Author: mp-de

Right now I’m working on a science fiction novel. It’s set in 2036, in a Munich that almost still exists – and yet is completely different. Here’s the opening. Tell me whether you’d read on.

The radiator wails at a pitch exactly fourteen kilohertz high. That’s not the sound of warmth; it’s the sound of dying metal that knows no one will ever repair it.

I ignore it. My fingers are in rhythm, dancing over a mechanical keyboard whose letters wore off long ago. A waterfall of code runs down the screen. I didn’t write it. That would require creativity. Some language model on a server in Shenzhen spat out this sludge, and my job – my magnificent, master’s-degree job – is to be a caretaker.

My name is Viktor Roth. Nine years ago this job was still called „Senior Systems Architect“. Then the future decided it didn’t need me.

That’s how Viktor’s story begins – a man the world has overtaken, who one night discovers something he’d have been better off not seeing.

How do you like the opening? Would you read on? Let me know in the comments.

If you search Amazon for „Mario Poslon“, you’ll find guides: money, finance, your first home. What you won’t find there are my romance novels. Those appear under the name M. O. Polson – and there’s a reason.

A practical guide and a sensual love story speak to completely different readers. Someone looking for a book on building wealth doesn’t want an 18+ story popping up among the results – and vice versa. Amazon learns with every book who an author is and whom to show their titles to. A clearly separate name helps keep both worlds neatly apart.

There’s something personal too: under a second name I write more freely. M. O. Polson gets to try things the guide author Mario Poslon would never write.

It’s not a secret, though – you’re reading about it right here. It’s simply order: the right book for the right reader, in the right place.

Do you prefer reading under an author’s real name, or doesn’t it matter who’s on the cover? I’m curious what you think.

It all started with a note on my phone: „Things nobody told me before I moved out.“ Below it: the utility bill. Separating the rubbish. What to do when the washing machine leaks. First three points, then ten, then – eventually – a hundred.

The longer the list got, the clearer it became: this isn’t a note anymore. This is a book. Because all those small things nobody talks about decide whether your first own place becomes an adventure or an ordeal.

I sorted the 100 points – household, money, health, work, paperwork – and for each one wrote down what I wish I’d known earlier. Not theory, but what actually helps: the checklist for day one, the call to the authorities you mustn’t forget, the mistake that gets really expensive.

That’s how „Out on Your Own“ came to be. The cover, the order, the tone – everything changed over months. But the core stayed the same: the list I would have wished for myself.

What’s the one thing nobody told you when you moved out? Drop it in the comments – it might just become point 101.