Wednesday, June 09, 2010

Same name, different game

Until I started surfing the Internet several years ago, I thought my name was unique. I was wrong.

The author of Hey, We Can Play This Game shares my name but isn't me, nor am I Michael B. Bracken, the author or co-author of several books such as Perinatal Epidemiology. There's also a Mike* Bracken out there who reviews horror movies and may be the same Mike Bracken who was the horror expert on the game show Beat the Geeks, and recently another writer named Michael Bracken--perhaps one already mentioned--has had quite a bit of his non-fiction appear in Google searches for my name.

I wonder how much identical or nearly identical bylines impacts our writing careers. Might editors purchase something from one of us thinking we're another one? Might a reader purchase a book from one of us expecting the work of another?

Then again, maybe one of us needs to become really, really famous before I concern myself with the answers to these questions.


*FYI I'm not "Mike."

5 comments:

Graham Powell said...

Apparently there's a writer of inspirational literature named Graham Powell. One of his books was co-authored with Shirley Powell - my mother's name.

http://www.amazon.com/Christian-Yourself-Free-Graham-Powell/dp/1852401354

Michael Bracken said...

You sure that isn't you and your Mom teaching us all how to "become free from demonic oppression"?

And what is that all about, anyhow? Does this book only deal with discount demons that can oppress us because they lack the power to possess us?

Hmm, I think I sense a story here...

Brian Drake said...

When I wrote under my real name, Brian Evankovich, I was indeed unique, but nobody could pronounce it. Then I switched to Brian Drake, only to discover, Michael, that I now have the same problem as you do. Oh, well. It happens.

sandra seamans said...

I thought my name was pretty unique, too. Except there's a Sandra Seamans who writes medical articles and had a book about menopause published. I often wonder what her friends and co-workers think when they google her name and find something like Needle magazine listed in her credits! :)

Kevin R. Tipple said...

I always thought Kevin Tipple was unique too. It isn't apparently. One of the reasons I started using my middle intitial in submissions and asking it to be included in my bylines.