The Garbage Book

I got an e-mail suggesting that in order to raise funds for the Great Project, I use my allegedly brilliant writing skills and write a purely commercial novel solely to make money, and publish it under a pseudonym.

Well, actually, been there, done that. 

In the autumn of 2014 I wrote a short (90,000 words) piece of dreck I call my Garbage Book. Loony events intervened, but I finally published it in the spring of 2015. I call it my Garbage Book because that's what it is. All told, it's probably a good thing that my name isn't associated with it, if for no other reason than it has [heterosexual] raunchy sex scenes in it, what is known as "commercial dirt," which still seems to upset some of our people. I still have to send out a disclaimer sheet with Fire and Rain and Bonnie Blue Murder any time I send out a signed copy to a Movement HAC fiction fan. 

I have been told by the few NF people who have read it that the book actually contains a serious racial and cultural message, which I can kind of see now that they point it out, but it was unintentional. Apparently I’m incapable of writing anything completely apoliticial or nonracial any more, even when I try to write crap.

The royalty simoleons never came. I was trying to glom onto a specific literary niche market, but without success. Where I fell down was that my avalanche of secretarial and sound editing and production stuff, which has become chronic over the last two years, means that I simply do not have time to promote the damned thing for sales, nor am I able to do the things that most self-published authors do to promote their work, like show up in person at book signings and network properly on the internet, etc.

It remains a curiosity item, most likely the last piece of fiction I will ever write. [sigh ... ] 

Anyway, just wanted to let you know that yes, like so much else, that idea of trying to write for money under a pseudonym has been tried.