Since May, I’ve been running an experiment on my personal Substack, Sutoscience: publishing a novel one chapter at a time, every Friday, in public.
The book is a romantic thriller called let me be your ghost, and here’s the pitch:
Lola Whitman has built a career disappearing into other people’s stories. As a memoir ghostwriter, she’s invisible by design—NDAs signed, name on nothing, the best listener money can rent.
What her clients don’t know: the tapes don’t stop with her.
Then Ezekiel Crane walks in—billionaire, tech CEO, defense-industry darling—and asks her to write his memoir. He’s charming. He’s dangerous. He’s hiding something.
So is she.
let me be your ghost is a serialized thriller about deception, desire, and what happens when the most powerful man in the room decides he wants to know who you really are—and you’ve got secrets to keep.
Eleven chapters are live. New ones drop every Friday. The first four are free, and they start here:
And a note for the writers here: serializing has been the best deadline I’ve ever had.
The book publishes every Friday whether or not the muse clocks in, and readers arrive chapter by chapter, the way stories used to. If you’ve got a manuscript gathering dust in a drawer, this format might be what gets it out. In the meantime, you can read more about the 6 best practices for serializing fiction on Substack here.
I've been doing something similar on The Schudown (available on Buttondown). Big mazel! It's a great way to hold yourself accountable and get the work done. I think people are into it. My book Perfect Manhattan, a romance set in 2007 New York City with technology and Mad Men in the back drop of the cocktail renaissance. I can't publish once a week, but going for every 2 weeks. https://buttondown.com/Schudown/archive/