A Name is a Name

I've always used my own name for publishing. I know a lot of writers who publish under pen names. Sometimes it's a 'house' requirement, sometimes they just don't like their own names, they sound to bland, they're too hard to pronounce, or, they just don't want the neighbors to know they wrote a romance, fantasy, horror, insert genre here, novel. Not me. I want the whole world to know. LOL

Okay, so I use my own name, but there have been times. When I dabbled in erotica I used a 'pen name'. Was it because I didn't want the neighbors to know I wrote steamy, hot, hardcore? Nah, most of them knew. The genre didn't really fit me though, so that name has pretty much been retired.

The reason I use different 'names' -- in my case, even with the erotica it was a derivation of my actual name -- is to differentiate between genres. I simply can't 'stay put' inside any given genre. I've written novels in the romance genre, the chick lit genre, and even, my latest Hell's Own, in the dark fantasy genre. I change the 'name' to fit the genre, or at least to show a difference.

What are your feelings on pseudonyms? If you're a writere, do you use them? As a reader, do you pay attention to things like that? Do you think minor derivations make a difference, or if you're going to do it, do it all the way and completely come up with something different?