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Lily Pond's avatar

Hi again Sarah! I am about to publish my first Substack newsletter, but can't decide whether to use my real name or not. Major conundrum! I am hesitating because if I use my real name and write about sensitive things that concern people I love that are important parts of my journey, how it would land if they read my writing? (I guess that's a major concern in memoir writing, yes?) And if I use a pseudonym, will I still be able to have full copyright to my writing, esp if I wish to publish a book with a traditional publisher? I'd appreciate it if you could shed some light on this subject, if it hasn't been touched on already?

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Lily Pond's avatar

Hi Sarah! I just subscribed to this newsletter as I'm interested in publishing a serialized work (memoir or autobiographical novel) that will eventually be published in book form. Based on what you wrote here, it looks like installments of 1,500-2,500 words would be best. I think it's doable for me; however, you mentioned in another post that installments of this length is best published twice a week. I am concerned I can't reach that goal. Would once-a-week installments still be frequent enough to keep readers coming?

Another question is, according to the instructions that you linked to above (from Substack Help Center), we can set up another "publication" under the same account. But then I found that we can set up new "sections" under the same publication. I'm confused about these two options. Which one would you suggest? I'm thinking of having two main types of content--one is my serialized memoir/novel, the other is a mix of my musings and other things that I'm interested in and have published over the years. Which structure would be best in my case?

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