Brandon Sanderson's Blog, page 6
March 14, 2023
Brandon’s Back! + Weekly Update
Hi! I’m back. I came back and it was 28 degrees, and there was a foot of snow on my car in
the parking lot at the airport. So I don’t know how long I’ll say but I am back from Hawaii. Thank you all for tuning in to see Isaac give you some updating last week.
And I have a cool update for you on Stormlight 5. I am, Bing! 33% of the way done. What does that 33% mean? Well, it means that I have finished the first major plot arch I was planning to write, and I am at about 150,000 words. Is that actually a third? Time will tell. But it feels like roughly a third of the book.
So I have written up a little blog post to post on Reddit. I have not done it yet because I have been a little bit behind since I got back from Hawaii yesterday. But otherwise, we have done a cover reveal for the US cover of Defiant.
We did manage to start shipping out everyone their second box for the Year of Sanderson. So you should have gotten that or should be getting it very, very soon. We are still working on getting the first box out. Many apologies. You can watch Isaac’s update last week for more explanations on that. Otherwise, I will be back next week. Theoretically, I will not have fled to warmer shores but will be here with you for the foreseeable future. Thank you, guys, as always.
March 7, 2023
Update on Printing Tress + Weekly Update
ISAAC: Hello there! I’m Isaac Stewart, standing in for Brandon today. I am over Creative Development at Dragonsteel. And Brandon’s in Hawaii, out of the office, having fun, writing on the beach. He has an update for us later in the video about how things are going with his writing there. So stick around for that, and you can listen to me ramble for a few minutes here about cool things that are going on here at Dragonsteel.
First off, one of the things that I’ve been thinking about lately, and a lot of the crew have been thinking about, are the shipping delays with Tress. Back last March actually, when the Kickstarter came about, we didn’t expect the response that we did. Before that, I was getting quotes from our print rep about the books, and we were looking in the 25,000 to 50,000 range of books quantity for each secret project. And so that’s what people were prepared for. Some orders were put in for cover material so that we could be on top of things. But the Kickstarter blew up, and at the end of it, after the BackerKit section, we put in an order to Bill, our print rep, and I think his jaw dropped because he said, “I thought we were printing 25,000 of these. So after that, he started working his magic. When you put in an order for 150,000 books, they’re going to have to—they have to make the cover material. They can’t just go to their warehouse and get it. So that was a big delay there is because of how many we were doing. In the meantime, our printer, and these are being printed at several different printers so that we can try to do things simultaneously—in the meantime, our printer was getting ready for 25,000, and then got the note that they were doing a lot more than that. This shifts printing schedules. We were told that they would do their very best, and they have been. I went out to the plant with Adam and Emily and Taylor. And we went and saw how things were running there. And the people there are working hard to get these books through.
Now let me tell you a little bit about why Secret Project 1 is delayed, specifically. So you saw some of the reasons why the delays are coming through on the material side of things. But on the printing side of things, we just made the covers too complex. And so it takes a long time, as you can imagine, to stamp 150,000 covers. So let me go through just a little bit about why that is. We have our cover here for Secret Project #1. And it looks like it would go through four stampings because we have a deboss. We have black foil, green foil, and then gold foil. So that sounds like four stampings. But the way that these machines work is that they have to run things for the front, the spine, and the back. That’s not the way it is with our leatherbound books. Our leatherbound books have two stampings. It just goes boom. Then they hand it over to another person and boom, and those get done. But these are a little more intricate. They have to take a little bit more care in lining up all four of those layers. And this type of book is not usually being printed in the United States right now. So there’s some learning curve on this. So what happens, is instead of stamping it four times, they have to stamp it four times on each of these elements. So it can go up to having to stamp twelve times on this. And that can take a long time with 150,000 of these. So that’s what’s going on there. The printer is doing its very best to get those all stamped.
