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Is My Author Name THAT Important?

Article writing, or establishing yourself as an author in some form, comes with many challenges, decisions, and rewards. You can let your imagination run free or use knowledge and research to provide your readers with the best tips and strategies from your expertise. Before you publish your work, however, you need to get one thing straight… what is your author name going to be?

Deciding on your author name may not be on your mind. You might think it’s unusual to use anything but your real name. There are, in fact, many reasons why an author might want to create a new character or different “personality” for their writing. Your author name can have a big impact on the direction you’re headed with your writing. Do you want to be known by your real name, a pen name, a variation of your name using abbreviations, or some other mysterious alias entirely? When you’re writing as a hobby or profession and you have an audience, you do need to have an author name; there’s no way around it. Even if you prefer to write anonymously, that is still the name you will be known by. As an author, you’re not required to use your real name, but you should be given more flexibility in the name you choose for your personal preference or brand identity.

Now, onto a new change concerning author names on EzineArticles. The new change we are introducing is pretty simple:

You can now have your author name of choice even if the name is already taken by another member.

If you’re not familiar with our system, you may be wondering why that is a big deal. For years, EzineArticles has had an emphasis on having our members choose a completely unique author name that no one else could use. If the author name you had your eyes on was already taken, you would get prompted with the following message: “Author name in use. Please try adding a middle initial.”

This made sense early on in the article writing scene. The competition wasn’t as fierce and there were plenty of names to select. We grew so fast over the years and structured our guidelines to fit the best interests of our members. As a result, some of our members had a hard time selecting the name they wanted because it was already in use. We understand the frustration here and this will no longer be an issue. In order to brand yourself effectively, it’s now more important than ever to ensure your author name is consistent wherever your work is published. You shouldn’t have to make up an entirely different author name to use with various article submission sites. We decided it was time to allow our members to select the author name of their choice even if the same name is taken. Please note that our Author Name Guidelines have not changed with this update.

The bottom line: If you’re considering becoming a new member, you are free to choose your author name of choice. If you’re a current member, you are still allowed to change your author name at any time. Remember, your author name and the name that is listed in the Resource Box of your articles need to match! If this won’t be the case after you make an author name change request, we ask that you contact Member Support so we can help you update the name in your articles and change your name properly.

In order to update your author name, follow these steps:

1. Log into your http://My.EzineArticles.com account.
2. Click “Profile” from the tab at the top.
3. Select your author name from the “Author Name” field.
4. In the pop-up window, read the Author Name Guidelines.
5. In the Author Name field, enter your new Author Name.
6. Ensure the checkmark box is selected to agree to the Author Name Guidelines.
7. Click “Submit” to save your changes.

The URL of your Expert Author Page may change to make it unique from other members. However, if you are satisfied with your author name, you will not be required to take any action. All of the old URL’s will redirect to the new page accordingly.