and found a thread on it in the Cafe Society, would you join the discussion? If so, would you tell people you were the author or stay incognito? And would anyone believe you if you did tell them? 
Hell yeah I’d say I was the author. And how would they beleive it was me? They wouldn’t. The book would likely make sense.
I’d just pop in and say “Glad you liked it,” even if the thread’s about how bad it is. Then I’d spend the next 48 hours chewing my nails, rocking back and forth in my seat, and pressing Refresh every thirty seconds.
That’s probably just what I would do. I’d definitely answer question threads, pop in when people were being complimentary, and I might be stupid enough to correct people if I thought they’d totally misunderstood something.
On the TrekBBS, authors regularly post in feedback threads. It’s awesome to see someone saying “I wonder what the author was thinking when he wrote this…” and then have the author come in and explain it.
Tom Clancy is known to post from time to time in the alt.books.tom-clancy newsgroup but he’s more of a drive-by type, offering snide comments or snippets of insider info (“I met Ben Affleck and despite his wacky politics he’s a hell of a guy” type stuff). He never seems to want to answer any direct questions about his books.
When I’m a famous author I will come back here and see who’s talking shit about me… then everyone can say “I remember when DWMarch used to post back in ought-four… way before he was famous… he didn’t seem so arrogant back then…” 
Maybe us future bestsellers (;)) should come up with a way to encode into our books our SDMB user names. I have no idea how, but once a standard was reached, when one came into a thread about their work and their bona fides were questioned, all one would have to do is point to the Bestselling Author SMDB User Name Encoding (BASUNE) standard and everyone would be satisfied. Or at least they’d believe you then…
Terry Pratchett used to post on a regular basis over at alt.fan.pratchett. Don’t know if he still does, but I cherish the e-mail exchange that I had with him about 5 years ago.
I don’t think I would admit being the author, but I would look at the thread,and possibly post on other posters’ interpretations of the work. Then I would do the the same thing BraheSilver would do, possibly shivering uncontrollably.
Terry Pratchett sometimes visits the newsgroups alt.fan.pratchett and alt.books.pratchett and joins in the discussions.
Larry Gelbart, creator of the TV version of MAS*H is a frequent poster on the alt.tv.mash newsgroup under the name Elsig.
After I can be safely removed from the ceiling (an unfortunate side effect of having one’s ego massively overinflated :D), I’d probably join in on the fun surrepticiously until someone figures me out.
I doubt anyone who has been on this board for a long time would fess up to it…especially if it was a mainstream book.
You wouldn’t want people to go back and look through your threads to find out you once suggested beating baby seals to death wasn’t all that bad, and you like to watch people have sex in furrie outfits…it wouldn’t make good PR and most likely would come back to haunt you in future inteviews.
Besides, it would be more fun to coax people into making comments and finding out if subtle things you put in the book were picked up on by the teeming millions.
The other option is to fill the book with SDMB references and watch the hunt begin.
I’d like to think that I’d keep quiet about it until someone started a thread about it. Especially if someone posted to the thread comments which indicated that they totally missed the point of the book, I’d then proceed to savage them (quoting at length from the book) without ever confessing to being the author. Hopefully, the whole thing would wind up in the Pit, with me savagely describing what kind of physically impossible acts I think the person regularly performs on themself, their pets, and family members, and then I’d confess to being the author of the book.
In reality, I’d be so stoked at having something of mine published, I’d be gushing all over the place that I’d never be able to keep it a secret.
If I wrote a book likely to be a best-seller, I’d keep my fool mouth shut. If people emailed me privately and wanted to discuss it, I’d be more than happy to respond. But on a public forum? No way, no how. I’ve seen too many authors post wank all over the Internet to ever consider it (does anybody else remember when Ann Rice posted a response to the reviewers on Amazon.com? That was ugly).
Yeah, but Ann’s been starkers for quite some time now, so it’s not like that’s a good example.
One of my literature teachers in college tried for the first time to teach one of his books in our class. The discussion lasted only about two days, when all the other books we read got two weeks. The poor guy couldn’t get a discussion started on the book, and he said he would never teach one of his books again.
After seeing how much having the author present prevented people from discussing, I know I wouldn’t chime in on a discussion. I might not even read it, especially if people didn’t like the book.
Some of you may have already read some of my published works.
Dear Penthouse, I never used to believe these stories until just this last weekend, when I lived out every man’s fantasy…
It would depend on what they were saying. I might come in and explain something for them, but I would probably stay out of it aside from that. Otherwise, it would probably be more interesting to sit back and see what people were saying. For some reason I think I’d be shy about you guys knowing it was me (on the other hand, if I ever do publish a book, I’m half-tempted to use my handle as a pen-name or a character, so maybe you’ll know anyways). I’d hide or change my e-mail beforehand.
Of course, that assumes I ever manage to write anything I want to consider publishing, let alone something that will get read by people intelligent enough to post here.