Brandon Sanderson's Blog

Signed Wind and Truth Pre-order + Weekly Update

Hey, everyone! Exciting week this week. All right? We are at, Bing! 95% after my writing retreat. That’s good because I have to turn the book in very, very soon. Turns out that I think I have till Tuesday. I have finished the revision. Now I’m doing spot fixes of things that I want to tweak, and I have a few interludes left to write. I’ve left them to the end because the book doesn’t absolutely need them, but it looks like I’ll have time. All the epigraphs are done. The ketek is done at the end. Everything is a go. So it’s currently sitting at 483,000 words. The last book was 460,000 words, and it was the longest they could print at the time. But we are able to squeeze a little extra by going and being like, “All right. How big can we, like, literally, physically get it?” They said somewhere around 489,000. And so we’ll see after I finish these interludes. It really depends on how many chapters there are and things like that. So we are squeezing every bit of space into this book that we can.

Why did I say this is an exciting week? Well, there’s going to be a lot of show and tell. So you should stick around and see the show and tell. But first, a few little things.

So, I’m here right now to tell you how you get your signed copies of Wind and Truth. We are doing something different this year. Normally, I go to my warehouse, and I sign as many copies as I can get in a couple of days. We’ve maxed out at about 5,000 copies because we have to open up each book and have me sign them. You’ve seen the videos. If you haven’t, there might be one linked in the description. You can see the process. TOR came to me and said, “We really would like to get some into the retailers,” the Barnes & Nobles and the indies and all of these people across US and Canada. And we said, “It’s just so hard to, like, unbox and things like that. We can maybe try it if we can do a tip-in page edition.” So a tip-in page is where—like you’ve seen me signing for the leatherbounds, except it’s a special sheet that they give me that I sign that gets bound into the books. We’re going to try that this year instead. And because we’re doing it that way, we can do 15,000 instead of 5,000. That is going to be split 5,000 for the publish and 10,000 for me. Our 10,000 will release in the same way we normally do, as a numbered edition with a book bundle tie-in with Dragonsteel Nexus. But you don’t have to be going to Nexus to get the book bundle. But it will have a swag item and things like that. I believe you have to get the whole bundle to get the signed and numbered edition from us. And that’s just how we’re going to do our 10,000. It’s just so much easier for us to have one product done one way, and those will be numbered. These 5,000, the other 5,000, are going out into the world to the various retailers. Those won’t be numbered, but they’ll be the same edition otherwise, with a tip-in page signed at the front. I’m not exactly 100% sure how they’re going to get these and divide them up and things like that. They do want to start a preorder, starting today, and this is for the US and Canada. And they’ve given us a FAQ that you can look at in the description about how this is going to work out. There’s like a limited number of copies available at select retailers, and you might have to check with your local bookstore. They may have to be like, “Hey, TOR, how many of these can I get?” And things like that. It gets complicated when you do this when you do this through the publisher. But this is the only way that I can get signed books out to everybody who can’t get them from my store, doesn’t want to, just wants to support their local bookstore. So, we’re going to try and figure out how to make this work. Read the FAQ if you’re interested. I expect these 5,000 to go pretty quickly. But I’m not exactly sure on the details. You’ll have to look at the FAQ. But can keep an eye out here if you want to find out about our book bundle, which we will talk about in coming months, about how you get the signed, numbered edition.

Next item, before we get to our show and tell. Remember we have a Kickstarter for the Stormlight pen and paper role-playing game happening this August with Brotherwise. Dan has been putting so much work into this, and the Art Team, and I’ve been reading through it for continuity, and it’s looking really good. I think you guys are going to really love it. And there will be a world book as part of this that you could buy separately if you are only interested in the world guide, either for your own games or just for a coffee table book. And there will be a separate, just game guide, is what the plan is right now. So keep an eye out for that. I know people have been clamoring for this. It’s looking really, really good.

So one more upcoming announcement. I have a cover reveal for you. I guess this is the beginning of show and tell. The beginning of Show and Tell is, look at this awesome cover! So, if you weren’t aware, I am doing a picture book. I’m not doing the art. The art is by Kazu Kibuishi, who is amazing. He does the Amulet middle-grade epic fantasy series, which is the single best young person’s epic fantasy that I’ve ever read, and he kind of is the Brandon Sanderson of middle-grade epic fantasy, and he agreed to do this with me. He was my number one choice for the artwork. And so it was really exciting to get my number one choice. The cover is here. Now, the joke of this book, which is called The Most Boring Book Ever, is that the art does not match the words. And we’ve done some pretty extensive beta reads. We’re having a really good response from 7 to 11 and even a little bit older. My 14-year-old loves it. Any kid who can kind of get the joke, “Wait a minute. These words are really boring, and this art is really epic,” seems to really love the book. It releases September 24th of this year, and we’ll be talking a lot more about that. We’re going to have Kazu come and be on the channel and some things like that. And he’s delightful. I think you guys will really enjoy that. So keep an eye out for that.

