Book Kickstarter - Brandon Sanderson

[R. C.]

Please move if in the wrong forum.

Why is Brandon Sanderson running a kickstarter?  Apparently, the most successful KS thus far.

R.C.

[Merged with another thread.]

[Luke Everhart]

Anyone who reads or writes fantasy is familiar with Brandon Sanderson. A high probability the same is true for any reading or writing science fiction. Those in other genres might not be familiar so fyi he's one of the top 3 names writing in fantasy today and has been for the past decade. He's traditionally published and was the guy who got the gig to finish Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series back in 2009 (-2013). He's famous for Mistborn series, Stormlight Saga and other stuff.

Well during covid he did very little of his usually very active traveling for signings, conventions, etc and used the extra time to crank out 4 off-contract novels. Rather than peddle them to his publisher he decided to start a kickstarter and indie publish them.

He set up a 30 day kickstarter for his fans. In the first 35 minutes it passed $1 million. Within 2 days it was over $19 million. Today, day 3, it's at $22 million and still growing. The kickstarter isn't scheduled to end until March 31st.

Pretty awesome... 😲🤯🥳

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dragonsteel/surprise-four-secret-novels-by-brandon-sanderson/description

[Luke Everhart]

Anyone who reads or writes fantasy is familiar with Brandon Sanderson. A high probability the same is true for any reading or writing science fiction. Those in other genres might not be familiar so fyi he's one of the top 3 names writing in fantasy today and has been for the past decade. He's traditionally published and was the guy who got the gig to finish Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series back in 2009 (-2013). He's famous for Mistborn series, Stormlight Saga and other stuff.

Well during covid he did very little of his usually very active traveling for signings, conventions, etc and used the extra time to crank out 4 off-contract novels. Rather than peddle them to his publisher he decided to start a kickstarter and indie publish them.

He set up a 30 day kickstarter for his fans. In the first 35 minutes it passed $1 million. Within 2 days it was over $19 million. Today, day 3, it's at $22 million and still growing. The kickstarter isn't scheduled to end until March 31st.

Pretty awesome... 😲🤯🥳

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dragonsteel/surprise-four-secret-novels-by-brandon-sanderson/description

Also he's the guy that has been providing free master class writing instruction online since 2012. He teaches a class at BYU on writing and videos of his lectures are available on youtube from every year (Edit: well he has taught it since 2004 but the youtube ones are 2012 on afaik). It's worth watching the lectures from multiple years (2012, 2016, 2020, etc) because the ancedotes, tips, and focus changes a bit every semester. Below is a link to one of the more recent years. I suggest searching for his lectures under his name in youtube to get the full scope rather than limiting yourself to just those on his official channel because some years are on different channels, not exclusive to his.

[Crystal]

I'm not really a fan of already successful people using Kickstarter, but it's not like he's the first. It is interesting to see so much of his money is coming from swag boxes and other premium products. I wonder if indie authors, especially those in KU, could replicate that. Our products are much cheaper.

[LilyBLily]

The fans are trying to talk him into autographing the books. He's done a video showing that he was spending a third of his time in PR campaigns; Covid stopped that and gave him time to write. I've got to wonder what these fans are thinking when demanding that he spend hours autographing when he could be writing more books. Which is it they really want?

[Pemry Janes]

My understanding is that he livestreams most of his signing sessions where he answers questions. So maybe fans are asking in a roundabout way for more livestreams. But probably they aren't considering how much time it would take to sign all those books.

But yes, I've heard of this kickstarter and I was blown away. First, by hearing Sanderson managed to write another five books in the last two years on the side. Then, by the incredible success of his kickstarter. People threw money at him before they even knew what the books were about beyond a few vague hints.

I do think that we should keep in mind that Sanderson can pull this off thanks to his team and the years he spent building up his fan-base.

[Luke Everhart]

I do think that we should keep in mind that Sanderson can pull this off thanks to his team and the years he spent building up his fan-base.

Definitely. I posted it as a cool news story concerning books and an author. 🥳 Not to imply anybody should jump on kickstarter. Even adjusting for scale it's simply a platform to leverage an existing, invested fanbase, not to generate one.
 ...Though it is a nice lesson that respecting your readers, writing to entertain your audience, being genuine and engaged with readers, and fulfilling your promises to readers (both in the books and in schedules) is still appreciated and rewarded in an often cynical and mercenary market.