In the meantime, Secret Project #2, those covers have been sent to another plant and are in process right now. We’ve seen the samples. They look awesome. And we are also at the same time simultaneously, doing Secret Project #3, and those look awesome too. Hopefully that explains a little bit about the delays. That is enough about Isaac geeking out about printer things and printer delays and materials and all that fun stuff. Let’s go to Brandon, who has a much more enthusiastic update from the beaches, I hope, of Hawaii.
BRANDON: Hey, time for my Weekly Update, at least my portion of it. Hello from Hawaii. Well, this has been a very nice couple of days. I’ve been alternating days. One day I’ll spend playing with my kids and things like this. And then they, the next day, tend to go off and do something like today they’re shopping. And so I hang out and work on some stories, which is what I love to do when I’m in such a wonderful place. There’s something very inspiring about it…
I do have an update for you on Stormlight 5. I am, Bing! 33%. This means I have hit 150,000 words. It’s a pretty safe third of the way through. It’s a big jump this week. But it’s kind of vague how long this book will be. The
previous ones were all between 400,000 and 450,000. This one I just hit a third. In fact, I’ll give you some spoiler stuff in a minute, just very little ones if you’re following kind of the threads on Reddit and things like that. I’ll tell you what I’ve finished in a very minimal spoiler but we’ll do that at the end.
I try to get around 2,000 words a day. Sometimes I get more if I’m in a very—if I’m in the right location, in the book more than where I’m writing. Meaning near the end of a sequence I tend to write a little bit faster. Getting into a sequence can be a little bit harder. I’m not machine-like in my writing, meaning I don’t hit a precise number every day. But the average tends to be around 2,000 to 2,500 today. It depends on what I’m working on and things like that.
For the spoiler-free portion. Hop away if you don’t want to see the spoiler portion. What I’ve been working on is the Szeth and Kaladin sequence for this book, which means I have finished that now. It means I’ve finished all the flashbacks and I’ve finished all Szeth’s viewpoints and all of Kaladin’s
viewpoints, which are somewhat intertwined at part of this book. And so I am now going to be moving on to another viewpoint sequence and try to get that all the way through. I’m going to be working on a big chunk of the characters now who have some integrated sort of thing. So it’s going to be mostly I’ll be working on Dalinar, Shallan, and some Renarin. There’s a lot of stuff going on, kind of interconnected, some Navani as well with them. The goal is to write that all the way through. And then, everyone that’s left over, will get their own set of viewpoints in kind of the last third of the chunk. Then I’ll do the interludes at the end, if I haven’t written them already.
So that’s where we are. Feeling really good about the book. Like how it’s turning out, and I’m excited to share it with all of you come November 2024.
February 28, 2023
Cytoverse Shipping Has Begun! + Weekly Update
Hey, everybody! Brandon here with your Weekly Update. Now, I will be gone next week, so someone else will be sitting in this chair. I hope you treat them well. I’ll be back in a couple weeks. I’m heading off to Hawaii with my family.
But for now, we have an update on Stormlight 5. Bing! 30%. This is, again, not a super accurate number because I’m somewhere around 135,000 to 140,000 words into it. It’ll probably end up at 450,000, so I’m probably really close to a third. But it’s hard to say how many words this will be because it’s the last book of the sequence. There’s a lot to do. So I’m being conservative with my percentages. I am writing pretty consistently these days at around 2,500 words a day on the project. So roughly 7,000 to 8,000 a week, which would normally be 2%. But again, I’m going to be conservative on this.
But we also have a nice little update from Janci because she’s working on the first book of the series we’re calling Skyward Legacy, which is the follow-up series to Skyward, and she is at, Bing! 4%. So I’m very excited by that because this is going to be pretty fun. In fact, the last book of the original Skyward series, Defiant, the cover’s out now. It’s available for preorder. I really like how the covers have been on all of these books. They’ve turned out very well. I’m very proud of this fourth and final of the series. That’ll be coming out this November. So show that some love. Let’s wrap up the Skyward series in style. And then, you know, we’ve got some cool new things in the pipeline with Skyward Legacy that we’ll talk about after Skyward is done. I don’t want to give you any spoilers or anything.
