Big name, little name

A few blogs have picked up my intemperate tongue-in-cheek comments about reading habits. Here’s my favourite comment. It’s from over at Bookshelves of Doom:

I’ll also avoid the book if the author’s name is bigger than the title. That’s a dead giveaway.

That’s a hilarious. I can’t tell you how many authors I know who dream—dream I tell you—that one day their name will be bigger than the title.

I do not share this dream.

Not because I’m not as vainglorious as the other writers, but because my name is not short and compact like, say, Garth Nix. No, my name is long. Good luck on getting Justine Larbalestier bigger than the title and fitting it all on the front of the book in a way that keeps the book title legible. Kudos to the designer who can pull that off and make the book look good.

Nah, it’ll never happen.1

I don’t see Scott Westerfeld getting his name bigger than the title either. No matter how many times he makes the New York Times bestseller list.

Tis a cross we long-named authors have to bear. But at least we now know that there are some readers who’ll love us despite our names not being emblazoned huge on the front of our books. Tis some comfort . . .

  1. Though maybe if I gave all my books really short titles? Like It, for example. I bet no one’s ever had a book called It before.

    Or maybe I could have a book called *. Won’t the booksellers and librarians love having to alphabetise that one? And wouldn’t * break all search functions? I mean, just having “or” in the title has already caused major probs! Mwahahaha! []

27 comments

  1. Chris McLaren on #

    Isn’t the obvious solution to abandon your real name for a shorter pseudonym? Then you get all the fun of picking a new name, and you can dream of having it bigger on the cover.

    As a bonus, you could make up a whole new personality for this new name, and attend cons “in character”.

  2. jennifer, aka literaticat on #

    if you call it “A” or “The”, I think it’ll just disappear from a bookstore’s inventory.

    like “The A-List” comes up as “List”

  3. Justine on #

    Chris: Sadly I loves my name. I hug it to my chest. But I’m thinking “Niki Bern” as a pseudonym when my current publishing career becomes less than viable (touch wood).

    Niki & Jennifer: How about this as a title: The a-*[prince symbol]? Whatcha reckon?

  4. veejane on #

    Good luck on getting Justine Larbalestier bigger than the title and fitting it all on the front of the book

    Three words: Coffee Table Book.

    I am thinking, “cute pyjamas I have known” — a photo essay in 200 glossy pages!

  5. Justine on #

    Veejane: You are a genius! How did you know that I own more pairs of pjs than any other form of clothing? I live in my pjs! I worship my pjs!

  6. Haley Livermore on #

    Huh. That’s funny. I’m hoping to be a writer, but I’ve never even thought about how my name would look on the front cover on a book. Come to think of it, it IS a bit long…

    Of course, even the psuedonym I can think of, “Haley Moore” is still a tad long. I could go with “Lee Moore”, but that makes me sound like a middle-aged british man with a beard.

    I could always marry someone with a short surname.

  7. lili on #

    i thought about using a nom de plume for about a minute and a half (w is always at the back-bottom corner of the shelf).

    but then i figured there were lots of other cool people in w (westerfeld, winton etc). plus my mother is down there too (bizarrely enough, we have the same surname) so we can start a dynasty.

  8. Robert Legault on #

    My first thought was, Write books with short titles. But as I think about it, the solution is to write books with long titles. If your book were titled, let us say, Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones, then the title would have to be set in relatively small type just to fit on the cover, and your name could be larger…

  9. Penni on #

    I could be Penelope Ann Russon-Jorgensen. But it just doesn’t have that swing. Besides, Penelope is my tax/doctor’s surgery/in Big Trouble with my mum name. And it would have to be very squished up on the spine of the book.
    On my books my name is fair to midling size, and I always thought that was just a design decision not a publicity thingy. But I know little about such matters.
    Your surname is a bit of a corker, Justine. I keep forgetting how to spell it – maybe you should shorten it to La. And then lengthen it to Lala. (sorry seriously sleep deprived after attempted camping trip – though I did get a chance to read Magic Lessons).
    I love that you’re one of the first results to come up if you just google Justine.

