Hey! Brandon here for our next Weekly Update. This is an exciting one because I have been writing on the new Wax and Wayne book, and I am 7,000 words into it. I have had three very solid days of writing. I want to get around 2,500 average a day, but that’s going to be average across multiple months. And I usually write faster at the end of the book and slower at the beginning. And so having hit around 2,000 each day and then a little bit more on Wednesday says that I am really on a good track, I feel, for finishing this book.

Now, I’m worried this book might go long. I know you guys will be so sad if it does. I’m kind of estimating it at 150,000. The others I estimated at 100,000. And so that’s why I’m putting the percentage bar ticking up the way it is. It’ll be ticking up at around 1% equaling around 1,500 words for that reason. And so it says 3% right now. It needs to be updated. It’s not quite on track yet. It might be by the time this goes up. I am targeting getting done by August 1st. And so you can follow along and see how that is going. I’m just very, very pleased with the way the book is looking right now. I’ve had lots of fun with the characters already. So I think you guys are going to enjoy this.

I do have a question for you this week. One of the things that I’ve been asked about a lot is if we will do any art books based on the Stormlight or on the Cosmere. It’s one of the more common things I get asked, to the point that I went to Isaac, my art director, and said, “Maybe it’s time to start thinking about this, that we would release it after Stormlight 5. We would do a Stormlight focused art book.” And it’s a good place for it because the first five books, as I’ve said before, are kind of one arc, and when we come back it’ll be 10 years later in world. So having that book come out then is a good idea. It also means you’ll get a Stormlight something in between books 5 and 6, where there’s going to be a gap as I’m writing the next Mistborn trilogy.

The thing is, Isaac went and did some research, and he came back and said, “All right. There are a couple of different styles of art book that we could do.” And we’re not sure what you guys actually want. So I’m going to lay out for you three different art books. And our goal would be to be releasing this, like, not till like 2025, or something like 2024, somewhere in there, because the next Stormlight book is 2023. We’re looking at the gap in between, probably 2025. Maybe, depending on how it works, we would do a Kickstarter on it. We will see.

So the idea is that you could choose between art book that kind of is focused on the art entirely. This is showing behind-the-scenes sketches and how they became finished art. It is new pieces of art, but also concept art for the world, showing some of the original concept art that I got commissioned, and that sort of thing, and a big kind of coffee table book of the art of the Stormlight Archive. That is what Isaac was thinking that people want when they say, “art book.”

I was thinking something more like what we see having existed in The Wheel of Time and Song of Ice and Fire worlds, where it’s more a guidebook to the world, almost kind of in world, where there is artwork and also text. And the artwork is featured prominently, but it’s less about the concept art and more about the “here is the paintings of some of the characters,” along with talking about them and things like that. That is what I had imagined.

But then I realized there’s a third style of this that is more encyclopedia, that is companion piece that has sketches of the characters to show you what they look like, but it’s the least art-focused of the art books.

And so the question is, what would you like of these three? If you were going to pick one of these three, would you want coffee table book about the art of the Stormlight Archive? Would you want more guidebook, kind of with in-world sort of writings about it, and more like sweeping pieces of pastoral art showing different scenes and different locations and things like that, and then maybe some of the characters? Or would you like more encyclopedia with a lot more text and then more sketch work to kind of look at here’s what a character would look like? Maybe like something that this one would not be in world. It would be more like a companion for the books. Or I suppose there’s an option four, all three of these.

Maybe to not give you kind of a dilemma in choosing that, I will have this be attached with two polls. One is, if you could only have one of these three books, which one would you pick? And then the second poll would be, if we did all three together, would you prefer that to getting the one that you picked above? And so that’s going to be our poll for you. Thank you so much for letting me know about these things. And we will be looking at maybe doing one of these 2025-ish.

Poll Closed

Here are the results. Thank you all for your submissions!