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.

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.

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.

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. 

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.

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.

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.

Hey, Brandon here. Weekly Update time. We’ve been gone for a little while. Thank you for coming back to find out that Stormlight 5 is at, Bing! 100%. In fact, Stormlight 5’s 2.0 revision is at, Bing! 100%. That’s right. Because I wrote the 2.0. I stopped and did revisions. You might remember that from watching these Weekly Updates all through last year. I was periodically forced to stop and do revisions. Well, that means that I had only about 10%-ish of the book, more like 15% of the book left that I needed to do revisions on, and I did those during the break. And so we are actually on 3.0, which is at, Bing! 4%. This week I started, on Monday, the 3.0 draft. This will be probably a four-draft book. If it’s not a four-draft book, there needs to be another draft in there, then Editorial is going to panic, because they don’t have time for it right now. But it’s looking really good. So I will be working on the 3.0 of this for the next three months, I believe, and then I’ll have three months on the 4.0, and then, you know, then we go.

So, let’s mention also, with celebration, since we’ve had several hundred percents, Bing! Skyward Legacy is also at 100%. So, Janci has finished that book and delivered it to me, and I am starting to read that to do my pass on that during kind of the extra time that I sometimes am able to find.

So, let’s talk about some Stormlight stuff. Stormlight 5, when in truth, preorder is live! And you can go preorder a copy. Now, we are going to be celebrating this book launch at Dragonsteel 2024, our convention. Our group hotel rates are now available. We expect them to fill up. So, go to Dragonsteel.com to book if you want to come. And remember that there will be a package for Dragonsteel, if you’re coming, where you can purchase a signed, numbered copy. So, that’s in contrast to going and preordering, unless you want to have multiple copies of this wonderful book. You may want to wait for that, if you’re planning to come to Dragonsteel, so you can buy your signed, numbered copy. Not to tell you not to buy my book, but some of you, don’t go buy my book yet. Don’t preorder it if you’re planning to get one that other way.

What else do we got? Well, the Store lets me know that the Stormlight and Sanderson boxes are now available. So, if you want to get a pin of me, that one’s in the Sanderson box. That was the surprise that was slipped in, plus other fun stuff. So those are up for sale.

We have a crowdfunding campaign for the Words of Radiance leatherbound coming up—boy, we’re about a month and a half out now, aren’t we? We’ve been releasing videos about the various orders of Knights Radiant. And we thought maybe some people are curious why we’re doing this. Well, the theming for these Stormlight crowdfunding campaigns we do is kind of this idea of kind of picking your order, and then you get swag based on your order as kind of part of the campaign. So we thought we’d do these videos kind of helping people understand the various orders, help them maybe kind of self-select themselves into whichever order they want. So, if you haven’t been watching those, they’re really fun. You should go check them out. The team’s done excellent work on those. And Dan wrote up some really fun kind of introductions in-world to the various orders. You can find those here on this channel. Or, if you want to see them early, go sign up for our BackerKit page for the crowdfunding campaign because they launch there early. So you can watch them as they all come out, and you can be in the know when everybody else has to wait for the normal release on YouTube.

All right, two more things for you. First off, for Utah locals, Dan—not me—and the Dragonsteel Events Team will be attending and sponsoring the Authors in the Dungeon event at the Provo Mall this Saturday. Dragonsteel will have a booth there with some items that are not available online. So, you may want to go to that. I have a prior engagement, but everybody else is going to go have fun with that. And there will actually be some cool authors there, including Christopher Paolini, who’s coming back into town. He likes it here, so he’s going to come to that. We have Brian McClellan. I don’t know why you would want to go see him. You know, Brian, eh, you know. If you do, tell him he stinks. I’m joking. Brian’s a good friend. Charlie Holmberg, she will tell you that I stink. She is also a wonderful person. Trisha Levenseller will also be there, and lots of other people. So, go check it out. Say hi to all my author friends. Make fun of McClellan. And a fun time will be had by all.