Some nifty things you may want to be aware of on this channel. We have a new video from Michael and Kate, called The Voices of the Cosmere. These are the wonderful narrators who have worked for so long on my books. In fact, I asked for them by name on Mistborn when the publisher came to me 20 years ago and said, “Who do you want to read Mistborn?” I said, “Get me Michael and Kate.” And they have been wonderful to work with ever since. And they are working with us on three of the four secret projects, and I am really pleased with what they’ve done. And so we have a cool video that we recorded with them that’s on the channel that I would point you toward. They are wonderful people and really interesting to listen to.
Another thing is we have Brandon’s Book Club coming March 2nd. This is the sort of read-along book club for Tress of the Emerald Sea, Secret Project #1. If you don’t have your own book club in person to read the book with and discuss, well, we’re going to have one here on the channel. Five weeks, and we’ll just do a chunk of it each week. And I believe the last episode of the five is focused on all the Cosmere tie-ins and things like that, and that the first four kind of go progressively through the book. So join us for that. I’ll be hopping in to the comment sections, both on Reddit and here on YouTube, and hopefully we can have a fun discussion, read along with people enjoying the book. So if you haven’t picked up a copy, you may want to pick up a copy because that’s what we’re going to do.
So last update is Kickstarter focused. So, what’s going on with your books? Well, a couple things. We have been working very closely with the printer. They got a little overwhelmed. This is a printer we’ve worked with before. They’ve done wonderful work with us in the past, but they’ve never done covers for us before. And it turned out that making the covers for these, because we have all sorts of foiling and things on them, was a little harder for the printer than they anticipated, which is explaining the slowdown. They’ve gotten a little behind on that, well, rather behind. And so they have—we have worked together, and for Secret Project 2, which is supposed to come out in April, they have moved all the cover material off site to a separate printing press to try working on those, to try to avoid some of the delays that have happened with the first one. And indeed, Secret Project 3 and 4 are at yet a different printer. Again, us trying to make sure that we don’t have this slowdown. We still don’t have our next shipment of Secret Project 1, Tress. We are promised they’re coming soon. The warehouse will update you. So watch on Kickstarter.
But we have control over the March box, which we have begun shipping already. We’ve put these together. We want people to start getting them as soon as the month starts. And so if you’re waiting on that, well, you won’t be waiting much longer because those will be shipping out. They’ve already started, and they should start arriving any time now. In fact, I bet some of you have already gotten them.
That’s our update on Kickstarter. We will keep you in the loop. And indeed, next week or the week after, maybe the person sitting in this chair, it could be Isaac, it could be Peter, it could be Kara, some member of my team will be here talking to you and they will probably update you on those things. I’m going to enjoy my time in Hawaii, and I will see you in three weeks.
February 21, 2023
Limited Hoid Boxes For Sale + Weekly Update
Hey, Weekly Update time! I’m wearing my Hoid shirt from the Hoid box. That will be relevant
in just a minute. But first, Bing! I am at 29% on Stormlight. I had a good week of writing. I also managed to sneak in a quick revision on Secret Project #4, which means I am up to date on all of those. They have all been turned in, and they are all ready to go to press.
We’ve had some minor difficulties getting the print books for you. I updated a little bit on Reddit, and maybe Isaac will come by in a future Weekly Update to explain. The main problem is we put a lot of cool foil on the cover of Tress and the printer is having trouble running them as fast as they thought they would because they’re having to run them through the machines multiple times. So we are looking at what we can do to make sure that doesn’t happen to our future
books, and we think we have some solutions. So anyway, I will let Isaac come and tell you that because I’m actually going to be on vacation for a few weeks. I am going to Hawaii with my family. And so the Weekly Update next week will probably be done by someone else in the company. Either Adam will come, or Isaac will come, or Peter, or somebody. They’ll figure it out. So you’ll have two weeks. And I will send them my percentages. And so it might be nice if Isaac came in and kind of explained some stuff with the bindery. But we are working on fixes and they are promising us they are still running them. They are just going slowly because they have to run them through the same presses multiple times to get all the foiling.
