: Can I publish a book anonymously to protect the real people my non-fiction book is about? I'm in the process of writing a life story/non-fiction book that has numerous real life issues and

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The problem is not the author of the book, but the events and characters portrayed. If you anonymously write, for instance, about your schoolmates with their names and physical description in a setting that is recognizable as the real one, no matter who the author is, the people portrayed will be recognized. Period. It will happen.

"Publishing anonymously" might protect yourself, not the people you write about.

That said, there can be solutions.
Sometimes changing names and settings can be enough.
But a good writer, in my opinion, is able to modify the real events in order to maintain the core behind them. It does not matter if Jane cheated on Ralph during high school: what you want to tell is a story about cheating, and the emotions it uncovered. That you can do by any means, not with a chronicle of what happened.

Pardon this rough simplification, but I hope it helps.

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