So, last thing, speaking of my writer friends. This is pretty exciting. Lynn Buchanan, who is an employee here at Dragonsteel over in the Art Department, she took my class a number of years ago and then ended up becoming my TA at my class, and then ended up getting hired into the Art Department after just kind of being a really useful person who was there doing stuff for us when we needed it done. She actually got a book deal recently, last year. Some of you who maybe took the class during those years she was TA-ing, where she was stressing about selling a book, well, it actually happened. She got a book deal over with Harper. And I have read this book and it’s quite good. And she’s doing a cover reveal this week, and this is the cover of The Dollmakers. I think you guys would enjoy this book. It’s got a really fantastic magic system. Lynn is great. We really love Lynn, and we’ll be, you know, helping her book out. We don’t, you know, I have no vested interest in this other than Lynn being a friend of mine and me thinking that her book is definitely worth you guys reading. So, we’ll probably have her on the channel to have her chat with you about what it took to sell the book in today’s market environment, and we’ll probably let you in on some early chapters and things like that. So, congratulations to Lynn, and hopefully you guys will all check out her book.

And I will be back next week to talk about progress on Stormlight 5’s third revision. Until then, my nose needs to go back to the proverbial grindstone. So, revisions away!

Introduction

Whew, what a year! As I write this, the first of the December boxes are arriving in the hands of backers—meaning the Year of Sanderson has come to a close. By the time this goes live, I believe all of them will be shipped. Twelve boxes, with four books, delivered (mostly) on time!

This was a big year for us, full of grand ambitions—and full of Herculean efforts to fulfill those ambitions. Largely, we were successful!

As is my yearly tradition, I’m going to go over all the things happening in my world—giving a yearly retrospective, but also talking about how things stand right now. As always, this is going to be a bit exhaustive, but I hope you enjoy the ride.

Part One: The Kickstarter

A large part of this year was, as I’ve already mentioned, been dominated by fulfilling on our Kickstarter campaign. Now that it’s done, we’re all taking a deep breath and letting things wind down a little. So what’s next?

Well, if you didn’t see my video concluding the Year of Sanderson, I think it is time to slow down. That’s an idea contrary to the way business normally works—every corporation is always focused on growing bigger and keeping customers spending money. That’s never been the way I see things though.

I still remember sitting down with another author soon after I was given the opportunity to complete the Wheel of Time, and this person (a good writer, and wise in the ways of business) said to me, “Now, make sure you go back to them immediately and pitch another follow-up series in the Wheel of Time world so your future is secure. If I were you, I’d want to have a dozen books under contract, so you can keep writing these for the next twenty years.”

That might have been the smart business decision, but I rejected it immediately—because that wasn’t what the Wheel of Time needed. And when others came to me and asked if I wanted to do a follow-up trilogy, I told them what I’ve always said: Robert Jordan didn’t want it done, so I don’t think I can do it in good conscience. More isn’t always better.

In this case, we’ve had five(!) new releases in one year. I don’t want or intend this to become the norm. I might try something like it again someday, but in the meantime we’re going to slow back down. Next year, we’ll likely only have the one book release: Stormlight 5. In addition, we are not going to try to continue the subscription box. We put all our best ideas into this year’s boxes, and we’re extremely pleased with the quality of what we created. It’s time to be done.

That said, we do have two crowdfunding campaigns coming this year. Nothing quite as ambitious as the Year of Sanderson, but both (I hope) worth your time. First will be the Words of Radiance leatherbound campaign, happening on BackerKit this time instead of Kickstarter. That is in March. We will follow that with Brotherwise and the Stormlight pen and paper RPG later in the year, something that many of you have been asking us for. I’ll give Brotherwise some room to update you later on that, as well as time for my crowdfunding team to talk details about Words of Radiance.

So, we’re not stopping—and I hope you’ll find something to love in what we’re doing. However, we’re not also going to try to replicate the lightning in a bottle that was the Year of Sanderson. I’m happy to walk away from that experience victorious, and let the quality of what we created stand for now.

Rosharan Flora and Fauna by Romain Kurdi

Part Two: My Year (Other Than Kickstarter)

All right, with all of that out of the way, it’s time to talk about what I spent the year doing! So here’s a rundown, using my spreadsheet of work done as a guideline.

I spent January doing revisions on Defiant…then wrote Stormlight 5 for (checks notes) the next eleven months.

Yup.

When I started the year, I had about 100k words written. I now have 450k written. Across eleven months, that’s a pretty good writing clip. Not insane, but respectable. I stopped a few times for revisions, but I spent the entire eleven months straight working on the book. It’s looking good, but I’m scheduled for six more months straight of revisions (which is the most difficult part of the process for me). So wish me luck!