So, the real show and tell. Thank you for putting up with me telling you about all the cool things that I have coming. Here are the cool things that have already arrived. A lot of you have asked about the size of the banners. So these are the banners that happened with our crowdfunding campaign. This is the Windrunner one. They are super cool. I love having these, like, banners/pennants/flags that you’ll be able to, like, hang in a dorm room or something like this. Like, somebody has their team banner over here, and you’re like, “Yep. Yep. Well, I’m going to hang up the Bondsmith symbol.” So these came together really well. I am bad at showing off how cool they are, but they’re nice and sturdy. They’re looking good. I suppose we’ll do Dustbringer because it looks so cool, the coloring on that one. So these are your banners if you participated in the crowdfunding and selected one of these. These have come in. These are our samples. This is what they’re going to look like. So we got them for all—I’m just going to hold up all of these. We got them for everything. The team made sure I have plenty to do show and tell with today.

So, let’s talk about next the charms. The charm sets come with three little charms. We’ve got the sparkly, we’ve got the symbol, and we’ve got the name of the order. I’m really pleased with how these came out. They all look pretty solid and sturdy. Once again, the colorings on Dustbringer’s look so awesome. I know you haven’t been able to read much about them as an order. So I suspect that there’ll be more of you who are Dustbringers in coming years, once we have some books out that really focus on them. But these look incredible, and I think you’re really going to like them. So, that’s how those turned out. Like I said, I know a lot of people have been asking, “How are these things going to look?”

So, what else do we got coming up here? Well, coasters! Coasters are something we added to our first crowdfunding campaign, the Year of Sanderson, that was just kind of an afterthought as we were looking for something cool to add. And we loved them so much we have another set of them. We have four of them. The first one is Storm Form, which is so cool. It’s like a Mountain Dew. “Powerful results. Lightning fast.” It looks so good. It says, “Tired of feeling ordinary? Storm Form!” and then our coaster for “The Ornery Chull, a cut above the rest,” which is a restaurant, for our first time. It says, “Feeling down with the crown? Find your friends at The Ornery Chull, the war camp’s prime station for assassination.” (laughing) It says, “When you’re here, you’re crime family.” “Brew d état?” (laughing) And then we have a nice singer that might be Rlain or somebody showing off “Crem Soda.” Crem Soda. “Discover the refreshing taste of Crem Soda, the crem de la crem.” “It’s gem heart healthy.” “Five out of five recommend Crem Soda for thirsty listeners of all ages.” Yep. That actually looks a little bit more like Eshonai on the back because it’s got Shardplate. But yep. And then finally, for you discerning people, high class, we have The Precipice. “For the discerning lighteyes who live on the edge.” This is where you can go enjoy a meal and a drink as a storm is coming. And on the back it has the waiter being blown away by the oncoming storm. So these are our coasters. As you might be able to tell from our chuckles, we have a little bit of fun.

Then we have our sticker packs. Really these are our decals. Is that what you would call them rather than stickers? They’re more fancy if you call them decals. But these turned out really well. We’re trying to level up on our stickers so that they earn the title of decal rather than just ordinary sticker. They look really sharp, and I think you guys are going to love these. You’ve got your spren at the bottom. You’ve got two of the small symbol, one of the large symbol, and then, of course, your order name. And the Stormlight at the top is also, you know, there for you to press out. It’s had the—what do you call it? It’s been struck so it can be peeled off by itself. And so you will be able to adorn your water bottles and/or, who knows, you know, as we said, there are some of you discerning. Some of you can stick these on your Ferraris. We’ll let you do that. I think that they would look very nice on a Ferrari. 

And then last. Last is, we’ve got the Dragonsteel Prime and Way of Kings Prime. For those who for some reason don’t know, these are the versions of the books I wrote long ago, before I was a published author, and they’re OK. They’re not fantastic books. They’re OK. I wrote Dragonsteel write after I wrote Elantris. And Way of Kings Prime was the last book I wrote before I sold Elantris, so this was number 13. And then Mistborn is number 14. And so I thought we’d show those off because we had to do a new version of Way of Kings Prime because the cover material we had chosen went out of stock, is no longer being made. So those are those.

So if you have these things coming, we are getting everything together. These are just the samples. So we don’t yet have everything to ship out. But we are waiting as they all pour in, hoping to be able to ship out to you as soon as is reasonable, is what we will say. 

Last two little more housekeeping items. I did a Five Favorites Book Cover with Tran, who is the cover illustrator of the mass market edition of Yumi and the Nightmare Painter. It’s a really fun video. So if you missed it, it came out on Friday.

Finally, as I complained about on TikTok, 7% of you have still not filled out your crowdfunding campaign survey. We can’t send you your cool stuff until you fill out the survey because that’s where you give us, like, your address and stuff. You have already been charged, but we can’t send you things. Now, we don’t have it to send yet, so, you know, you do have some time. But please go fill out your survey, because we would like to know that those are all done so that we’re not just sitting on your money, that we indeed can send you the things, because we have ordered them for you. We don’t want to sit on them. We don’t want your stuff in our warehouse. We want it in your house. So please fill out your form so we can send you all these cool things.

I will be back next week, where I will almost assuredly announce that Stormlight 5 has hit, you know, pen down, and has been handed off to Editorial Team for proofreads and things like that. So join us next week for that potential celebration. Thank you, as always, for putting up with me going on and on about random things. It is kind of my job.

