Publishing anonymously

[imaflutteringkite]

I'm at the very very early stage of writing a book. It's fiction but based on my past. Is it still possible and fairly straightforward to publish anonymously? I understand that ultimately it probably would be possible to join the dots and I think I'll change some details in it to protect people but I wondered if anyone has gone down this route?

I think it’s extremely rare — look at Elena Ferrante. And what would be in it for an agent or publicity department promoting the book, when you won’t do interviews, author events, festivals etc?

My honest thought, though, is that you sound like you might not be ready to write this, that you’re still too involved with the events/ people?

Self-publishing - absolutely. I expect you could undertake most of the online marketing activities under a pseudonym.

Traditional publisher - marketing might be an issue and make them more negatively view your book if it were otherwise attractive UNLESS your anonymity is a marketable dimension in itself. I might be wrong but I don't think Andy McNab publishes in his own name and is circumspect about doing publicity given his 'special forces in personal danger' circumstances that I think probably encouraged sales.

Good luck.

Plenty of people write under a pseudonym. You would also do your publicity etc under this chosen name.

You would also do your publicity etc under this chosen name.

Which is fine for online stuff, but not so good for a festival that turns out to have all of your mum's book group in the front row.

I think Andy McNab is a bit different, as Zilla said, in that his writing is considered 'sensitive' and has to be submitted for approval to the MoD before it's published, and his army/SAS/counter-terrorism work means he's wanted by some nasty people, so we don't know what he looks like -- though I think his real name is in the public domain, isn't it?

So his pseudonym/ not doing live events is part of his hard man mystique. Like Banksy, kind of.