Part Three: Updates on Primary Projects

Stormlight

Book Five (now called just Wind and Truth) is basically done in rough draft form. I’m writing this update on the 2nd of December, and I assume by the time this goes live on my birthday that I’ll be very, very close—if not done already.

I do want to warn you that Horneater (the novella about Rock) will not be part of the Words of Radiance crowdfunding campaign. Why not? Well, I’ve realized that I would like to be able to write that sometime in the next couple of years when I’m missing Roshar, and want to jump back to tell a story there.

I don’t know when this will be though. It will likely be between one of the upcoming Mistborn Era Three novels. So…we’ll see. But I don’t want to offer it to you in the campaign since I don’t know when I’ll be writing it. (Sorry.)

Once I finish Wind and Truth, the Stormlight Archive novels will go on hiatus as I write the next few projects listed.

Mistborn

Era Two is finished as of last year, and my next mainline Cosmere project after Wind and Truth is Era Three, along with the long-awaited Elantris sequels.

I expect to start Ghostbloods (the name of the Era Three series) on January 1st, 2025. Half of next year will be revisions on Stormlight, and the rest I’ll spend catching up on things (like doing a White Sand prose novel update) that I’ve let languish a little too much lately.

Cytoverse

Skyward is done! Please, if you haven’t picked up a copy of Defiant, consider doing so. This has been my best received, best selling, and best reviewed non-Cosmere work. I’m extremely pleased with how it turned out.

Janci is taking the reins for a sequel series we’re calling Skyward Legacy. And so I’m going to let her put a section in here talking about it!

Janci here! By the time you’re reading this, I should have turned in the first draft of the first book in the Skyward Legacy trilogy. I’m working on the end of the climax now, and I’m thrilled with how it’s turning out. I’m very happy with the book, and am looking forward to revising it over the next few months to get it into publishable shape.

The series begins a few months after the ending of Defiant. The working title of book one is Blightfall (this is not the final title, so don’t be surprised if it changes!), and the book follows Skyward Flight, now a special forces unit, from the perspectives of Sadie and Arturo. The humans of Detritus are no longer prisoners or rebels, but full citizens ready to take their place on the galactic stage. Skyward Flight’s first responsibility is to help the DDF Diplomatic Corps make contact with other humans in the old Superiority human preserves—and what they find there may pose a new threat to their alliances, their galactic reputation, and the future of humanity itself.

My intention for this series is for it to be all the things you love about Skyward while continuing the stories of many familiar characters. I hope you’ll give it read when book one comes out!

The Four Secret Projects

I thought I’d put this here to interrupt any questions. I do intend all four of the Secret Projects to be standalone stories! You might see these characters again, but for now let’s just allow them to be something currently rare in the fantasy/sf world: books meant to be read on their own, and enjoyed without sequels.

Part Four: Updates on Secondary Projects

Elantris

As I said, I’m getting ready to start into this series again! Expect more updates next year as I finalize my outlines for this and Ghostbloods. Elantris will soon become a Primary Project again.

Songs of the Dead

Back from the, uh, proverbial dead, this book is actually ready! It’s been sent out to publishers, and there are offers on it. So finally, the long-awaited story about an American necromancer living in London is a go.

Now, I did want to say one thing about this project. I built the outline and the world, but as things have gotten so busy with the Cosmere—and because revisions were taking a long time—I made the tough decision to hand this project completely to Peter Orullian, the coauthor.

I did two passes on the finished novel, but I’ve realized I won’t have the time to support the rest of the series in that way. The Cytoverse is really the only non-Cosmere thing I can devote time to right now, and while I think this novel turned out great, I have decided that I’m not going to be involved in any sequels. (Other than the worldbuilding being mine.) Now, some of you might try to read between the lines on this, so let me say, there’s nothing to find other than what I just wrote here. Peter and I get along great. I think you’ll love the book. It’s just that I can only do so much, and some five years ago I started to realize I had to limit the number of series (particularly non-Cosmere ones) that I can work on.

Peter fought valiantly for this book though, as did my agent—who really believes in it. So it finally came to fruition. I expect Peter himself to make an appearance on my livestreams in the future to talk about the book and the process, and I’ll keep you all updated. But do expect to see this one released in the near future.

