What's in a name?

Meet the real Dean Richard Smith.

I just finished my sixth manuscript and have begun the publishing journey for my own YA novels. The problem is my name.

When you Google Dean Smith, you get the former basketball coach at the University of North Carolina who has a lot more name recognition than I'll ever have. If you Google "author Dean Smith," you'll not only get the coach but Dean Wesley Smith who's written over 200 novels . . . or you'll pull up some guy who works for the Duke University Press.

I thought about using a pen name, but was advised not to do it because I already have an online presence thanks to Facebook. Okay, so it only consists of 14 friends and a cat, but it's a start.

I really pondered this a long time, trying out different names because, let's face it, Smith doesn't have a lot of pizzazz. I tried Richards, my middle name, but that wasn't much better. I tried Lane, a family name, but my family nixed it. I even tried my wife's maiden name, Tonessen, but I could never remember how to spell it. So, I finally went with my full name: Dean Richard Smith.

That was fine until I Googled it, and sure enough, there's another author out there with a similar name: Richard Dean Smith.