Your Business Name.
Picking a pen name and picking a name for your publishing company have many of the same issues attached to them. Since we covered Pen Names in the BASICS section, some of this may sound repetitive, but there are differences between pen names and business names, so you’ll want to keep the following in mind when you do so.
Since it’s a business entity, you may wish to have it sound more formal. Avoid Pen Name Publishing as you may have several Pen Names throughout your career. It’s best to find something that makes your brand better. If you write Antarctic Adventure stories you might pick a pen name like Captain E.H. Frostbite and a publishing name of South Pole Publishing. The Pen Name speaks to who you are while the publishing name speaks to the type of books you write. The two names work together to further the overall brand.
Most publishing companies have a symbol to go with their name. If you were to scan the spine of the books on your shelf you would see these symbols, or trademarks, just below the author’s name at the bottom of the spine.
Note: Trademark is both a noun and a verb and different from Copyright. We cover Trademarks in more detail in another post. But you should be aware of them and make sure you are not infringing on an established/registered trademark when picking your pen and/or publishing names.
As we mentioned in the BASICS section, all businesses are media companies. Your business name is just as important as your pen name when it comes to leveraging its use. Picking a business name is a bit more challenging than picking a pen name.
A good business name should meet the following criteria:
First and foremost it should describe what the business does. Something as simple as “The Jason Company, LLC” might sound simple and even a bit clever, but it tells people nothing about what the company does. The name you pick should immediately inform the person reading it of what it is that you do. Again, this goes to that all-important branding that was mentioned earlier.
Note: Incorporating your pen name into your publishing company name is limiting and should be avoided. You want the two entities to be separate and allow them both to have the ability to expand their reach into other genres and mediums.
Distinctive Names
To make this process easier you can add a suffix such as “press” or “imprint” or “books” to the end of your company name. “Make Me Famous Publishing, LLC” for example.
The flip side of this is being too specific. “Dark Water Fiction, LLC” may tell a lot about what kind of book your company produces, but someday you may wish to publish cozy teenage mysteries or historical romance, and the publishers name no longer fits the genre(s) it’s producing.
Your publishing company name should be distinctive. Like your pen name it should be easy to remember and spell. It should invoke an idea of what it is you produce without being too restrictive.
Your company name should also be scalable. It should be able to handle both a few books or a thousand imprints without changing. If you label your business “Tiny House Books, LLC” it conjures an image of a small press. “Just Me Publishing, LLC” does the same, with the added bonus of limiting yourself to never publishing other authors works right from the start. Pick a name that can allow your company to grow unhampered.
Branding.
It helps to pause and apply the name you’re considering to every advertising medium you can think of. Will it sit well on the spine of a book? How about in an email? A FaceBook ad? A billboard? Can you make a good logo from it? Are the initials enough to leverage into a symbol people can recognize? How will it look on a business card?
Note: It’s important to remember that your business name will be considered intellectual property. This, along with copyright and trademark, will protect you and your work from being pirated or stolen. If you have proven to yourself that the name you have chosen is brandable, the next step is to trademark it. We’ll go into this process later on.
Things to avoid:
- Foreign names or phrases. Stick to the country/language you are registered in and/or holds your largest reader base. Otherwise readers will think you write in that language.
- Slang. Most slang is regional. Not everyone knows yours, or they may have a different meaning for it than you do.
- Acronyms. You may as well use question marks. Just don’t.
- Sexual innuendos. Unless you plan on writing erotica and nothing else, not a good idea.
- Idioms. If I weren’t familiar with the phrase, “Piece of Cake Books, LLC” would make me think you write about pastries. “Monkey Business Publishing, LLC” might make me think you write about primates. Imagine my thoughts when I find out the truth.
Viability
Keeping these criteria in mind when picking your pen and company names will make the road ahead much smoother. Chances are high that your first, second, or even ninth choice will not be a feasible option for you to use. You should have a few names in mind for both your Pen name and your Company name before proceeding.
When you are picking a pen or company name you must check and see if it’s viable in relation to how you plan to market that name. Here are the main areas this applies to:
Web Domains:
Are the web domains associated with the name available for purchase? At a minimum you will want to secure .com, .net, .biz, and maybe even .edu if you are writing non-fiction.
Trademarks:
Are there any trademarks filed with the government in that name? Are there any major businesses with the same name?