  10. jonathan on #

    my sophie (aged 5) loves fairies and princesses, but is unsure about cricket. any chance of a cricket match between the cricket fairies and princesses in the new novel? it might be what it takes convert her.

  11. Jason Erik Lundberg on #

    Or maybe I could have a book called *. Won’t the booksellers and librarians love having to alphabetise that one? And wouldn’t * break all search functions

    Greg Bear published a novel about ten years ago, which in the UK was called /, but in the US had to be called Slant, I’m guessing for just the reasons you mention.

  12. marrije on #

    justine, i am confused. isn’t larbalestier sort of a now de plume, since your sister and father are called bern and you are maybe called the same thing in your passport? or was i missing the writ ironical again?

  13. marrije on #

    nom de plume, nom de plume, not now de plume aaargh

  14. margo on #

    When red spikes came out, harry pointed out to me that my name was bigger than the title. I knew then that I’d made it, not just as an author but as a parent. heh-heh.

  15. Justine on #

    Jonathan: No princesses in my novel. I’m a staunch republican, me. And I’m shocked that you’re not rearing your Sophie to be one, too!

    Marrije: Nope. I have our mother’s name; Niki has our father’s. My birth certificate, passport and books all have the same name on them.

    Margo: I’m so jealous!

  16. marrije on #

    justine: Oh! Cool! they don’t let you do that around here: you can choose whose name the children get (father’s or mother’s), but you can’t alternate. so most excellent that your parents got that option!

  17. John H on #

    They could start your name on the back cover and have it wrap around to the front, or perhaps run it vertically next to the spine so that it takes up half the cover…

  18. Haley Livermore on #

    My parents couldn’t really decide with me: Haley is my mother’s maiden name. So I kind of have both.

  19. Dawn on #

    I’m proud of the fact that I love books for their content and not necessarily their writer. I love both your and Scott’s books and I visit both of your sites religiously, though I do not always comment. Sorry about that. Anyway, I certainly look forward to this year as a fantastic year for continuing series, Yours in March, Scotts in October (YAY!!), as well as Holly Black’s Ironside in May. Yippie!!!

  20. Justine on #

    Marrije: My parents didn’t decide that, I did. I started out with dad’s name, but I quickly fell in love with my mum’s. I started using it when I was twelve and officially changed all my documents when I was seventeen. The man at birth’s and death’s was all, “And your father approves?!” Even though he was holding the letter both parents had signed. For the record my dad wasn’t even slightly offended, He loves mum’s and my name too.

    John H: That doesn’t sound like YA book design, sounds like one of them there adult books! The horror. Gah.

    Dawn: Thank you! I’m excited too. You should also watch our for Cassie Clare’s debut, City of Bones. Fabbbie book.

  21. Justine on #

    I have never for a nano second contemplated a nome de plume. I’m besotted with my name.

    Robert Legault: But as I think about it, the solution is to write books with long titles.

    That is a very cunning plan indeed. Pure genius!

    Penni: I love that you’re one of the first results to come up if you just google Justine.

    So do I, Penni, so do I.

  22. da on #

    birth certificate?

  23. Justine on #

    Yup, they annotate the original full one, and when they issue the partial one it has my proper name on it. Tis a glorious thing.

  24. Katie on #

    Isn’t the solution typographical? Sort of 17th c. with your Larbalestier broken up on several lines (poetic possibilities move into the very modern here), and then graphically contrasted with the title (mangosteen monkey book?)

    Sort of making your long name into a set of seeds planting themselves all over the cover of the book?

    I just saw the movie “Pan’s Labyrinth” and it may have affected my brain….

  25. Rebecca on #

    “I started out with dad’s name, but I quickly fell in love with my mum’s.”

    That’s so cool. Wouldn’t work for me though, my mom’s maiden name was Smith. She now goes by Smith-Leach, and her first name is Lizbeth, which means she gets everything misspelled a lot. It’s Elizabeth Leach a lot, b/c apparently, people have never heard of a hypenated name. Oh, and she hates it when people say “dash.” It’s a hyphen, get it right.

    And woe betide the telemarketer who asks for Mrs. Raymond Leach.

Comments are closed.