What else do we have going on? Well, Rhythm of War will be in a Kindle Big Deal this February. That is capitalized, Kindle Big Deal, so I assume that’s a type of promotion they do. The eBook edition will be on sale for a reduced price of $4.99, five bucks, from the 20-26th. I guess it’s called Big Deal because normally they have, like, Daily Deal. So this is a Weekly Deal. I guess that’s why they’re calling it that. So a week to grab Rhythm of War. Whenever these things come through and they offer to sell for a discount, I always say yes because I always think it’s nice to have the books up there for you guys to get them just a little more economically.
One update from the store that I prepared you for, the Hoid box. The Hoid box has been sent out. That was our February box. All people who backed the Kickstarter, who selected getting that reward, should have gotten their boxes by now. Because of that, we have some extra boxes that we are going to sell because we over-ordered so that we could make sure, just in case some were damaged or people didn’t get them, that we had replacements. So now that we know we have extras, we’re going to be selling them. They’ll be up on dragonsteelbooks.com tomorrow at 10:00 AM Mountain Standard Time. So if you want the Hoid box, and you didn’t get it, and want to have a Hoid for President t-shirt, along with some other cool things.
I’ll be back next week, and then it’ll be two weeks after that. So one more week of me, and then get excited about guest stars for a couple of weeks.
Weekly Update 2.21.23February 14, 2023
Brandon’s Bookclub Coming Soon + Weekly Update
Hey, Brandon here with a quick Weekly Update. I am back on Stormlight 5. I have written
roughly 4,000 words this week, which equates to 1%. Bing! 28%
We’re kind of rushing through this Weekly Update. We’re doing it last minute because of so many things happening this week, one of which was we did a whole bunch of cool guest recordings with various influencers, and we’ll be revealing those guests soon on social media. They helped with a book club around Secret Project #1, Tress, and we’re going to be posting those on our channel. So look forward to having a book club. Kind of we wanted something that felt a little bit like the TOR.com Rereads—there’s going to be a panel discussion talking about the book, and then a comment section, and a separate thread on Reddit that I will jump into and chat with you guys just about the book. So be watching. We’ve got the book club coming in March and we’re about to reveal the participants. The last little update, we’ve heard that there are more of Tress coming but we aren’t planning to get them until the 20th, unfortunately. And so we are packing up the March box to get ready to go. I’m sorry for those who are still waiting. We’re doing what we can to hasten the process along, and hopefully, we will be getting our next shipment before too much longer.
Feb. 14th Weekly UpdateFebruary 7, 2023
Defiant Revisions Completed + Weekly Update
Hey, Brandon here. Sorry about the canceled livestream last week. We had several
members of my household get COVID, so I decided to cancel the livestream and some other things, such as recording my Weekly Update last week, and I’m doing it on Monday instead. I have tested negative for COVID, so I shouldn’t be getting my wonderful staff infected here. But with an abundance of caution, I canceled last week, which means that we have to reschedule our livestream with Howard Lyon, the wonderful illustrator who worked on Secret Project 1, Tress of the Emerald Sea. We’re going to find another time, hopefully, this month sometime, to have Howard on. So I’ll keep you up to date. It’s probably not going to be this week but maybe next week. We’ll see.
Book update. I have, Bing! Gotten to 100% on Defiant, the last book of the Skyward series. This is my third draft and probably my final draft. Turning this one into my editor. It’s already been sent. Krista at Random House, Penguin Random House. And Peter is looking over it. And I am very pleased with it. So that means as of today I’m back at work at Stormlight 5. And so I plan to keep working on this through the end of the year. I do want to sneak in one more revision on Secret Project 4 because there are some things I want to tweak about that. But otherwise looks like smooth sailing and a clear schedule for me working on Stormlight 5.
