why do authors use initials instead of full name?

When Cuts Like a Knife was first introduced, my sister Susan asked me, “What’s with the initials on the cover of the book instead of using your full name?”

My first response was it seemed to have worked out fine for Joanne Rowling—and no, no one has been able to confirm whether her middle name is Kathleen or Katherine. (Do you know why?)

 That raises a bigger question then why I went with M.K. rather than Mark. Why did Joanne become J.K. To my knowledge she’s never answered that question directly.

So I’m left to assume that she used initials to make her author name gender neutral, which sort of makes sense for the launch of a series categorized as children’s literature.

When I headed up marketing for a publishing group early in my career we made cover decisions on the basis of the old advertising rule that females will relate almost equally well to a picture of a female or a male—but generally speaking, males relate almost exclusively to a picture of a male.

By the way, I’m not claiming that old saw is still true, but I suspect there’s still some truth to it.

So is that why I went with M.K. instead of Mark? After all, my lead character is a female. Or was it simply a matter that M.K. Gilroy fits easier on one line than Mark Gilroy?

I’ll make a confession. I originally wrote the novel under a female pen name and attempted to sell it that way as an agent. I got a lot of interest but to my surprise there was near universal resistance to buying a novel by a pseudonymous author. I wonder if Nora Roberts had a hard time convincing her agent and publisher to introduce a mystery series under the name J.D. Robb? (Hmmm. There are those initials again.) Rowling got "outed" pretty quickly when she wrote as Robert Galbraith for The Cuckoo's Calling.

Is it possible J.R.R. Tolkien was showing off by adding three initials to his book covers? His friend and contemporary C.S. Lewis was satisfied with just two.

Back to the question. Why initials on my book cover? I guess to make the name sound a bit more gender neutral, whether or not that works.

My guess is that is the same for many authors that use initials.

But there is another reason I went by M.K. instead of Mark.

My Kristen Conner series was acquired by Jeana Ledbetter who let me know a pen name wasn’t in the cards. But then she said, “But we do think ‘M.K.’ sounds kind of cool.”

I’ve always wanted to be kind of cool—so there you have it. Mystery solved. Now you know why so many authors use initials instead of full first name.  We want to be cool!