I’ve been sitting with how much I actually want to say about this, because there is a version of this post that is probably messier than it needs to be.
And listen, the messy bitch in me would LOVE to get into it. But that’s not really the point here. The point is that I’m retiring several previously used or planned pen names and bringing most of my contemporary romance back under my own name, Chelsea Moye.
Not all of my pen names are going away. C. J. Beaumont is staying because I earned my USA Today letters under that name, and those paranormal romance books already have their own history. Olivia Marwood is staying because I have eight sweet, no spice Regency romances out under that name, and it still makes sense for those books to have their own clear little corner of my small indie publishing empire.
I may also eventually write dark Regency romance as Scarlett Hastings, too, because apparently I still do not know how to be normal about my writing career. (Also, it’s kind of a planned within-series Easter egg thing that I am sorely tempted to pay off in real life, because I am exactly that brand of weird.) 😂
But several other names are being retired. I will eventually have a full list of retired pen names on a dedicated Retired Pen Names directory page, and will come back to link that page here once I am done with the full website overhaul I’m currently in the middle of.
Some of that is practical, some of it is personal, and some of it is because I had way too many different names and future plans scattered all over the place and it was getting confusing even for me.
And some of it is because, over the years, there have been a few pen name overlaps and other similarities in the wider author world that set off my pattern recognition spidey senses and made me uncomfortable.
Coincidences happen. They really do. Authors are often pulling from the same wells of inspiration, genre expectations, favorite characters, favorite names, market trends, and all the other little pieces that go into building an author identity and our book babies.
I know that. I’m not here to publicly accuse anybody of anything.
But I also know how I felt when certain names and overlaps started feeling a little too close to things I poured my heart and soul into for comfort, and I’m allowed to make decisions based on what makes me feel safer and more grounded in my own work.
For me, that means simplifying. It means letting Chelsea Moye Romance be the place where most of these stories connect back to me.
It also means publishing more of my work under my own real name, because I worked hard for these books and I deserve to stand on my own two feet with them, even if that’s not the most SEO-friendly choice. Even if it would be easier, cleaner, or smarter in some marketing sense to keep using names that were built around searchability or genre association or whatever else.
I want my name on my work. I want readers to know they’re connecting with me. I want to build something that feels authentically mine, and I want people to know exactly who’s behind my books, because I’m proud of what I do.
So that’s where I’m going from here.
C. J. Beaumont and Olivia Marwood are staying, but Chelsea Moye is the brain and voice behind them, and I hope my pride in that fact is crystal clear going forward.
Scarlett Hastings may happen eventually.
But a lot of the extra names and plans I once had are being laid to rest, and honestly? That feels right.
More than a little scary, maybe. But right.