Just a couple of little other things out here. If you didn’t know, Tress, Secret Project 1, is out. We’ve talked about that several times. But the publisher here in the U.S. doing the commercial edition, which will be a less expensive hardcover, followed eventually by a mass-market paperback, they said that they are going to have their edition in stores April 4th. So you can preorder that now. They have released their cover. That announcement came out a little while ago. So if you’re waiting until there’s a more economical version of it available, well, you can do that. It is coming. You could also go pick up the eBook or the audiobook right now, which we have tried to price very economically. For those still waiting for their print copies, one of the reasons that we pushed, and made sure that the book wasn’t coming out commercially until April, was so that we could get everyone their copies who backed the Kickstarter. We did get a second shipment last week. We’ve got about one-fourth of those books shipped out. We are waiting for the third shipment, and we’re not exactly sure when it’s going to come. But we’ve been working on the March box to make sure that that one won’t be delayed. And it shouldn’t be. It should go out the first week of March. Still, you know, dealing with supply chain stuff in the
publishing industry. It’s been quite an experience for all of us. And so even with the commercially published books. But things are moving along, so hopefully, everyone will have their books before too much longer. I’ll be back next week, theoretically not in my gym clothes at that time, but we’ll see. Thank you, guys, as always, for stopping by and seeing what’s going on.
January 30, 2023
Weekly Updates are Moving to Tuesdays + Weekly Update
Hey, Weekly Update time. So, things have been going very well with Defiant. I am, Bing!, 85% done with that book. I hope to turn it in very early next week with my self-imposed deadline, February 1st. And then I can turn back to Stormlight 5. So I’m feeling very good about that. The book is almost done. It’s looking pretty good, from beta reader comments. Unlike Cytonic, I will not have to do giant revisions on this one, so that’s feeling pretty nice. I did add a prologue. It didn’t have one before. But anyway, what else have we got going on?
Secret Project 1, Tress of the Emerald Sea, we finally got our copies in, at least one shipment of them. They’re sending them in truckloads. And so the warehouse team has been assiduously sending these out. They actually plan to have them shipped out by Friday. So when you see this, we will have sent out the entire shipment that we got, which was about 14,000 copies, which is only 14%. But the next truckload should be coming soon. And we’re just going to keep sending them out as they come. They are gorgeous, and already people are getting theirs, and we’ve seen unboxings starting to happen. So we’re really, really pleased that we were able to at least start shipping it in January, even if a lot of the shipping will still happen during February.
If you are interested in some of the worldbuilding behind that book, I hopped over and visited Mark Rober, and we did a little collaboration video. This is because when I was researching Tress of the Emerald Sea, some of the science behind the magic, I landed on one of his videos that he did, which was really helpful in doing my descriptions and things. So we reached out and said, “Hey! Hey, Mark!” Or “Oh, hi, Mark.” And we went and visited and it was awesome. We had a blast. You’ll probably be seeing some behind-the-scenes posts and things on that coming up. But anyway, go watch that video. He is a super cool dude and treated us really well and let my children shoot his giant tennis ball cannon, jump in his foam pit, play with all of his Nerf guns. They absolutely were in heaven.
So anyway, we will be back next week, where I will hopefully tell you that Defiant is finished and turned in, and that I am back on Stormlight 5. One little thing. We found out that my team is having to work on weekends to get these Weekly Updates out on Mondays, so we’re going to move them to Tuesdays because I would like my team to be able to take their weekends off. So in the future, at some point, you’ll start seeing Weekly Updates come on Tuesdays instead. This is just to give them a little more time and to have a more relaxing and better work/life balance. I didn’t know they were working over the weekend, specifically this guy behind the camera that you can’t see. And so we would like him to be able to take his weekends off. So therefore Tuesdays, maybe not next week, but pretty soon we’ll move these to Tuesdays.
Weekly UpdateJanuary 24, 2023
The Science of Magic: Tress of the Emerald Sea with Mark Rober
If you haven’t had a chance, check out the video I did with Mark Rober as we discussed the magic of fluidization in Tress of the Emerald Sea.