Roshar Map Restocked + Weekly Update

Hi, everyone! My name is Dan Wells, and this is the Weekly Update. Brandon has run off.
He is living wild in the forest right now, and so I am the one who is going to tell you about this
play mat. It is back in stock, and it’s better than it used to be because it has this cool, like,
embroidery edging thing, and there’s also a logo in the bottom. This is a much better version
than the one I have in my office, and I, for one, am furious about that.
We also have this poster, which you will just have to trust me when I tell you that it looks like this
play mat, because I’m not going to open it up. There’s probably something else on your screen
right now showing you what Roshar looks like. It’s a poster map of Roshar, and it’s rad as crap.
That is all I have for you this week, except for my undying love and devotion for each and every
one of you. Thank you very much for watching this video. I hope you have a wonderful day and
a beautiful life.

Special Announcement for Dragonsteel 2024 + Weekly Update

Hey, Brandon here with your Weekly Update. I am back, kind of. I’m actually at
C2E2 in Chicago right now doing a convention. But we’re filming from my booth. We’re going to
start with the thing you’re most interested in, I bet, which is that Wind and Truth, last revision, I
am at, Bing! 39%. So writing’s been going really well on Wind and Truth. I feel pretty confident
about getting that in May 31 st . But I have a lot of writing to do next month.
But I have some other cool announcements for you. The first one is, it’s your last call to get
things from the BackerKit preorder store. That closes today. So if you are part of our campaign
and you want to add on some plushies or something, this is your last chance.
Next week, we’ll actually start opening registration for our own convention. This will happen
about a week from today, I believe, exactly one week from today. Badge prices will go up. They
are going to be $99 for a regular admittance and $350 for the VIP.
We do have some cool things about this that you may want to know. For instance, Delta, the
airline, noticed that we were bringing lots of people in. And so they offered us a discount. Salt
Lake is a very big Delta hub. You’re almost assuredly going to be flying on Delta. But if you type
in the code when you book your flight (the code is in the description here) you will be able to get
a discount for that. So that’s really cool. It’s pretty awesome that Delta noticed that we are
bringing lots of people in.
So, speaking of the convention. So I named this convention Dragonsteel years ago. I was the
one that came up with that. But we always knew it would need something a little bit more. Our
company is named Dragonsteel, right? It gets a little bit confusing. We wanted to take our time.
And I’m actually going to announce our rebrand today. We’ve finally, all of our team, gotten
together and have figured out what we want to call it. Because, you see, there’s this place in the
Cosmere that I have named. And it turns out that part of that name, there are no major
conventions named this. So I actually have a bunch of people with us here from C2E2, where
I’m going to announce—
CROWD: (cheering)
The name of our convention going forward, and it’s going to be Dragonsteel Nexus.
And you’ll find out what the Nexus means as you read further in the Cosmere. But we really like
the idea of bringing people together and things like this. And so we are going to be calling it
Dragonsteel Nexus, or Nexus 2024, if you want to call it that. This is our big announcement.
CROWD: (cheering)
BRANDON: We spent a lot of time on this, so I hope you guys will enjoy that. It’s going to just
work a little bit better. And so, one week from today, tickets for Dragonsteel Nexus 2024 go up.
Grab your ticket early. We do expect to sell out.
And I will be back next week myself with another Weekly Update, I think, unless I’m gone. But I
think I’m going to be here. So thank you for following along, and we’ll see you in a week or so.

https://youtu.be/eP8GtUHrJ4Q?feature=...

Regarding Audible

Hey, all. Brandon here, with what I consider to be some pretty exciting news. Many of you may remember when I wrote last year about my worries regarding audiobook royalties (particularly for independent authors). You can read it HERE, but some of the main bullet points are as follows:

I seriously worried about the opacity of reporting to authors about audio sales. We didn’t know what a sale meant, how much of an Audible credit was given to authors when a book sold via one, and how royalties were being accounted.I felt that the industry was taking advantage of authors because of their lack of powerful corporate interests to advocate for them. While video game creators and musicians get 70–80% (88%, in fact, on two major platforms) of a sale of their products in a digital platform, Audible was paying as low as 25%–with the high end being instead 40%.I felt I could have gotten a better deal for myself, but the entire state of this industry was seriously concerning to me. So, I made the difficult decision NOT to release the four Secret Projects on Audible, costing me a large number of sales, to instead try to bolster healthy competition in the space, highlighting some of the smaller Audible competitors.

I hoped this wake-up call would prompt change. I didn’t refuse to put my books on Audible out of retribution or to declare war; I did it because I wanted to shine as powerful a light as I knew how on a system that highly favored the audio distributors over the authors. I was convinced that the people at Audible really did love books and writers, and that with the right stand taken, I could encourage them toward positive change.

I’m happy to say that this stand has borne some fruit. I’ve spent this last year in contact with Audible and other audio distributors, and have pushed carefully–but forcefully–for them to step up. A few weeks ago, three key officers high in Audible’s structure flew to Dragonsteel offices and presented for us a new royalty structure they intend to offer to independent writers and smaller publishers.

This new structure doesn’t give everything I’ve wanted, and there is still work to do, but it is encouraging. They showed me new minimum royalty rates for authors–and they are, as per my suggestions, improved over the previous ones. Moreover, this structure will move to a system like I have requested: a system that pays more predictably on each credit spent, and that is more transparent for authors. Audible will be paying royalties monthly, instead of quarterly, and will provide a spreadsheet that better shows how they split up the money received with their authors.

