Not in furry. 
http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2015/jul/10/demise-pseudonyms-books
Good article. Mog has always posted as Mog, and probably always will. When I go into mainstream, Iām going to craft a pseudonym, because I honestly donāt feel my very common first and middle names coupled with my hard to pronounce last name would be good for recognition.
Interesting article.
I agree with using a pseudonym as a way of āliberatingā oneās self, especially with erotica. (I havenāt read nor written erotica, and I donāt plan to, but I can see why an author would us a pseudonym in that case).
Personally, Iād use my furry name for fiction, and use my real name for poetry. I donāt consider my real name a good author name, as it sounds too simple and common.
No. There will always be people who do not want to be identified with their books, or a current line of books, and not just because of erotica.
Heck, look at Jon Stewart. You know thatās a pseudonym, right? That he chooses his work not to be identified with his real name? Now in his case, itās most likely because his real name doesnāt work well with show business, but donāt think that doesnāt work with books as well.
My other line of work (which I hope I donāt have to go back to) is that of a consultant. Do you know how many meetings Iāve been in, that have been derailed by someone asking if Iām the author on Amazon? It has had an effect on me, hopefully only in a good way, but youād not likely hear about the bad ones.
So no, there will always be reasons for them, and people will continue to use them, and the example of JK Rowling was not a good one. Remember she sued the guy who outed her for millions of dollars and won.
Weāre not going to see an end to pseudonyms until Congress bans anonymity.
I use a pseudonym because I donāt want my conservative relatives or people from my day job to know what I write.
I donāt expect to make a living any time soon from my writing and writing furry fiction seems as hazardous to employment as having stupid friends on Facebook.
For self pubbers the pseudonym or pen name is serving a different purpose these days. Theyāre not to conceal your identity but to communicate what genre the book is. You can see lots of thread about it over on the writer forum on the kboards but generally its in vogue to have different names for each genre you have stories in. Hardcore fans of you will go to your website and read all your names. This way you donāt have the fans of your romance reading your horror and getting disappointed.
I think furry has both special considerations and special problems when it comes to pen names.
One one hand, as Zarpaulus touched on, some people donāt want their furry stuff associated with their real name at all. They might be writing erotica or gay romances or what have you, or they just may be uncomfortable with being āoutedā as furry for various reasons. I think it can make a lot of sense to have separate names between erotic and non-erotic writing, which follows FallenKittenās observation about communicating genres. On a personal level, Iād like to see more people writing under their real name,* simply because I think it helps cement the idea that writing furry stories isnāt something you should be ashamed of. Our best stuff is worth getting in front of non-furry audiences.
On the other hand, even though pen names have a long and worthy tradition in fiction, itās harder to get your work in front of non-furry audiences when your pen name sounds manifestly furry: an odd mononym, āCharacterName SpeciesNameā, and the like. Iām not convinced that this doesnāt have an effect even within furry; the authors who seem to get the most respect and sales mostly write under their real name or a āreal-soundingā pen name.
*In this case āreal nameā is more the name you identify with publicly and donāt try to keep separate from āyou,ā whether or not itās your legal and/or birth name.
Agreed on both points. And I do think thereās a decent argument for using pen names as part of branding, even though Iām personally allergic to the general ābrandingā mindset.
I have often said that if Iād known I was going to end up writing within the fandom, I would have picked a Firstname Lastname type name. And that name would have been āHusky Galoreā. (I suppose itās not too late?)