Also I wanted to bring attention to Sanderson's fantastic lectures and his kickstarter response is proof of the pudding that the guy knows how to write.

Here is one of his earlier lecture years (2012, again you can find every year from 2012 to 2020 online)

&index=2

[R. C.]

I like his books but I am lost with this concept.

What does it say about this profession when a successful writer must use a KickStarter to fund the next books/series?

What am I missing?

R.C.

[Luke Everhart]

I like his books but I am lost with this concept.

What does it say about this profession when a successful writer must use a KickStarter to fund the next books/series?

What am I missing?

R.C.

He didn't have to use it. He still has a publishing contract for other works. (And actually made enough to retire comfortably from his advance and royalties for finishing Wheel of Time back in 2009-2013).
His reduced travel and public appearances schedule due to the covid response left him a lot of free time. He wrote a number of novels during that time that are off contract. Rather than peddle them to his publisher or simply drop them on the Zon he decided to offer them, along with some swag he's throwing in, as bonus material for fans. Why not? 🤷‍♂️ It's a win win.

[LBL]

I like his books but I am lost with this concept.

What does it say about this profession when a successful writer must use a KickStarter to fund the next books/series?

What am I missing?

R.C.

I get what you're saying. It raised my Spock-ian eyebrow as well.

It's not really that he 'must' do this, but I do wonder about the timing. Essentially, this is Sanderson cashing in his ridiculously popular fantasy brand chips. He could've done this at any time, but he chose now. He and his team would be privy to rumblings in the publishing world behind the scenes. Though he says he surprised his team with this as well. I'm not so sure. This presents more as a savvy business move than anything else. Maybe they thought the timing was right to make this jump because of what they know is coming.

Cynical take, I'll grant you, but hey, look at this ridiculous world we're living in.

Yes, I realize he's saying he wrote 5 extra books during COVID, but meh, he has a lot of lead time to deliver, so he wouldn't even need any of them written to decide to cash in on his popularity, which by the way was riding an all-time high of late. And, because it's him, and he has a big team, he can get those books done with time to spare.

Not to say he didn't actually write all 5 projects, and that he's not now just polishing them as he's said, I'm just saying it's possible he didn't or he hasn't, and that this move was made because he and his team felt the timing was right to do it now, and knowing his ability to produce on a schedule he knew he could make this announcement, and make good on delivering on time.

So, that leads back to questioning the timing of the announcement. It could be something's coming to do with Amazon, or to do with the audio market, or big publishing in general. Or, perhaps the writing was on the wall that this is where his company was going anyway, and he was planning on doing this from a while back, and maybe this seemed the best time to take the leap. OR, maybe it's all exactly how he said it was in his announcement video, and subsequent livestreams.

Or, if you really want to get doom and gloom, maybe he looked at the state of the world and decided this was his best means of 'selling high' on his brand name while the gettin's good, before we're all cowering in our non-internet connected bomb shelters.

Yes, I'm kidding. Sort of.

[Cephus]

The fans are trying to talk him into autographing the books. He's done a video showing that he was spending a third of his time in PR campaigns; Covid stopped that and gave him time to write. I've got to wonder what these fans are thinking when demanding that he spend hours autographing when he could be writing more books. Which is it they really want?

He does videos on his YouTube channel where he just stands there signing dozens of books while talking to the camera. If you watch his update videos, he talks about how much he does in promotion as well as writing. Luckily for Brandon, he operates much like a production writer so he can get a lot of both done. If he was anything like George R.R. Martin, his fans would never see another book.

[Lorri Moulton]

He did really well with the his earlier Kickstarter (with existing stories), so why not try new stories?

More power to him!  It shows READERS they can buy books on KickStarter.  I don't see this as a bad thing.

[LilyBLily]

I like his books but I am lost with this concept.

What does it say about this profession when a successful writer must use a KickStarter to fund the next books/series?

What am I missing?

R.C.

I get what you're saying. It raised my Spock-ian eyebrow as well.

It's not really that he 'must' do this, but I do wonder about the timing. Essentially, this is Sanderson cashing in his ridiculously popular fantasy brand chips. He could've done this at any time, but he chose now. He and his team would be privy to rumblings in the publishing world behind the scenes. Though he says he surprised his team with this as well. I'm not so sure. This presents more as a savvy business move than anything else. Maybe they thought the timing was right to make this jump because of what they know is coming.