This part looked really good to me, as I understand their decisions. I tried poking holes in the system, looking for ways it could be exploited, and found each issue I raised had already been considered. This doesn’t mean it’s going to be perfect, and people smarter than me might still find problems that I didn’t. However, I think everyone is going to agree the new system IS better. We will better be able to track, for example, how Audible is dividing money between books purchased with a credit and books listened to as part of their Audible Plus program.

It’s all very technical, but I have to say I’m impressed with the effort they have made. The people there listened to my complaints, and have tried to improve. I’m not at liberty to explain in its entirety their new structure right now, as they’re still tweaking it, but they did say I could announce its existence–and that I could promise new, improved royalties are on the horizon.

Now, before we go too far, I do anticipate a few continuing issues with the final product. I want to manage expectations by talking about those below.

What I’ve seen doesn’t yet bring us to the 70% royalty I think is fair, and which other, similar industries get.Audible continues to reserve the best royalties for those authors who are exclusive to their platform, which I consider bad for consumers, as it stifles competition. In the new structure, both exclusive and non-exclusive authors will see an increase, but the gap is staying about the same.Authors continue to have very little (basically no) control over pricing. Whatever the “cover price” of books is largely doesn’t matter–books actually sell for the price of a credit in an Audible subscription. Authors can never raise prices alongside inflation. An Audible credit costs the same as it did almost two decades ago–with no incentive for Audible to raise it, lest it lose customers to other services willing to loss-lead to draw customers over.

These are things I’d love to see change. However, this deal IS a step forward, and IS an attempt to meet me partway. Indeed, even incremental changes can mean a lot. When I was new in this business, my agent spent months arguing for a two-percent change in one of my print royalties–because every little bit helps. These improvements are going to be larger than two-percent increases.

Because of this, I will be bringing the Secret Projects to Audible very soon. I consider Audible to again be a positive force for the industry, and I have decided to shake hands with them. Audible has promised to release their new royalty system for all authors sometime in 2024, though I should be testing it in the next month or so.

And…if you’ll allow me a moment, I’d like to say that this feels good. It isn’t what I wanted, but I’d begun to think that nothing would ever change–that even my voice, loud though it can be, wouldn’t be enough. Yet change IS possible.

I know that there are plenty of people out there who are tired of hearing about me and my works (I’m sorry–I do have quite the group of evangelists, and we can be an enthusiastic lot). However, for better or for worse, I am one of the bestselling authors in the world. Historically, one of the best ways to change things in my industry is for authors like myself to force it to happen.

Feeling this responsibility, when I was first talking to Audible about these issues in 2022, I made it very clear that I wasn’t just seeking some quiet deal that gave me an individual advantage. I wanted to see positive change for all authors. And while I don’t think I can take sole credit, I do feel like my efforts this year have had a significantly positive effect. Soon every independent author who publishes on Audible (and maybe, eventually, traditionally published authors with the huge publishers–depending on what New York decides) will be getting a larger cut of the profit, with more transparency about how that cut is allocated.

So, for those who have been waiting until Audible had the Secret Projects, you’ll get your chance soon. I hope you’ll support them, and support Audible for their decisions. And thank you to all of you who shared the news about my problems with the audio industry last year; I believe that pressure really did help. This is a victory for all of us, because happier authors able to make a better living (particularly those authors who are struggling in the midlist trenches) make for a more vibrant world for everyone.

One More Week! + Weekly Update Weekly Update One Week Until Launch

Hey, everybody! Time for some updates.

Well, we’ll start with the 3.0 of Stormlight 5. We are at, Bing! 65%. It’s looking really good. We’re gearing up for the finish of the 3.0. I will do a 4.0 after that, which will need to be turned in in June, last day of May, I believe. But anyway, getting really close. I’m loving how this revision is turning out. I don’t enjoy the revision. Revision is hard. But I do think it’s moving along quite nicely.

Skyward Legacy—I actually was at a writing retreat all this week, and so I didn’t get any done on Skyward Legacy. But I will jump back into that this week. I actually got home today from my writing retreat. It was very relaxing. It was nice and snowy up in the mountains, and I sat, and I worked with a nice view of the landscape.

So, because of 600 videos, really more because we finally hit 500,000 subscribers, so thank you for that milestone, we are going to do a Tuckerization. So, what’s a Tuckerization? This is a term in sci-fi/fantasy fandom for when you put somebody into a book, and we’re going to Tuckerize one of you into Stormlight 5. What this means is, you’ll be able to send me your name or the name of a loved one and a brief description. We’re talking, like, one line. And I’ll have them make an appearance in Stormlight 5. I still have a little bit of time to get revisions in. And so I’ll take one of the characters that was not described like you or your loved one, and I will describe them like you or your loved one, and I will fantasy-ize your name that you give me and stick you in there. 

This is something I’ve done in my books all the way since from the beginning. This is where Skar from Bridge Four came from. That’s Skar, my good friend, and now an employee here. And, you know, all sorts of my brothers-in-law and my family members and my writing group all made it in. And I’ve been doing this all along. So we’re going to let one of you do it. And we’re going to have a contest. And Adam named it. This was not my name. He called it the Tuck Me In Contest. He did warn me this time that he had come up with quite the name. We are going to do the drawing for who gets to be Tuckerized on the 29th of March during our final livestream for the crowdfunding campaign for Words of Radiance. So, we’ll have about a month to get your names in. 

