Brandon Sanderson has proven that with keen marketing, one can get woke with products and still win as his latest crowdfund hits $10 million for Hoid’s Storybook Collection, combined with a new “secret” novel titled The Fires of December.
Even though he faced a lot of fan backlash on Wind And Truth, the very end of his Stormlight Archive for a change in tone with modernisms and an extreme push of the LGBTQ agenda, it seems the Sanderson train is unstoppable.
Earlier this year, Sanderson announced that he has an AppleTV deal to adapt his works, and he’s writing the first draft of the Mistborn screenplay, the adaptation of many of his fans’ favorite trilogy of his work.
His rise to prominence started when Harriet Jordan, widow of Robert Jordan, picked Sanderson to finish The Wheel of Time. Though Sanderson’s prose was not anywhere near the level of Jordan, he managed to complete the work with a satisfying ending, and it caused many fans to check out his fantasy, such as Mistborn, Elantris, and Warbreaker, which spun off into other series in interconnected fantasy universes he calls The Cosmere.
The concept intrigued many fans, and Sanderson built a very loyal and cultish following based on posting updates of his rapid releases, something few in epic fantasy had ever done.
In 2022, he made history by taking to Kickstarter, abandoning traditional publishing for “Four Secret Novels,” which lit the internet ablaze, making over $41 million in sales for the four books. This solidified Sanderson as a bona fide superstar in the industry as he was finishing up his contract with Tor Books for his Stormlight Archive series.
Since then, Sanderson has toyed with a couple of other crowdfunds, including a highly successful leatherbound edition of his Mistborn books, but this Hoid’s Storytelling Collection marks the first time he’s launched a new novel on the platform.
His success comes from both his marketing of his Cosmere, a push from the mainstream, and building a giant mailing list from his initial Kickstarter with more than 165,000 people to market to directly. That level of dedicated customer is something every author dreams of attaining, and Sanderson has found it.
It helps that, beyond the storybooks, he’s offering a new “secret novel” echoing the marketing of his past Kickstarter campaign and getting fans back excited for a new work. But with this latest campaign, it looks like the Sanderson machine is keeping going full steam ahead, and he is likely to remain the king of fantasy for years to come.
What do you think of Sanderson’s new crowdfunding success?
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