White Sand

The time is nearly here. In July I expect to take the graphic novel, my original book, and a lot of notes I’ve been making, and create the definitive novel version of White Sand! Khriss is a major player in the Cosmere, and so having her book be readable in a prose version is an important task I want to get to.

Maybe we’ll have this one for Dragonsteel 2025.

Dark One

Dan is still working away on our novel here! I’ll let him give you an update.

Hi! Dan here. Dark One is a wonderful project, and one we both believe in strongly. Unfortunately, as listeners of our podcast are aware, I was diagnosed with depression in 2021, and 2023 is the year it came to a head and messed everything up. So the book’s been delayed while I get my brain in order, but that’s mostly done now and I’m working hard on a new revision of Dark One.

In the past we’ve talked about this as the first of a trilogy, but the more we look at it, the more Brandon and I have decided that it wants to be a single book. Certainly more stories could be told about this world and these characters, but this first story, now that we see it take shape, is flowing very naturally into a clean and simple novel of about 150k words (give or take).

At the same time though, we are also expanding the story’s scope a little to include Christina and Sophie, the characters from the audio prequel Dark One: Forgotten. They were intended to be one-off characters exclusive to the prequel, but not only did we fall in love with them, they can help solve a lot of logistical puzzles we hadn’t quite cracked in the original outline. All in all, the Dark One story will be a little shorter but a lot more deep and rich. We think you’re going to love it.

Again, if you missed Dark One: Forgotten, the audio original Dan wrote last year, it’s awesome.

Super Awesome Danger

You might remember that when I did the reveal for the Year of Sanderson I had five manuscripts, not four. The fifth one (let’s call it Secret Project Zero, so that in discussing it people don’t think there’s one they’ve missed) was a middle-grade graphic novel about two brothers, based loosely on my children. One designs a video game named Super Awesome Danger, and the other gets trapped in it.

It’s a whole lot of fun. We’ve moved forward on working on some test images for the graphic novel, and I thought I’d share those with you! We’ll be producing this completely in house at Dragonsteel, using Ben McSweeney (who did the Shallan’s Sketchbook illustrations, among others) and Hayley Lazo (artist for the Alcatraz books) to create the art, using my script.

Back in 2019, my son Oliver drew a picture of a creature he named Robog—half robot and half frog—and he gave it to me. I hung it up on my mirror and looked at it every day for many months. Super Awesome Danger started as the story of Robog and developed into a tale of two brothers who design a video game together, and then one gets trapped in it.

Part Five: Updates on Minor Projects

Warbreaker/Rithmatist

No movement. (Remember that part about me only being able to do so much?) Someday.

Reckoners/Alcatraz/Legion

Finished. Nothing to report, though Steven Bohls is still interested in doing some more Reckoners, so maybe someday.

The Original

I keep letting this one slip through the cracks. Will try to get you all an ebook.

Unnamed Dan and Isaac Cosmere Novels

Both have made progress this year! But we’re doing this slowly and right. So nothing really to report yet, though Isaac has some words farther below.

Various Cosmere books I Might Write Someday

The Night Brigade, Dragonsteel, the Silence Divine, the Grand Apparatus, Mythos, the Aether World book series…wow, this list keeps growing. My my.

Part Six: The Mistborn Film, Hollywood, and Video Games

The Mistborn film has been in development but has run into some hiccups and is on pause for now, but I hope to have more news to share in 2024. But really, there’s not much else to report. Snapshot (the novella) is still being tinkered with at Universal. It might be the only thing under option right now, because I basically put everything else on hold, despite interest, as I decide on a strategy.

Tress would make a pretty great animated feature though, don’t you think?

Part Seven: News from My Company

Here’s the part where Emily, then each of my VPs, get to weigh in on things they want to talk about!

Emily Thoughts

Emily here. In case you were not aware, Brandon and I sort of divide up responsibility over the departments at Dragonsteel. He oversees Creative Development, Editorial, Narrative, and the Marketing half of Publicity and Marketing. I work closely with Operations, Merchandise & Events, and the Publicity half of P&M. As all of these departments have grown this year, Brandon and I found that we needed a bit of help to keep all the balls in the air!

Fortunately, we have Becky Wilson as our Executive Coordinator, and Ethan Skarstedt as our Special Projects Coordinator. Both of them have been invaluable to us in a hundred different ways.