There’ll be a link in the description, how you can go about that. Please only enter one time. And that’s not a please. We will be checking. And we will discard you if you are entered multiple times. So please only enter once. Don’t, like, go through all the hoops and send in, like, five under different emails or something. But if each of your family members wants to send one in, well, we’re OK with that. So yeah. We will be doing that the 29th.

Speaking of the crowdfunding campaign, we go live next week, one week from today, at 10:00 AM Mountain Standard Time. So that is our big, cool crowdfunding campaign for Words of Radiance leatherbound. There’s all kinds of cool things there. Make sure you check back here in one week, as we’ll be going over a lot of interesting things involved in this campaign. 

In the meantime, we have the Bondsmith video for you. If you want to watch the Bondsmith video, this is our last of the videos, I believe. And so you can go check that out. I will be back next week for a livestream, March 5th at 6:00 PM, as our kickoff livestream for the crowdfunding campaign. 

That is quite an auspicious day because also the commercial version of The Sunlit Man releases on March 5th. Book releases tend to be on Tuesdays, and I believe that is a Tuesday. And so you’ll be able to pick up the last of the secret projects in the TOR commercial version if you didn’t get in on our last crowdfunding campaign a couple years back.

So we added some additional hotels for Dragonsteel 2024 because we sold out of our previous block. So you all are very excited about coming to this convention. They were very, very happy at the hotel that we sold out of our room block. And it’s actually making it much easier for us to book things in future years because you all are so enthusiastic. So thank you. And if you want to book, we do have new hotel rooms, new blocks opened. Dragonsteel.com. And if you booked not using the links, feel free to rebook, because the more people who book through our blocks, the easier it is for us to reserve more rooms, to get the space we need, and things like that. So use the group link or call the hotel, and they can update your reservation and include the discount.

So, lastly, there were a lot of comments last week about the possibility of splitting up payments. Last time we did one of these, we got a ton of requests. And so we have talked to BackerKit, and this is a functionality they can do. They’re very good at working with us. And we found a way that we can split your pledge into multiple payments. And it’s something you asked for. I’m a little wary for a couple of reasons. And I want to talk you through these because I never want to be taking advantage of our backers and our fans. So, let me walk you through a few things.

So, if this happens, your pledge will be split into four months’ payments beginning in April. So, we are doing this because we hope it’ll be easier for some of you. But we have some caveats, and we want to be careful about this. Right? One of the reasons we want to be careful about this is we don’t want to be predatory in any way in encouraging you to buy something you can’t actually afford. So if you can’t actually afford it, don’t. There—you know, we will find other ways to get your books and things like that. 

Beyond that, because this is a crowdfunding, and because we order product based on what people pledge, it’s very hard, virtually impossible, to figure out things like refunds and whatnot. If you’ve done crowdfunding campaigns before, you’ll know that refunds are not generally a thing that are offered. And because of this, if you split your pledge, and then make some of the payments and then don’t make the others, not sure I can get any of that money back to you. So, what I want to say is, be very careful about this. 

Again, we don’t want to be in a position where we’re taking advantage of our fans. But at the same time, last time we did this, people were like, “That’s a big chunk of money if you buy one of the higher tiers. We sure would like to be able to split that into multiple payments.” We’re doing that. We aren’t charging any interest on it or anything like that. But shipping will be charged separately for all backers. So while we’ve calculated some flat rates for the pledge tiers and can give you pricing up front on those, if you add add-ons, those are calculated by weight. Which means it’s really hard for us to estimate your shipping costs until the pledge management phase. So the shipping might be tricky for us, particularly with splitting some of these up. We won’t ship any of the rewards until you’ve paid in full. 

And because of the logistics on the back end, you can’t access your survey in the pledge manager until you’ve paid in full. Does that make sense? So, it is a little bit complicated. The shipping and sales tax will be a fifth payment after you fill out the survey. And so, anyway, I don’t want you to get into any kind of mire because of this. So be careful. But it is a thing that a lot of you asked us for, so we’re trying it out to see if we can make it a little bit easier for some of you who would like to split those payments. 

So, that’s probably a long-winded explanation for something that you already understand. You’re like, “We understand how splitting payments works, Sanderson.” But, you know, I want to be very careful, and I never want to take advantage of you guys. So I do appreciate you. Use this tool if you think it’s going to help you and if it’s a responsible way for you to approach pledging on the books. 

I really do appreciate all the support, and we will be back next week with a really exciting launch video, and with the livestream that evening. And I hope to see many of you there.

A Very Boring Book Announcement + Weekly Update

Hey! Weekly Update time. I’m going to say hang out till the end. We’ve got a very fun announcement at the end here. But first, our percentages.

Stormlight 5, 3.0, is at, Bing! 50%. Made some good progress on that and am feeling really good about it, which is great because this draft has to be done by the 31st of March. So, Skyward Legacy, my revision of that is at, Bing! 25%. Moving just a little bit more slowly through that but still feeling pretty good about my progress there.

