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>In America, I eke out a hack's motion picture wages by winning second prize in a manufactured mystery story contest

Makes me think of how Stephen King wrote some novels as Richard Bachman and then with King's name on them, they sold ten times as many.

Also, allegedly J K Rowling wrote a crime novel as Robert Galbraith which sold only 1500 copies.

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There might be the confounding factor of being unlikely to buy a novel you don't know exists. If Rowling releases something under her own name, I'm sure to hear about it, which will surely boost sales.

Although perhaps this was exactly what you meant.

(Before selling several orders of magnitude more when the pseudonym was linked to her.)

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