volk/. Commons Attribution 2.0. Full terms at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0.

Yes, you know who I’m talking about—and it isn’t this amazing creature.

I’m talking about those opportunistic ‘professionals’ who take advantage of creative people. We all want to create, right? We want to write, draw, paint, design, etc., and don’t want to invest that precious energy watching our backs.

The bad news is that we have to!

Have you ever heard about ‘vanity presses’? I bet you have. In the past, they were the only option if you wanted to become a published author without ending up in a traditional publisher’s slush pile. They’re called ‘vanity’ presses because they cater for the so-called ‘vain and whimsical’ who aspire to have their work published. Meh! For a start, if you’ve written a book, any book, on any topic, you aren’t vain or whimsical. You don’t deserve to be taken for a ride. You’ve done the hard yards and good on you! Trouble is that there are some who are ‘out to getcha’.

Case in point:  A very good writer, Ellis Shuman, one of my highly respected Twitter mates, tells us about his experience with iUniverse, a vanity press that these days disguises itself as a self-publishing facilitator. I’ve done my research and found that vanity presses are operating by stealth these days. I have found a number of articles on this subject which shed light on an aspect of human nature that is as old as the hills: if you have a deep-seated and legitimate wish, there will be a bullshit peddler out there ready to sell you a shoddy bill of goods or services that will cost you a bundle and you’ll get nothing in return. I recommend you read this Savvy Book Writers blog post. Even Random House is mentioned as potentially treacherous for un-agented writers!

Indiefolk do it the hard way. Just to give an example of how hard, these days I’m juggling my ‘day job’, trying to finish a couple of short stories and sorting out my PR strategy. Mind you, I’m not complaining. Life isn’t meant to be easy and I’m a creative person at heart. I’m hard working too. All the same, the self-preservation learning curve seems to get in the way of it all.

In any case, let’s keep on smiling. Have a great day, FFJ 🙂

Facebook, Indie, Indie author, Mind, Pseudonym, Self-publishing, Social media, Twitter, Writer

What’s in a pseudonym? And what is behind it? Part I

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We all know that a pseudonym or nom de plume can be a really creative idea in itself, to such an extent that you can find websites that ‘throw’ a random name at the click of a mouse. Being the linguistic nerd that I am, my website of choice in this area is Behind the Name. You can also use it to create character together, thus saving yourself a bundle on legal fees if someone decides to take you to court on defamation charges. And I’m not joking.

Some pseudonyms in literary history are a cracker. Samuel Langhorne Clemens, known to us as Mark Twain (1835-1910), is by far one of my favourites. As a steamboat pilot on the Mississippi, young Samuel would cry ‘mark twain’ to announce a river depth of two fathoms. In my culture of origin, the celebrated poet Pedro Bonifacio Palacios (1854-1917) went by the sobriquet Almafuerte, portmanteau of two words which means strong soul in Spanish. It wasn’t his only pseudonym, though, but I believe it was the one he truly identified with: he had a very hard life right from the outset.

I could write a whole book—even a whole collection—on  what is in a pseudonym. Behind it, there’s a human being who happens to be an author, and many times it’s that very human being’s circumstance that requires a cloak of anonymity.

Part II will be released soon. In the meantime, to those online invisible friends, thanks for sharing my posts 🙂 Cheers, FFJ

Indie, Indie author, Self-publishing, Writer

Indie-land, Chapter II: Are indiefolk authors, writers, thieves, soldiers of fortune, or what?

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Have you ever met one of those exhausting people who want to label everything? Who won’t let go unless they can pin someone or something down to a name, definition or explanation? If you’re an academic, of course you’ll do that. Same if you work in healthcare, pure / applied sciences, social sciences, etc. You get my drift. Tradespeople also need to be able to call a spade a spade. But what happens in these cases is that there’s a consensus among those in each and every field of inquiry on how they’re going to refer to the objects or techniques of their study. As much as we may hate their ‘jargon’, for those in these fields, it’s a necessity.

However, when it comes to the fluid field of self-publishing, I can’t understand why some would bother about what we indiefolk decide to call ourselves. I happened to be doing an Internet search one day when I stumbled upon this article: Self-Publishers Should Not Be Called Authors. Michael Kozlowski, the ‘author’ of such a gem, seems to take exception to the use of the word author when talking about us indiefolk. Such self-appointed oracle of right and wrong carries on and on about the topic and has even posted a rather uninteresting video that doesn’t make him a broadcaster, by the way.

Mr Kozlowski almost has a point when he talks about authors as being those who make a living by selling what they write. In any case, so many writers of the past couldn’t make ends meet on their writing in spite of having produced masterpieces. A few days ago, Mary Shelley popped up in a conversation with friends—she of Frankenstein fame, remember? I wonder if Mr Kozlowski would dare say that she wasn’t an author, even though she could barely make ends meet on her magnificent literary work. It would be pointless to start listing the names (and circumstances) in which many of the great authors of the past did not meet the ridiculous criteria that is discussed in Michael Kozlowski’s blog post. I’ll only add that the comments he got clobbered his blog post, and rightly so.

Nothing and nobody can take away the joy of seeing one’s work published, and these days the only opportunity afforded to most aspiring authors is self-publishing.

Are we authors? Are we writers? Are we (fill in the blank with whatever you will) … ? Who knows, and what’s more who cares? The good ones will stay and (probably) make a living doing what they like best—writing. There’s a demanding public out there. They are the ones who decide.

It’s dinner time now. Catcha later, FFJ

Amazon, Etailers, Goodreads, Smashwords

Etailers where you can buy “Bittersweet Symphony”.

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Marketing time has arrived as well … It does happen to most of us indiefolks that we take up the responsibility ourselves. Creatively speaking, it’s also an interesting task, with the added value that we do it ourselves for ourselves. Enough of this chit-chat! Here are the links where you can purchase “Bittersweet Symphony”:

Bittersweet-Symphony-e-book-cover

  • If you have an Apple device such as an iPad, iPhone, iPod, or for your Mac or PC, you can use the iBooks app.
  • If you buy your e-books from Baker & Taylor Blio.
  • If you read your e-books on the Flipkart app.
  • If you have a Kindle tablet or want to buy the paperback version, your good ol’friend Amazon.
  • If you have a Kobo tablet.
  • If you have a Nook device, you can go to Barnes and Noble, where you can also purchase the print version.
  • If you have a Page Foundry / Inktera account.
  • If you buy your e-books from Smashwords.
  • Social media accessible sites where you can also by my book: You can log on to Scribd using your Facebook account, and to Goodreads using your Facebook, Twitter and Google+ accounts, among others.

Phew!! That’s all for now. Catcha later, FFJ.