A few little quick announcements. We have a Why Crowdfunding video released on our website. I like to keep you guys up to date with, you know, why we’re doing what we’re doing. And so this, if you don’t know it already, why I choose crowdfunding for some of the things we do, including the upcoming Words of Radiance leatherbound. And if you’re an international backer, I went into a little bit about our shipping situation, which we’re continuing to work on. So you may want to check out that video and some of the other videos on the channel, which are gearing us up for our launch on March 5th.

One quick thing, we just got this in. I like to keep an eye on what other people are doing in the crowdfunding space when it comes to books. I think this is a great tool for authors and kind of a way to shake off both the control that New York has and the control that Amazon has. And so one of our friends, a long-time beta reader on our books, Darci Cole, has a Kickstarter for a special edition of her book. I haven’t read it, but I will be backing it so that I will get a chance to read it. But I like to keep an eye on this. You guys will see this from me now and then.

Mark your calendars. We’re going to be selling badges for Dragonsteel 2024 starting on May 7th. That’s when you’ll be able to get your tickets to the convention and the release party that is coming up for Stormlight 5. And if you want to be involved in Dragonsteel 2024, keep an eye out this Thursday, that’s February 22nd, on Dragonsteel social media channels, as multiple applications are opening this week. So that’s for exhibitors, for volunteers, and new this year, a panelist application. So we’re doing all of those fun things.

But now the announcement I told you about. So, maybe four years back now, it was during COVID, I as reading one of my favorite children’s books with one of my kids. You know. They love Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus. It’s one of my very favorites. And I was thinking about my favorite picture books, which were always these interactive ones. Mine, when I was a kid, was The Monster at the End of This Book. If you haven’t read that, it’s delightful. And one of my children had brought home another somewhat interactive one, which is The Book with No Pictures, which the joke is getting the parent to read it to you because they have to say embarrassing things. 

I love picture books, and having had three children grow through the picture book ages, the seed was planted in my head. And I’ve long wanted to do some picture book work. I’ve talked before about the Cosmere picture books that I want to do. This isn’t one of those. This is my first foray into a picture book. And it’s called The Most Boring Book Ever. The joke of this book, if you want to know, spoilers, mild spoilers for a picture book coming out later this year, is that the words do not match the pictures. The words are extremely boring, and the pictures are full of all kinds of exciting things. And I had a lot of fun writing this and kind of shepherding along, finding a publisher. 

And the really cool thing is, perhaps my favorite illustrator working in the children’s space is Kazu Kibuishi. He does the Amulet series. If you haven’t read it, it is the single best epic fantasy graphic novel for younger kids. My kids have all loved amulet. I have read all of amulet. And we approached him, our first choice, and he signed on to do the illustrations, which you can see some of here. So it’s Brandon Sanderson and Kazu working together. And I absolutely love how the book is turning out. We’ve got two images here that you can look at. It’ll be coming out later this year, in the Fall. Pub date is September 24th. So, we are really excited by this. 

Surprise! We’ve got a picture book coming. And we’ll be doing some more promotion on this. I know picture books may not be all of your thing, but I have a deep love for them, and I’m really excited by this one, and I think the experience with working on this is probably going to lead us toward some of the Hoid storybook stuff that I’ve talked about before. So anyway, have a look at those pictures and hopefully you’ll enjoy picking up a copy on September 24th.

Shipping Rates and What to Expect + Weekly Update

Hey! Brandon here with your Weekly Update. Let’s talk about percentages. So, Stormlight 5 is at, Bing! 41% through the 3.0 revision. Still plugging away on that, making a lot of good progress. And, Bing! Skyward Flight, I am at 20% on my revision of that. So I am making some good progress on both of these. Skyward Flight’s in my hands until I finish this. Then we’ll pitch it back to Janci for her next revision. Feeling good about both books. A little overwhelmed by Stormlight. This is the period of time where I have a few months to finish the last revisions on the book, and it’s sometimes a bit of a challenge but moving along.

Let’s see. Store tells me all the leatherbound books are back in stock. So, hey, you can go get leatherbounds if you want them. 

And I have a moderately big announcement for convention attendants. We decided we want to go to different places when we can, and whatnot. And so this year we’re going to go to C2E2 (Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo) for the first time. This is in Chicago. That’s April 26th and 27th. That’ll be me and the whole Dragonsteel booth team. So look forward to seeing us there if you’re in the Chicago region. I grew up in Nebraska, which might seem far away, but Chicago was the cool big city that we would always travel to. So, eight-hour drive because the United States is big. But it was kind of like my home town big city, so I’m happy to be going back.

Those are the big announcements, but I want to talk to you a little bit about shipping. Because we’re getting ready to crowdfund Words of Radiance leatherbound. And I promised you all I would come back to you with some information on shipping, particularly to Europe and Asia. So let me explain why it’s such a challenge for us. A lot of companies, what they do is they go, and they print their products—this happens with board games—they print their products in China, and then they have one shipping container go to Europe, one come to the US, and then they’re distributed there. The problem we have is we print our books in the US. We don’t distribute them from China. We like printing, when we can, in the United States. There’s just a bunch of reasons for this, mostly having to do with quality control. And exporting from the US is way more expensive than from China. So when a shipping container goes from China to Europe, they charge certain tariffs. When a shipping container comes from US to Europe, those expenses are much, much higher. So that’s part of why those prices are very hard for us to deal with. 

