Adventures in creative publicity

On Dear Author we hear of a woman who’s held a funeral for her failed writing career.  When I read the post my thoughts went something like this:

• Sixteen rejections is a low threshold for career failure.
• Can you base a career on the viability of a single novel (probably a first effort?)
• Hold on, this got play in the New Yorker?
• There’s a website devoted to this?
• And wait a minute, you can buy the self-published book. . .
• And look at the site’s graveyard theme, and the title, Family Plots?  Get it?
• This woman may be a genius.