During 2023, the things I’ve been juggling included meetings, meetings, and more meetings, travel, guests, the Dragonsteel Construction Project, and the convention. I’m grateful for supportive colleagues, friends and family members who have made this circus not only possible, but a whole lot of fun as well.

Creative Development (Isaac Stewart)

It was a blast meeting many of you at this year’s convention. I particularly loved seeing so many copies of the White Sand graphic novel come through. The omnibus was a labor of love, and we appreciate your patience as well as Dynamite’s hard work getting the book out. I hope you’re enjoying all the cool new things we added to it!

Many of you have asked how the Nicki Savage novel has been coming along, so here’s an update. The first draft is finished, clocking in at 118k words, about the same length as Shadows of Self. It needs a lot of revision before I show it to Brandon—he and I have discussed the story, but he hasn’t seen the manuscript yet—so getting it ready for him to read is my next step. As we build out Dragonsteel’s Creative Development department, I foresee more time to work on the revision.

This year Ben McSweeney has stepped into more of a hands-on directorial role, taking the reins orchestrating and contributing to things like the art for Defiant, working on that with one of our in-house art magicians and Taynix experts, Hayley Lazo. Ben and Hayley are both hard at work on the pages for Super Awesome Danger.

As the company grows and we work with more artists and artwork, more people need access to what we’re creating. Rachael Lynn Buchanan, my assistant, focuses on artist relations and helps me get feedback to the artists I work with directly on our specialty books. She’s also a fantasy author—her debut novel, The Dollmakers, comes out from HarperVoyager on August 13th, 2024 (more details here). Jen Neal manages our database of art assets, prepares print files for our Dragonsteel editions, and generally serves as our nexus of getting files to the those who need them.

This year, we added two more art coordinators to our team. Priscilla Spencer joined in January, and Anna Earley in February. Priscilla primarily liaises with Merch and Events, shepherding merchandise designs and sometimes contributing her own (I’m looking at you, Mistborn holiday sweater). Anna is primarily responsible for making sure there’s lots of nice art for the convention (like the DDF propaganda posters!), creating designs and illustrations (ie. the cover for Hyperthief), and shepherding some cool upcoming projects.

What was once a job for a mapmaker scribbling away in Brandon’s basement is now a much more monumental collection of projects. I’ve felt the weight of the bridge gradually get lighter as each team member has taken hold and lifted. We’re now practicing side-carry, but we’re preparing for the day when we’ll leap across chasms.

Narrative (Dan Wells)

Hello! Dan again. You already heard from me in the Dark One section, but let me give you a bit of an update on everything else. We’ve recently passed my one-year anniversary as an official employee of Dragonsteel, and—as is typical with publishing—most of that time has been spent on things the public won’t see for another year or so. That said, we have published a few projects:

First, we were able to release Dark One: Forgotten, which is amazing and incredible, so if you haven’t listened to it yet please check it out. It is currently in audio only, due to a fun formatting gimmick we wanted to try, but that gimmick worked with flying colors, so even if you don’t do a lot of audiobooks you might want to give this one a try.

Second, we’ve also published Hyperthief, a short story set in the Cytoverse that Janci and Brandon did, but which I helped put together. Some of my job as VP of Narrative is to write, and some of my job is to help other writers. It’s awesome and I love it.

So what does the future hold? So many wonderful secrets. Dark One is tentatively planned for 2025. A very cool [REDACTED] is planned for 2024. And of course my first Cosmere series is deep in pre-production; I’ve built an extensive outline, and I’m working with Brandon and Isaac on some amazing worldbuilding, and I love it all. This is a story I’ve wanted to write for literally years, and having the opportunity to co-write it with Brandon is a dream come true.

Publicity and Marketing (Adam Horne)

Adam here! It’s been a crazy year, and I can’t believe it’s finally over! Or at least, nearly over. With all the new books—including all of Tor’s editions of the secret projects—the book clubs, the many hours of livestreams and other video content on YouTube, we’ve been incredibly busy—a sentiment that I imagine is being shared by everyone here at Dragonsteel.

But, as Brandon said above, we have two more crowdfunding campaigns next year, so things may be slowing down, but they’re only slowing down a bit for us. You may have already seen our first teaser for the Words of Radiance campaign go live this morning on BackerKit (we plan on posting it to YouTube on tomorrow) that highlights some more information about the Knights Radiant and their spren. We’ll be having these launches every week leading up to the campaign start on March 5th, so be sure to stay tuned on Brandon’s YouTube—and other social channels (TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter X) for the latest information.