So what have we tried to do? Well, we spoke to FedEx about shipping a freight to them, a shipping container or whatnot, and having them distribute once they’re in the country. They came back with a price, and it’s more expensive than what we’re doing right now. Shipping by boat has increased, about quadrupled, in the last couple of years because so much more shipping has happened because of the pandemic and things like that. So we have this problem where we can’t really ship to Europe and have them be distributed there by FedEx. We went and asked a bunch of distribution centers, and they’re also more expensive than what we’re doing right now. Again, it’s partially because, number one, we’re still a small business, so the numbers that we’re shipping out don’t get us the good, really, really good break points. It’s mostly because we’re shipping from the US and not from China. If we decided to print our leatherbounds in China, then these prices for shipping could come way down. Just, we worry about quality control. We worry about, you know, we do print some things in China, but we worry that we can’t investigate the working conditions and things like that. And, you know, that’s a big deal to us. 

So the next thing we did, because of the success of our last campaign, we went and started negotiating better rates with FedEx and USPS, and they’ve given us some discounts. And we’ve been kind of trying to pass that along to you. We’re still looking at all kinds of options. If some of you out there have options for us, please let us know in the comments. It looks like, with this crowdfunding campaign, the cheapest thing to do is what we’ve been doing. Nothing else we’ve looked at has been any cheaper. And if you’re wondering why it’s so expensive for us, it’s that. It’s that we’re printing the books in the United States. And so regardless, we’re going to try to do what we can to keep those shipping costs down. We do not add any handling fees to our shipping for anything that we do. It is all straight pass-along what we are quoted and the best quotes that we can get. Included in that is your taxes and fees. So it is bundled with your taxes and fees for bringing a book into your country.

So, like, I understand. Right? You buy a book that’s $250, and then the shipping cost can sometimes cost almost as much, sometimes more than the book you’re buying, depending on the book. I get it. It’s just really painful to see. So anyway, if anyone has any solutions for us, you know, the only thing we can think of at this point would be to print in China, but then we have, you know, distribution problems. It’s like, we have no quality control over the fulfillment. We can’t say when places are going to send them out. And when you send us a ticket of your book, you know, being late or something, we would have no ability to really influence that. And we would worry about what’s going on in China sometimes with some of the facilities there, since we can’t get over there and inspect them ourselves. 

But let us know. Let me know in the comments. I will go and read these comments. And particularly those of you from Europe, who see these shipping costs and your eyes bug out. You know, let me know in the comments. Do you want us to do a print run in China and try your books coming from China instead of the US? Is that something you want us to investigate? We’ve been very hesitant and resistant to that. But, you know, you’re the ones who want these books. And maybe that’s the answer that we need to pursue. But if you think of anything else, let us know. But for right now, with this crowdfunding campaign, we’re going to proceed in the way that we’ve been doing it before while still trying to search for other options for the future. 

So, that’s where we are. Please give me some feedback. And I will be back next week with some more updates. 

All Leatherbounds are Back in Stock! + Weekly Update

Hey! Weekly Update time from Brandon.

So, Stormlight 5 3.0 revision is at, Bing! 33%. So, I am moving along through that, on target for my deadline at the end of April. Feeling very good about that. I’ve also been working my way through Skyward Flight, Book 1, that Janci sent me. I’ve been doing my kind of revision/draft/commentary on that for her, and that’s going really well. I don’t know what percentage I am on that. I’ll try to get it for you for next week. But those are my two main projects.

Hero of Ages and Well of Ascension leatherbounds are back in stock. Go participate in some shelf love this Valentine’s Day. Who wrote that? That’s really—that’s a really, really bad pun.

ADAM: That was me.

BRANDON: That was Adam? We have my notes here. Go participate in some shelf love, they say. Adam, you’re—no, you’re not fired. We like bad puns around here. I just hit that and I’m like, “What? Oh.”

So, short one today. Our last thing is that our BackerKit campaign launches four weeks from today. This is for the Words of Radiance leatherbound. So March 5th is the day. And we released the Elsecaller video. It’s on BackerKit right now. So, if you haven’t signed up for BackerKit, go watch that. It’ll show up on YouTube eventually. But we’re kind of trying to get people going that direction to get prepared for what’s coming on March 5th. So getting very excited about this. I’m going to be doing a whole bunch of recording for that today. So I’m looking forward to sharing it all with you in about a month.

Thank you very much. Brandon out.

New Cosmere Pins! + 500K Subscribers

Hey, everyone! Time for our Weekly Update. So, Stormlight 5, we are at, Bing! 25% of revisions done on the 3.0. Moving along at a good clip as I need to. As a reminder, my deadline for the 3.0 draft is the last day of March. So that’s when I need to have it all in, and I am continuing along at a pretty good clip, one-fourth of the way done. It sure doesn’t feel like I’m one-fourth of the way done. It feels like I’m just beginning.

Hey, cool milestone. We hit 500,000 subscribers on the channel without me even having to do anything begging-wise or slash whatnot, as often happens on YouTube to hit 500K. So, hey, awesome! Thanks for subscribing. Thanks for showing up and listening to me talk about books.

We have an update from the store. The Kickstarter pins are now available individually, and we put on a discount where if you buy three you get the fourth free. So, if you missed out on some of those and you want to grab them, you can go grab them. And that’s how we kind of decide to make a package, you just get to pick the three you want and the fourth one that you want to buy you will get for free.