January 23, 2023
A First Look at Tress of the Emerald Sea + Weekly Update
Hey, everybody. Brandon here with—hot off the presses—the first copy of Secret Project 1, Tress of the Emerald Sea. This has been sent to us overnight super-fast so that we would have one to show off but the rest of them are on their way. They are in the truck now. They should be arriving, if they haven’t arrived already, very soon. The warehouse wanted me to let you know that they are going to be posting on their page showing off the books when they arrive and shipping them out. So we finally have these, and they are absolutely gorgeous. I think you’re going to love looking through them, seeing all the art. They’ve gone through a two-tone printing process. There’s a lot of color we’ve been able to intersperse throughout. But of course, it also does have these gorgeous, full-color inserts. If you ordered one of these, they’re coming.
The rest of you can still get them. These gorgeous Dragonsteel editions are for sale in a book bundle that we’re selling. We won’t ship these to you until they go out to all the backers. They get them first. But we did order enough that we can sell some to other people. And if there’s enough interest, we will probably keep reprinting them. So if you want one, we are selling them in various bundles. You can buy just the book, or you can buy the book, and the eBook, and the audiobook all together. That audiobook comes as a Spotify code. There’s been a little bit of confusion on the Spotify codes. They do work worldwide. Even in places where Spotify doesn’t sell audiobooks yet, you can still get the audiobook with our code. So, if you’re really feeling like you missed out on this gorgeous volume, you can still get ahold of them.
Now, these are a little bit expensive. TOR and Gollancz, my publishers, will be releasing wide market editions. They will be coming out in April. So if you look at this and you’re like, “Ugh, I love it, Brandon, but that’s a bit pricey for me.” We’re selling these at $55 for the book and $70 for the book, the eBook, and the audiobook, there will be a more economical version coming, and then of course paperbacks some time in the future, which will be even more economical. But of course, the eBook’s only $10, and the audiobook only $15.
So if you’re wanting to pick this up, I would point you toward it, or point you toward the Goodreads reviews. It turns out that people are very much enjoying this book. We’ve had a fantastic response to it. It might be my second best-reviewed book. It’s up there in the top five. I think it is right behind Words of Radiance It is definitely the best-reviewed non-Stormlight book I’ve ever written. So I’m probably preaching to the choir here, but I thought I would point you that direction in case you’re interested.
So what else have we got going on? I have been working my way through Defiant, the final book of the Skyward series. It is at, Bing! 66%. I have one more week to finish it and I’ve done about a third each of the three weeks, or the two weeks so far I’ve been able to work on it. I am expecting that I’ll be able to finish that on time. So I feel very, very good about that.
A couple other little updates for you. The Brotherwise minis campaign, if you’re interested in that, they have kept it open, even if you missed the actual campaign, on BackerKit, where you could preorder it. The last day for that is January 28th. So if you want to get in on this and you missed it, this is your last chance.
The Hoid boxes should all have gone out. This is the box for February that we’re shipping out early because Tress had a little bit of supply chain issues. You should be getting your box very soon, if you haven’t gotten it already! I’m very excited for you to get those.
January 17, 2023
Dark One: Forgotten Out Now! + Weekly Update
Hey, everybody! Weekly Update time with a special guest. We’ll get to him in a second. First, I want to give you an update on what I’ve been writing. I have been revising Defiant, the final book of the Skyward series, and I am, Bing! About 33% done. That’s as of Thursday. Hopefully, I’ll have made some more progress today as you’re watching/reading this, on Monday. But I’ve got about three weeks to do this, one week of which is done, so I am on target. To finish that. I hope to have that done by February 1st, and then I will turn my attention back to Stormlight 5.
