Adventures in book publicity: a little mystery is a wonderful thing

After Slate made a big deal out of a mystery involving a disappearing description of an upcoming Thomas Pynchon novel, reporters jumped all over it. Courtesy Publishers Marketplace daily newsblatt. Also, according to the same source, Atlantic Books has signed to distribute the work of another reclusive writer:

Torsten Krol's CALLISTO, for publication in May 2007, and THE DOLPHIN PEOPLE, for publication in Spring 2008, by a writer who has been in touch with his agent and editor solely through e-mail, to Toby Mundy at Atlantic Books, in a very nice deal, including a third untitled novel, by Michael Gifkins (world).

That's right -- a writer who has never been seen or heard. Even more reclusive than Pynchon, of whom we have, at least, a few photographs.

Previously: Mystery author gets publicity by pretending to shun it