As I’ve mentioned before, we have some deals coming up on some of my books at various retailers. I won’t go over them all again. We’ve got them in the description if you’re interested in that.

Last thing today, short one. We’ve been doing these cool videos on the channel about the various orders of Knights Radiant as we prepare for our BackerKit crowdfunding campaign coming up in March. And we’ve been doing a question associated with all of these, a kind of poll question/come up with what your answer would be for this order. We’ve been doing these on BackerKit. And the team thought I should throw one of these questions at you guys. You can respond here or, you know, head over to the BackerKit. But the question that’s coming up for the Lightweaver video this week, OK? My team came up with this question and I think it’s quite amusing. What would you Lightweave for a group of preschoolers if you were a Lightweaver? How would you entertain them. So, we’ll be asking that question on our BackerKit page pretty soon. You can join in the conversation, and we’ll be having the Lightweaver video going up very soon.

A Free Skyward Short Story + Weekly Update

Hey! Brandon here with the Weekly Update. Let’s start with Stormlight 5. My 3.0 revision is at, Bing! 15%. My target date for finishing that is the last day of March, and it’s looking pretty good for doing so. So, I’ll have to do that and then the 4.0, which is due the last day of May, and then it’s out of my hands. So, hopefully I can get all of that done. Follow along and we’ll see.

Skyward Legacy, as a reminder, is done, and we’re doing reads and things on that. You’ll start getting updates on the revisions on that eventually.

So, a couple fun things for you this week. So, we had, at our convention this year, a cool thing where you could make a spaceship origami based on the Skyward books. And if you did all this, you got this cool little story that’s a short story that Janci wrote in the Skyward universe. And we’re putting those—those are up for sale. This little pack comes with the story. So if you want to get that. But we’ve had a lot of questions about just reading the story, so the digital version of that is going up this week, and that’s for free at DragonsteelBooks.com. So, if you just want to read the cool little Skyward story, it’s quite fun. Janci pitched the idea. I think she did. Maybe I did. Either way, we came up with it together, and she did the writing, and it’s delightful. So if you want to do that, and if you want to fold your own spaceships, we had a professional design doing these. They turned out really well. You can pick up this little pack on our store.

The biggest question we’ve been getting is, “What about the pins?” The pins that were part of the Year of Sanderson, when are we going to be putting those up? Those are not up yet, but they’re coming on January 30th. And we’re still talking about it. I’ve suggested to the team that we should have a pack of eight for those who bought the Year of Sanderson. You got four of them, but not the other eight. And then, you know, things like that, groupings of them that you can get. But we’re not sure how that’s going to look yet. January 30th you’ll be able to buy your little packs of pins. I guess there’s 13, because there’s one of me. Whose idea was that? Was that Isaac’s idea? Anyway, there’s a pin of me. It’s Beardless Brando, but there it is.

Let’s see. What do we got? We’ve got our convention coming up later this year. And that’s a ways off, Dragonsteel 2024. But our hotel rates are up and available. And we’re selling out of those really fast. So I just want to make you aware, the convention room blocks are—there are under 20% left. Am I correct on that? So anyway, if you’re planning to come, you may want to have a look at that. Dragonsteel.com to look at that. We don’t have the tickets for sale yet, but those will go up. Spring sometime is when the tickets will go up.

So, a cool little limited edition press called Conversation Tree Press, they’re doing a new edition of the Foundation trilogy, and they asked me to write an introduction for the first volume. So, it’s a tiny print run. It’s 726 copies. So if you want one, go to ConversationTreePress.com. Foundation is one of my favorite science fiction novels. It’s a classic of the genre, and I do recommend it. I’m rereading it right now, actually, so that I can write my introduction, and it’s a delight. It’s really fun to read, like, a science fiction book from a hundred years ago now, and just be like, “What things were they thinking about back then?” It really is proof that science fiction is about the now, not the future, but it’s told through the lens of the future. So, it’s a great book. Definitely a picture of what the United States was like at the time. People are still smoking right and left in the book, even though it’s, like, the year 30,000. It’s really fun. But it’s also very well written. It once won an award for the greatest science fiction series of all time.

So, we have a few preorder campaigns coming up. When these come across our desk, Publicity’s like, “Hey, you should mention this just in case people are interested.” So on the 24th through the 26th, Barnes & Noble is doing kind of a preorder push, and this includes all titles of books coming out this year, and we noticed that will include Wind and Truth. So they’ll give, like, a 25% or, like, a 30%, depending on what tier of member you are. I think it’s only for members of Barnes and Noble. But if you are, 24th through 26th, go look at that. You can get Wind and Truth for a discount. 

Likewise, up in Canada, Indigo—I don’t think they have any stores in America, do they? Yeah. I’ve signed at Indigo’s before up in Canada. Very nice bookstores. I very much like them. And I know you Canadians watch and are like, “Oh, this is America only, isn’t it?” This time, we’ve got one for Canada. Looks like Indigo is running a promo for their upcoming sci-fi/fantasy books for preorders, and that includes The Sunlit Man, not Wind and Truth this time. But it’ll be 30% off. 

So just throwing those your way in case you wanted to go preorder either of those books in those specific locations. You can get a discount.

I appreciate you. Thank you so much. I’ll keep you up to date next week on how the revision is going. Until then, enjoy the books.