Social Media accounts:
Are they likewise available? If you are unable to secure the most popular ones you may need to consider a different name.
Email address:
You’ll want to have one that matches PenName@provider.com as closely as possible.
Again, all of these items go to branding, which will become very important when it comes to marketing your name and your books.
But first, we have to make sure the names you have chosen are viable ones.
How to check if the Pen name or Company name you like is available.
Start with Google. A simple Google search will tell you if it is worth searching further. If the name you like brings up any famous people or businesses it’s time to move on to the next one on your list. Be sure to use the filters that Google provides, especially the “News” function. The name you hope to use may not be A-list famous, but it could still be the same name as that multi-state serial killer they caught last week, who will be very famous soon.
Tip: It helps to use quotation marks around the name when you search. This tells the search engine to search for exactly what’s between the quotation marks. This way the results will include only the indexed web pages that explicitly use that name, and you’ll spend less time scrolling through the findings.
If your Google search gives you the green light you can move on to the next step.
Searching State Databases.
Business registrations are done at the state level. That means there are 51 (counting the District of Columbia) databases that may have a business with the name you are researching. For most businesses, a search for the state you are filing in is sufficient. Since your publishing business will have a nationwide, or even worldwide, reach, you may wish to check them all. Unfortunately, there is no way to do this all at once, you’ll need to check each one individually.
Tip: It’s important not to tack the suffix “INC” or “LLC” onto the end of the name you are searching for. If your desired name is “Make Me Famous Publishing LLC”, leave the LLC off when you do your search.
If your chosen name passes the Google and State Databases check you can move on to the last, and most important, check. The Trademark Office.
Since all businesses are media companies, it’s important that your prospective name is not already registered by someone else. If you were to use the same name it would result in advertising and branding issues and very likely result in your mailbox filling with threatened lawsuits and take-down notices. You want to be able to leverage the name you’ve picked without the threat of infringing on someone else’s trademark.
The place to check this is with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).
Tip: Like when searching Google and the State databases, leave the INC or LLC off the name of the search and use quotation marks on each end.
Note: Always check the name with the trademark office. Google and the State Database are not enough to ensure you are free to use that name. Some names are trademarked by businesses that start and then fail, or fail to start at all, and their Internet presence may be non-existent. You don’t want to be in your third year of operation only to be sued for trademark infringement by a failed businessman. Not only will this be expensive, but you will have lost all the branding and company credibility you spent those years building.
If you make it this far the rest is easier.
Domain names.
Chances are good that the domain name you want is taken. This is not a death blow however. There are “companies” out there that do nothing more than register every domain name they can think of and then wait for the day someone calls them asking if it’s for sale. From there it’s a negotiation. The registrant is usually looking to recover his costs plus a small profit. You can expect to pay more for the company name than the pen name.
Note: When searching for an available domain name it’s important to not hesitate. There are numerous Domain Name Registration websites out there and they can answer your availability question quickly. But they also watch to see what you are searching for, as do many of the apps on your phone and computer, and unless you buy the name on the spot there’s a good chance it will be unavailable the next day. You’ll then be forced to buy it at a considerable markup. Is this unethical? Yes. Illegal? Maybe. Does it happen anyway? Yes. If you like the name and it has passed all your previous tests, be ready to buy it quickly.
Tip: When registering a domain name always use the auto-renew option. This will ensure that your domain doesn’t expire without you knowing, only to be snatched up and held for ransom by one of the aforementioned “companies”.
Email and Email services.
You’ll want to register email to go with your domain name, company name, and pen name. Again, keep it as close to the regular Pen and Company names as possible. A good example is Pen.Name@MakeMeFamouseBooks.com
Social Media Accounts.
This can be tricky. You’ll want to register your accounts with both your Pen Name and separately with your Company Name. It’s important to understand the proper configuration of each and how they link to one another so you aren’t posting what you thought was something private to your friends and family to your entire fan base instead.
Each of these platforms try to link to others, and you’ll want to curtail this in order to focus your marketing efforts where you wish them to go. We’ll cover each platform and how to properly set it up in a later chapter, but for now it’s important to register your accounts before someone else does.
If you’ve satisfied all of these requirements, and your friend's agree that the name is not an ill-advised one, then congratulations, you’ve found a pen/company name that is safe to use and works for every media outlet you and your company will use.
It’s time to take those names and make a business out of them.
