OutaStory has no free-text display name field. That surprises
people who go looking for one, so here is how your name actually gets
onto the site.
Your public name is composed for you
Open My Account at /profile/account. Under
your name you will find three fields — first name, middle name and
last name. First and last are required; middle is optional.
Your public name is then put together as "First [Middle] Last".
Change one of the fields and the name shown on your stories, comments
and author page changes with it. There is nowhere else to type a
different name, which is why editing these three fields is the whole
of "renaming yourself".
Your Author URL
On the same page you will find Author URL. This is the address of
your public author page — outastory.com/authors/…. It is separate
from your name, so you can keep a tidy, short URL even if your name is
long.
While you type, OutaStory checks whether the address is still free and
tells you. Two authors cannot share one address.
If you change it, the old address keeps working for a while, so
links you have already shared do not break the moment you save. Do not
rely on that forever, though — update your own links when you can.
Pen names
A pen name lets you publish under a different identity. You will find
them under My pen names at
/profile/pen-names.
Each pen name carries its own:
- name
- address (slug)
- bio
- avatar
- follower count
So readers who follow a pen name follow that identity, not your
main one, and the two sets of followers stay separate.
Two honest caveats:
- Pen names are a feature that may not be switched on for your
account. If the page is not there for you, that is why — it is
not something you have configured wrongly. - You cannot create a pen name until your legal name is
complete. Fill in first and last name on My Account first, then
come back.
Public versus private
Your composed name, your Author URL and anything on your public
profile are visible to readers. The personal details on My Account —
date of birth, address, phone number and the rest — are
administrative data and are not shown to anyone else. Which of the
optional profile fields readers can see is something you control per
field.
The full picture is in
What other people can see.