Cynical take, I'll grant you, but hey, look at this ridiculous world we're living in.

Yes, I realize he's saying he wrote 5 extra books during COVID, but meh, he has a lot of lead time to deliver, so he wouldn't even need any of them written to decide to cash in on his popularity, which by the way was riding an all-time high of late. And, because it's him, and he has a big team, he can get those books done with time to spare.

Not to say he didn't actually write all 5 projects, and that he's not now just polishing them as he's said, I'm just saying it's possible he didn't or he hasn't, and that this move was made because he and his team felt the timing was right to do it now, and knowing his ability to produce on a schedule he knew he could make this announcement, and make good on delivering on time.

So, that leads back to questioning the timing of the announcement. It could be something's coming to do with Amazon, or to do with the audio market, or big publishing in general. Or, perhaps the writing was on the wall that this is where his company was going anyway, and he was planning on doing this from a while back, and maybe this seemed the best time to take the leap. OR, maybe it's all exactly how he said it was in his announcement video, and subsequent livestreams.

Or, if you really want to get doom and gloom, maybe he looked at the state of the world and decided this was his best means of 'selling high' on his brand name while the gettin's good, before we're all cowering in our non-internet connected bomb shelters.

Yes, I'm kidding. Sort of.

Yes, you're being too cynical.

Super popular writers can get trad pub contracts that pay $20 million. Sanderson did not have to do this to make bank.

My take is he's very productive a la Stephen King back in the day, just writes and writes and writes, and this was a fast and polite way of publishing these books rather than tell his regular agent and publisher he's done something different and how about it? They would want to release one book a year to capitalize on his name, but he's chosen a different route.

Also, these are black box books. We don't know what's in them. And swag! Also black boxes. 

Even though trad publishing has narrowed to fewer major companies than I have fingers on one hand, it's against the law for them to conspire to Do Something Drastic. As far as Amazon doing something, that's not where the money is for traditionally published authors, so they would not care. They make their money in conventional physical bookstores. 

It's just an experiment that paid off. He's smart to make it short-term. 

[Luke Everhart]

Kickstarter now over $25 million
24 days to go

[TimothyEllis]

Kickstarter now over $25 million
24 days to go

I actually find this quite bizarre.

I'd heard the name, but have never seen any of his books. Had no idea he was Trad rather than Indie as people keep saying, until I researched who he was.

Maybe like Mercedes Lackey, his books never made it to Australia, or maybe he rose after I stopped buying paperbacks back in 2013.

But to see someone who's just a name do something like this is really bizarre.

[Luke Everhart]

Kickstarter now over $25 million
24 days to go

I actually find this quite bizarre.

I'd heard the name, but have never seen any of his books. Had no idea he was Trad rather than Indie as people keep saying, until I researched who he was.

Maybe like Mercedes Lackey, his books never made it to Australia, or maybe he rose after I stopped buying paperbacks back in 2013.

But to see someone who's just a name do something like this is really bizarre.

I mentioned in my original post that he was traditionally published. He's been published since 2005. His first big breakout series was Mistborn in 2006. In 2009 he got the gig to finish Robert Jordan's 'Wheel of Time' series, one of the most popular fantasy series of the last 3 or 4 decades. He's a giant in the current gen of fantasy along with Rothfuss and Abercrombie.

He's sold in Australia but just not as popular there I suppose. But here is a post on a bookstore display there
https://www.reddit.com/r/brandonsanderson/comments/7dgglb/it_finally_happened_sanderson_is_popular_enough/

[TimothyEllis]

He's a giant in the current gen of fantasy along with Rothfuss and Abercrombie.

Those names are the same for me. Just names.

[Luke Everhart]

He's a giant in the current gen of fantasy along with Rothfuss and Abercrombie.

Those names are the same for me. Just names.

Well Rothfuss wrote 'Name of the Wind'. It's pretty popular in the australia Zon store: https://www.amazon.com.au/Name-Wind-Kingkiller-Chronicle-Chonicles-ebook/dp/B003HV0TN2/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1646630163&sr=8-1

But not as popular as in the US one: https://www.amazon.com/Name-Wind-Kingkiller-Chronicle-Book-ebook/dp/B0010SKUYM

There's lots of types of fantasy though so just different interests I suppose 

[Jeff Tanyard]

He's a giant in the current gen of fantasy along with Rothfuss and Abercrombie.

