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.