So you want to be a fiction writer. You want to make it to the best seller list in a week. You want to earn multiple Hugo Awards. You want your books featured on every New York bookstore’s front display. You want Lionsgate to buy the rights to your masterpiece. You want journalists and agents groveling at your feet. Well, I’m here to let you in on a little secret: if you want all that (and, honestly, who doesn’t?), you’re going to need to make sure your author name has the right oomph. Think about it: the names of popular authors are their entire brands! Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, J.K. Rowling, George R. R. Martin, Nora Roberts, Nicholas Sparks, and John Grisham. (Many of these have—or are—pen names, by the way.) Their names evoke delight and fear and anguish and excitement and . . . you get the idea.