If you want to stay up to date on all our merchandise, you should follow Dragonsteel Books on their TikTok and Instagram too!

We have more exciting videos and social content planned for the rest of the year, and we can’t wait to show you!

Operations (Matt Hatch)

Hello, everyone! Matt here. It’s hard to believe we’ve arrived at the end of the Year of Sanderson. During my first week at Dragonsteel, in February 2022, I was just as shocked to learn Brandon had written these secret novels as you must have been. At that moment, I knew my journey here had drastically changed. Fast-forward to today, almost two years later, and the last of the Sanderson Fan boxes have been shipped. It’s incredible. I’ve looked forward to this moment, to stop and breathe and celebrate this end and beginning with everyone. I hope you will join me in thanking those who worked day after day to help fulfill this one-of-a-kind journey that was the Year of Sanderson. We did the seemingly impossible, together. And, now, a new beginning approaches!

So, what changes await Operations and Human Resources at Dragonsteel in 2024? First, we are working on new job opportunities! If you don’t want to miss them, follow our socials and keep an eye on the Jobs page on BrandonSanderson.com. Beyond that, my departments have the joy of working on ways to make each employee’s journey awesome, and we have a lot of plans to do just that in 2024. Thankfully, it has been my pleasure to have a fantastic team whose nimble and capable efforts help make this possible. My great appreciation goes out to them, including Hazel Cummings, Makena Saluone, Braydonn Moore, Lex Willhite, Kathy Sanderson, Emma Tan-Stoker, and Jane Horne. And, of course, we couldn’t do this without the queen of Special Ops herself, Emily Sanderson. Cheers to all that is yet to come in 2024, for fans and fellow employees alike!

Merchandise and Events (Kara Stewart)

We had an idea of what 2023 would have in store, but what a whirlwind year it’s been! And an absolutely monumental journey for the Merchandise and Events team. We just want to start things off by thanking all of those who we were fortunate enough to have on our bridge crew. There were chasms that we simply could not have crossed without them.

Our story this year truly begins in March of 2022 with the launch of Dragonsteel’s Kickstarter campaign, where nearly 200,000 fans felt the thrill of the unknown and pledged to bring Brandon’s wild dream to life. In 2023, you joined us for the release of four new books (on top of the already highly anticipated release of Defiant), worldhopped through eight additional fan bundles, and still had excitement left to spare for numerous new Dragonsteel releases outside of the campaign—have you seen that ramen bowl? Through it all we’ve sent over 775,000 individual shipments in one year—more shipments than Dragonsteel has done in all previous years combined!

And we haven’t just been packing boxes either. In the middle of everything we moved to a brand-new warehouse (over ten times the size of our previous one), attended Tampa Bay Comic Convention, and planned and executed our best convention yet! Dragonsteel 2023 sold out with 10,000 attendees, and we were beyond excited to see so many of you in person. It really meant the world to us. And, if you didn’t get the chance to see it, we built a brand new booth!

The fun doesn’t end there: our Words of Radiance Leatherbound Campaign is prepared to launch March 5, 2024 on BackerKit; our merchandise team is hard at work creating incredible releases for the coming year; and Dragonsteel 2024, running December 5-7, is going to be epic. Stormlight 5 is almost here!

Editorial (Peter Ahlstrom)

The success of the four Secret Projects showcases the fantastic job the whole Editorial team (Kristy Gilbert, Karen Ahlstrom, Jennie Stevens, Betsey Ahlstrom, and Emily Shaw-Higham) did over the past couple years. Working on those plus Defiant ran us ragged, but it also prepared us for the next big thing.

Coming off a hugely successful Dragonsteel convention where the Editorial department got to talk to a constant stream of you wonderful readers across both days, we’ve now buckled back down to work on Stormlight 5. We have part-by-part deadlines scheduled for the book throughout the beta reading, line editing, copyediting, production, and proofreading stages until late summer. It’s already a hectic time, and it’s going to get even more so once we send the final pieces of the book to the editors and the beta readers on January 8th. Wish us luck! (And a huge shout-out to the beta readers and gamma readers, without whom the books would come out in much worse shape.)

Lightweaver Foundation (Jane Horne)

Hi everyone! This is Jane Horne, Director of The Lightweaver Foundation. 2023 was an amazing year, and that was because of all the incredible support we had through your donations and volunteer efforts!