Those names are the same for me. Just names.

Well Rothfuss wrote 'Name of the Wind'. It's pretty popular in the australia Zon store: https://www.amazon.com.au/Name-Wind-Kingkiller-Chronicle-Chonicles-ebook/dp/B003HV0TN2/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1646630163&sr=8-1

But not as popular as in the US one: https://www.amazon.com/Name-Wind-Kingkiller-Chronicle-Book-ebook/dp/B0010SKUYM

There's lots of types of fantasy though so just different interests I suppose 

Luke, you might want to keep in mind that when it comes to popular culture, Tim is basically a real-life version of Brendan Fraser's character in Blast from the Past.  I mean, I like Tim a lot, and I appreciate the hell out of him, but he's simply oblivious to everything outside his underground bunker, and that can take the rest of us some getting used to.  And Tim knows this about himself--he's mentioned many times how he doesn't keep up with this stuff--so he knows I'm not trying to rag on him or anything.  It's just one of his quirks.

Tim, Luke is right about Sanderson being a Big Deal when it comes to 21st-century fantasy authors.  It doesn't surprise me at all that his Kickstarter is the most successful one ever.

On the subject of the Mistborn trilogy, I'd just like to add that I thought it was fantastic, and I'd recommend it to anyone.  The third book had me in tears at the end.   

[R. C.]

...

On the subject of the Mistborn trilogy, I'd just like to add that I thought it was fantastic, and I'd recommend it to anyone.  The third book had me in tears at the end.   

I will co-sign on the Mistborn trilogy. Outstanding.  The other stuff is also well above the average.  Call me Kvothe.

R.C.

[LBL]

Yes, you're being too cynical.

Super popular writers can get trad pub contracts that pay $20 million. Sanderson did not have to do this to make bank.

My take is he's very productive a la Stephen King back in the day, just writes and writes and writes, and this was a fast and polite way of publishing these books rather than tell his regular agent and publisher he's done something different and how about it? They would want to release one book a year to capitalize on his name, but he's chosen a different route.

Also, these are black box books. We don't know what's in them. And swag! Also black boxes. 

Even though trad publishing has narrowed to fewer major companies than I have fingers on one hand, it's against the law for them to conspire to Do Something Drastic. As far as Amazon doing something, that's not where the money is for traditionally published authors, so they would not care. They make their money in conventional physical bookstores. 

It's just an experiment that paid off. He's smart to make it short-term.

I see this more as a savvy business move than an experiment. He has a team, and livelihoods to think about. I can only think this was a 'writing on the wall' thing.

Okay, maybe he could get a $20 million trad pub contract, but how much of that would he actually get? And, deliverable by when and over what time frame?

He's up to $24 million with this thing now, and doesn't have to wait the five or six years it would take trad pub to release all of the works, go through the slow pace of the trad process, etc.

Meaning, he's chosen to cash in on his brand popularity, and accelerate the entire process quite a bit. I don't think he and his team are all that shocked that they're making a lot of money with it, though they might be surprised by the actual dollar figure, but less so that it worked out. I'd imagine they wouldn't have made this leap if they felt it wasn't going to pay off. Sanderson and his team know how popular the brand is.

Obviously, no, he didn't need to do this to be rich. He was already rich. But, he did choose to accelerate the process, and make this jump regardless. Which causes me to wonder why, and also, why now? Could be something innocuous and simple like "why not now?", could be something else.

Far more likely this is a calculated move than an experimental one.

[Matthew]

I think you guys are overthinking this if you think it's some kind of cash grab. To me it sounds like he wants to indie publish and that comes with its own challenges. By having a cutoff date for orders (the end of the KickStarter campaign), you basically have a guaranteed number of orders. So you can go to suppliers and say "Hey, I need 10,000 hard cover books printed" or 1,000 T-shirts printed and get an even better deal. I'm sure he wants higher quality than your average print-on-demand service.

And good call out on exploring merch as authors. I think we should all consider ways to diversify our income. I've seen some interesting ideas from the art community - there's normal merch, prints, limited edition prints (signed and numbered), subscription mystery print per month, courses, etc. All of this will of course come at the cost of time that could be spent writing, or pay someone else to do a lot of the work for you

[LilyBLily]

Overthinking, yes. Calculated, sure. Also experimental. Writers are adventurers.