Publishing anonymously

January 11, 2005 12:18 AM

How would you publish an anonymous memoir?
posted by anonymous to Writing & Language (9 answers total)

Online or in print?
posted by AlexReynolds at 12:26 AM on January 11, 2005

Anonymously?



Sorry.

Realistically, I'd send your manuscript to your publisher, use a nom de plume, and use a PO box as a return address, and/or a web-based email for contact.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 1:00 AM on January 11, 2005

And, doh, sorry, a cover letter explaining the privacy you require.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 1:35 AM on January 11, 2005

Also, if you truly want to be anonymous, be sure not to write in your regular writing style--the stylometricists will get you!
posted by grouse at 3:38 AM on January 11, 2005

Don't tell anybody about your project. That'd be the hardest part, I think.
posted by Alt F4 at 5:58 AM on January 11, 2005

I would post it one line at a time to Ask Mefi, written in the form of questions, of course. One sentence a week for the rest of your life...
posted by Mo Nickels at 6:54 AM on January 11, 2005

It wouldn't really be anonymous if you did it in print as somehow money would need to be exchanged, tax forms filled out, etc. etc. The only people anonymous memoirs are really anonymous to is the general reading public. I know the books we've published that are for whatever reason under other people's names are all linked to the real person at least at the legal and financial level.
posted by rodz at 7:06 AM on January 11, 2005

Yeah, take for example the Belle de Jour book sale: she's not anonymous to her agent, her publisher, her editor, her lawyer, or her country's undoubtedly lovely tax collectors. Or her friends. Or dozens of other people. And Joe Klein wasn't anonymous to his publishers.

Publishers would assume a lot of liability by publishing something written by an unknown person: it's just not gonna happen, obviously. The legal department would laugh til they choked.

So you publish this book like you do any book: by getting an agent, and developing a sales proposal with that agent. That proposal, most probably, is distributed anonymously among purchasing editors at the agent's discretion, and the introductions would probably come at the time of offer, before acceptance.

Or, you know: go to Kinko's and get 10,000 copies made and sell it on the web. Or, like, register a website under someone else's name and distribute it anonymously and let the subjects try to find you to sue you. (Sooner or later, they will -- gotta pay for that domain in some manner that leaves a paper trail.)
posted by RJ Reynolds at 7:37 AM on January 11, 2005

Try getting a literary agent. You'd only have to "come out" to them and then they could spend their time shopping your memoir around. That'd help in the "this guy's for real" end of getting people to buy into your work.

I used to intern at one (Palmer & Dodge) that was located in a law firm, which would have the added benefit of lawyers on hand to protect your anonymity.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 9:31 AM on January 11, 2005