This year The Lightweaver Foundation was able to expand our donation capabilities and was able to support a variety of educational initiatives and disaster relief programs, as well as support our core efforts to address basic needs and literacy for all ages.

If you would like to learn more about The Lightweaver Foundation, please visit https://www.lightweaverfoundation.org/ , where you can expect a full year recap posting in early 2024.

Part Eight: Projected Schedule

This one is going to be a little hard to gauge this year, as while a few things are set, a lot of others are in flux. For example, I’ll be writing Ghostbloods straight through, maybe with Elantris sequels in between, and don’t want to release any of them until they are all done.

Let’s assume they’re all 200k words, and I can do roughly 300k a year. That means I’d be writing them all of 2025, 2026, and 2027. That would put the first one probably coming out 2028, five years from now.

In the meantime, we’ll be working on some other cool things, as listed below.

December 2024: Wind and Truth

Spring 2025: Skyward Legacy One(?)

December 2025: White Sand Novel/Dark One(?)

Spring 2026: Skyward Legacy Two(?)

December 2026: Skyward Legacy Three(?)

December 2026: Horneater(?)

December 2027: TBD

December 2028: Ghostbloods 1

Summer 2029: Elantris 2

December 2029: Ghostbloods 2

Summer 2030: Elantris 3

December 2030: Ghostbloods 3

Note that Dan and Isaac’s Cosmere novels will be in here somewhere, as will Super Awesome Danger and likely a collection of all my non-Cosmere short fiction.

Also note that in the past, I’ve been bad at projecting things this far ahead. (You can go look at this section in previous State of the Sanderson posts to see.) So this is all subject to change!

Part Nine: Updates from Publishers around the world!

Last year, I started letting my overseas publishers have a chance to tell us what they’re working on and releasing in the upcoming year. I’m happy to give them the floor for a little while! Please show them love—they spend a lot of money on translating and publicizing my books, and many of them have become dear friends over the years.

Brazil (Trama)

In 2023, Trama Brazil proudly published Tress of The Emerald Sea and Words of Radiance. In 2024 they will launch The Frugal Wizard’s Handbook for Surviving Medieval England in April and Oathbringer in May. They are delighted to announce the release of the first three books in the Mistborn series, scheduled for Q3—spring in Brazil. (Previous versions from an old publisher have long been out of print, so it’s great they’ll be available again.) For international fans eager to acquire the Brazilian editions, Amazon remains the optimal platform. Trama says: “Thank you for your continued support, and we look forward to sharing these literary adventures with enthusiasts around the world.”

Czech Republic (Talpress)

They just published the 10th anniversary edition of Warbreaker in October. 2024 will bring Defiant, three of the four Secret Projects, and The Lost Metal. They’re available in Talpress’s eshop and in bookstores throughout the Czech Republic.

Denmark (Ulven og Uglen)

Most recently Ulven og Uglen published the Danish version of The Way of Kings as En konges vej, Stormlysfortællingerne 1, split into two hardcover volumes. Danish articles about translator Jakob Levinsen’s work on this and other books can be found here and here. In the fall of 2024, Ulven og Uglen plan to publish the Danish version of Words of Radiance.

France (Livre de Poche)

In 2023, Livre de Poche published Tress of the Emerald Sea, The Frugal Wizard’s Handbook for Surviving Medieval England, Yumi and the Nightmare Painter, Skyward Flight, and The Sunlit Man. In 2024 they’ll release Warbreaker (10th anniversary edition), The Lost Metal, Defiant, and all six Alcatraz vs. the Evil Librarians books collected in 3 volumes. Fans from other countries can buy the books in French bookstores, or in local bookstores that ship internationally, and if not on the online bookstores such as Place des libraires, Mollat, Décitre, Furets du Nord, Dialogues, and Cultura, or online retailers like Fnac.com, Amazon, Rakuten, Momox and many others.

Egypt (Kayan)

Tress of the Emerald Sea was published in fall 2023. In 2024 they will release Legion, The Frugal Wizard’s Handbook for Surviving Medieval England, and Yumi and the Nightmare Painter. They’re also working on translating The Sunlit Man and the Mistborn trilogy, but release dates aren’t set yet. You can find Kayan’s Arabic translations on the following sites: Al-Shourouk Bookstores, Diwan Bookstores, and Aseer AlKotb.