Another big thing is, Tress of the Emerald Sea, Secret Project 1, is out. There are a lot of ways that you can get this. We are selling a bundle that includes the audiobook, the eBook, and the print book. I’ve always wanted to be able to do this. New York has made it very difficult. I remember being on phone calls with the head of McMillan back in the mid-teens, saying, “Why are we not selling bundles where everyone can buy everything?” They have all sorts of excuses. But I am doing it.
That said, the audiobook for this bundle, we aren’t quite equipped to deliver audiobooks on our own yet. We’re exploring that. But we have a wonderful partner, Spotify. Anyplace where Spotify has podcasts, you should be able to redeem that code that comes with this bundle.
We are also just selling the hardcover by itself. That does come with an eBook. And you can find that here. It’s available anywhere that we ship, which is quite a lot of countries. If you want the audiobook, you can get it, even if Spotify is not in your country, on places like Google Play and Apple Books and things like that. The audiobook is available!
If you’re waiting for a less expensive version of the print book, those are coming out in April through my various publishers. And you can find the Audiobook through various Audiobook retailers, except it is not available on Audible yet. Speaking of that, Mr. Wells is here, because we actually had another book launch last week. And we don’t want this one to get lost in the shuffle of Secret Project 1 because it’s a really cool book.
DAN: “It is. It’s awesome. So the first Dan and Brandon collaboration to enter the wild is called Dark One: Forgotten. I think of it as a prequel to Dark One, even though The Dark One novel is not out. But The Dark One graphic novel is out. This is before that. It is an audio exclusive. Brandon had the really cool idea of presenting this story as if it were a fake true crime podcast. And that is a format that only really works in audio. So it’s an audio original, audio native, and they did an incredible job with it. The actors are incredible. The engineering, the sound effects, full cast, full everything, it really does sound like you’re listening to some girl’s podcast.”
If you like Serial or things like that. It’s basically a fake version of Serial. That was my pitch on it. You don’t have to have any knowledge of anything to do with the IP. In fact, this is your best introduction probably possible to the thing that we’re working on together. Give it a try. It’s six hours long. Go pick it up. It is a blast. We think you’ll really enjoy it. Though there is a question of why is this available on Audible? And I want to talk about this.
For those who don’t know, I did not put the secret projects on Audible. I think Audible has some unfair pricing practices, particularly for independent authors, but for all authors in general. That said, I don’t dislike Audible. I think Audible is a great company with great people working at it. And I don’t want people to mistake that I am saying people should never use Audible. I’m trying to shine a light on the fact that Audible does not pay authors what I consider a livable wage, so to speak. It doesn’t quite work because it’s not a wage but you know what I mean. They are taking a huge cut compared to all other parts of the industry. And I want to shine a light on that. That said, they are a good company in a lot of ways. They have a good user experience, and we signed these contracts for Dark One before I made this decision on the secret projects. I might still have even done this with them after that because there are things that Audible’s very good at doing. And, you know, like I said, I’m not really trying to declare war on Audible. I’m just trying to highlight the fact that some aspects of their business practices I think are unfair. So this is available on Audible. It is a deal we did with Audible. And I am happy to point you at it even though it goes through Audible. I don’t want anyone to feel guilty that they have subscriptions to Audible. I still have a subscription to Audible.
DAN: “So do I. And most of my recent books have been published by Audible, not just available there, but they’re the original publisher. It is worth pointing out that Dark One: Forgotten is available on many, many different audiobook sites. It’s on Libro.fm. It’s on Google Play Books. It’s on a lot of different things. Audible’s just one of many.”
Yes. So you will see, probably, other things of mine get released on Audible. But I’m going to do my best to try and get them to treat authors a little bit better.
The last thing that I want to mention is those who backed the Year of Sanderson getting swag boxes. The first one we are halfway done sending out. They’ve already started appearing in the wild. I’m seeing openings and things happening. So those are going out. So if you ordered one, it should be coming very soon.
I’ll be back next week with another Weekly Update. Hopefully, I will be past the halfway point in Defiant at that point.
Thanks everyone,
Brandon
Dark One: Forgotten Out Now! + Weekly Update
