This paper reviews the statement which posits that Juan Filloy (Córdoba, 1894-2000) was a hidden writer, while refuting some of the theories which have been offered to explain this alleged voluntary determination. It is proposed, instead, that private editions were part of a strategy implemented by Filloy himself to achieve maximum visibility. For the purposes of proving this hypothesis, several 'especially discursive' practices undertaken by the writer as a social agent are studied: practices which predated his first publications in the '30s