Germany (Droemer Knaur)

In 2023 Droemer Knaur published Cytonic and Skyward Flight. In 2024 they we will publish Defiant. They are also on deck to release Yumi and the Nightmare Painter, but likely in 2025. Their books are available worldwide, e.g. via Amazon.

Germany (Piper)

In 2023 they published Metall der Götter (the German translation of The Lost Metal), which their partner Hörbuch Hamburg also released in audio. They also published Hüter des Gesetzes, a re-release of the German translation of The Alloy of Law (formerly known as Jäger der Macht with a previous publisher—it had been out of print), so at last both Mistborn eras are available in the same format. Additionally, 2023 saw a complete re-release of the Mistborn series (“Die Nebelgeborenen” in German) in e-book format, which also hadn’t been available for some years. Their most recent release was Weit über der smaragdgrünen See (Tress of the Emerald Sea), and in February they’re publishing Handbuch für den genügsamen Zauberer: Überleben im mittelalterlichen England, the German translation of The Frugal Wizard’s Handbook to Surviving Medieval England. Their online shop at www.piper.de ships internationally.

Netherlands (Volt)

Dutch publishing house Volt made the Reckoners series available in audio in 2023, to find a new audience for it.

Netherlands (Iceberg)

In 2023 Iceberg released Station Zonnewind (Sunreach), and in 2024 they plan to release ReDawn, Evershore, and Defiant, plus The Frugal Wizard’s Handbook for Surviving Medieval England. The best places to order books internationally are Bol.com and Amazon.nl.

Spain (Ediciones B/Nova)

In 2023, Nova published the Spanish edition of the four Secret Projects simultaneously with the Kickstarter releases, a box set of the Mistborn Original Trilogy with the new covers premiered by Tor, and Defiant. In 2024, they will release paperbacks of the Mistborn Original Trilogy and the Mistborn Wax & Wayne Series with the new covers premiered by Tor, and they will do their best to join the US launch date of Stormlight Archive 5. In Spanish, Brandon Sanderson was interviewed by El Mundo in April, by El País in June, and La Sexta TV in February.

Türkiye (İthaki)

İthaki will publish Tress of the Emerald Sea early in 2024, as well as Yumi and the Nightmare Painter and Dark One for release right before Türkiye’s biggest book fair, in Istanbul at the end of the summer. İthaki’s books can be purchased on Amazon, as well as their local Penguen bookstores.

Poland (MAG)

In 2023, MAG published Tress of The Emerald Sea, The Frugal Wizard’s Handbook For Surviving Medieval England, Yumi and the Nightmare Painter, and The Sunlit Man. In 2024 they will release the White Sand omnibus in June and Stormlight 5 in December. These online bookstores ship their books worldwide: Amazon.pl, Empik.com, Swiatksiazki.pl.

Here are some links to the reviews and articles from 2023: Article 1, Article 2,

Video 1, Video 2, Video 3, Video 4, Video 5

Serbia (Mipl)

In 2023, Mipl published all four Secret Projects in full color with the illustrations. In 2024, Mipl plans to publish all books from the Mistborn series, as well as Warbreaker. All Mipl books can be ordered online on their webshop mipl.rs, and on the biggest Serbian bookstore website delfi.rs. They have released a video (in Serbian) with the translator and editor of Brandon Sanderson’s books, where they discussed his work, challenges they encountered, as well as some other fantasy books they would recommend to Brandon Sanderson lovers. You can find the link here:

Part Ten: Conclusion

This document is always a lot of work to create, and I feel like I’ve done a marathon when we get it all together! I realize that for an author, I have quite the large business these days. Nobody else I know has more than a few assistants.

I’ve always had big dreams and big ambitions. However, it’s important to me that you know that…well, I’m still me. If that makes sense. I still spend most of my time writing the books themselves, despite all of this, because that’s the part I love the most.

This started as a guy in his basement telling stories, and I genuinely think I’d be happy if it had stayed that way. I like this a little better, but it can be overwhelming at times! My promise to you, however, is that I always try to keep a good work/life balance. (As good as someone in my position can.)

Thank you for all your enthusiasm and support this year in particular. It’s been incredible to see.

For now, I just hope to continue entertaining you—and surprising you—for many years to come.

Brandon