To pseudonym or to not pseudonym

That is the question...

When I first started telling friends that a publisher had accepted my book, after asking when it would come out and what it's title would be, many of them asked if I was publishing it under a pseudonym. The question surprised me. Did they think I would be ashamed to put my own name on the book? I later realized that they simply wanted to know how to ask for the book when they went to their local library or bookstore. Many thought that using a pseudonym was a much more common practice than it is.

In my case, I have some real advantages to using my own name. There are very few Beth Groundwaters in the world, because Groundwater is an uncommon surname, and the shortening of Elizabeth to Beth in an author's first name is also not that common. So, when I type my full name in quotes into google, almost every single hit is about me. This makes it easy for people to find my website and my blog. And when A Real Basket Case is readily available at online bookstores, searching for the book by my name will probably be even easier than searching for the title.

Finally, I'm PROUD of my published works. I want people to know that I wrote them. :)