The other thing to keep in mind is that well over half the battle in becoming a bestseller is even landing a publisher in the first place. There's serious cumulative advantage inherent to being Stephen King, or JK Rowling, in that you can submit your "anonymous" work to your ordinary publisher and at least guarantee some amount of distribution.
A truly anonymous play would be if Rowling or King submitted their pseudonymous work to agents and publishers, unsolicited, without any trace whatsoever of their existing relationships. (This might not be possible due to contactual obligations, however).
> A truly anonymous play would be if Rowling or King submitted their pseudonymous work to agents and publishers, unsolicited, without any trace whatsoever of their existing relationships.
"King did say that he thought he was outed too early to obtain any conclusive results from the experiment..."