Author Brandon Sanderson made $55 million last year

[Anonymous]

There's a fascinating article in Wired about Brandon Sanderson. He's a fantasy writer with a giant following, but gets very little press despite his giant following. He's a compulsive writer, but admits that his writing isn't good. His fanbase is so big that he has his own convention and 7,000 people attended.

https://www.wired.com/story/brandon-sanderson-is-your-god/

Since his debut, Elantris, in 2005, Sanderson has published 30-plus books, the biggest ones in excess of 400,000 words; there are far more if you count the novellas and graphic novels and stuff for kids. I’ve read 17 of the actual books. Or maybe it’s 20. Exactitude is pointless here. As the major books are all set in the same universe, which Sanderson calls the Cosmere, they’re all but meant to blur together.

* * *

At that rate, none of the words could possibly be any good. They’d be right, in a way, and that’s what Sanderson agrees with. At the sentence level, he is no great gift to English prose.

* * *

Of his own work, Sanderson has said: “I detest rewriting,” “I write for endings,” and “I write to relax.” It shows. He writes, by one metric, at a sixth-grade reading level.

At the convention...

Sanderson is a bad writer; I’ve already said it. Here at the convention, most of the panelists aren’t even writers. People don’t care about sentences. They care about Sanderson.

* * *
This is the Year of Sanderson, the panelists keep saying. Four new books, with special swag for backers! New toys and sparkly bookmarks! Now they’re talking about warehouse expansion efforts. Now they’re talking about a possible future bookstore, housed in a castle or something. “When will the Dragonsteel amusement park be built?” someone asks. The audience hoots.

Does anyone read his books? Fantasy isn't really my thing, though I've read some good YA Fantasy in the last year. The way his following is described, it feels religious (the writer talks about how Mormon his and his team are, so I'm not saying the fans are a cult or anything).

[Anonymous]

Yes, I've read many of his books. His writing is perfectly adequate and some people really like his conceptual ideas. He also works really hard at fantasy conventions and is pretty approachable.

IMO his best writing was when he took over the Wheel of Time series and wrote in someone else's style. His worst are the middle grade Alcatraz books, but my DD (target audience) loves them. His original adult books appeal more to men, IME. He's definitely not my favorite author but he's fine.

[Anonymous]

He writes prodigiously and from everything I've heard about him, he's a genuinely nice guy. Not my favorite author but a good one and I've read some but not all of his books, including the WOT books and some others.

The Wired hitpiece was bizarre and uncalled for.

[Anonymous]

I read his Mistborn books. What I care about with fantasy authors is finding someone who is a great storyteller. That doesn’t necessarily mean a great writer. He creates fascinating worlds and interesting characters people love.

Same with Sarah J Maas. I’m fully immersed in the “Maasaverse” because she’s a great storyteller. I’m hardly ever going to pick out a passage in her books and say “Look at this beautiful writing!” But I sobbed along with characters in Kingdom of Ash, House of Sky and Breath, etc.

[Anonymous]

My kids were absolutely obsessed with the Alcatraz books and read them dozens of times. I didn’t realize he had written other stuff.

[Anonymous]

I love some of his books and my daughter loves his YA stuff. His writing is good enough and the story telling is great; the ending to the Mystborn series made me cry. I found him through the WoT, but don't like Stormlight series. He writes enough that even if half of his stuff isn't for you, a book a year probably will be. I think he actually treats writing like a job and sits down and works every day like he's billing by the hour. His level of communication sets him apart. I signed up for his e-mail list to stay on top of one of his series for my daughter and can't believe how transparent he is about release dates and where is having difficulty vs. moving fast. He keeps several series going at once, but manages to actually finish books at a great clip. His website has weekly updates and progress meters on all of his writing that are actually accurate. He's pretty much the anti-GRRM .

[Anonymous]

My son liked a series of his books when he was 12-14 yrs old. I think that's his target audience, YA.
But a friend of mine who is also a successful YA writer pointed out that a lot of Brandon Sanderson's stuff is heavily influenced by Christianity.
Is this something you've noticed?

[Anonymous]

I think a lot of a popular author's followings feel religious. Think about LOTR, game of thrones, Neil Gamain, J.K. Rowling, etc. I mean, does anybody criticize J.K. Rowling's writing style because there is a Harry Potter theme park? I don't think Mormonism has anything to do with it.

I totally disagree with the characterization of Sanderson's writing. First of all, his writing is not on a sixth grade level. Not at all. Second, most popular novels are written on a 7th grade reading level, and that's fine. I wonder what reading level this author's article is on. I bet it's less than 7th. Like this sentence:

"At that rate, none of the words could possibly be any good. They’d be right, in a way, and that’s what Sanderson agrees with. At the sentence level, he is no great gift to English prose."

I mean, I understand it, but that's a worse sentence than any of Sanderson's bad ones.

Anyway, I have read most of Sanderson's most popular books. They aren't my favorite books ever, but I think he has a real gift for setting (which is probably why they aren't my favorite books; setting is the least interesting thing to me in novels). Some of his characterization is just incredible. A lot of his characters have mental illness, and he does such a good job humanizing those issues. I appreciate his approach to gender in his later books (he learned a lot from criticism of his earlier books), and his treatment of race and colonialism is really thought-provoking. I realize I'm making him sound like he's a leftist, but obviously he isn't; he is a professor at a Mormon university.

Anyways, this guy obviously doesn't like Sanderson, and that's fine, but I disagree with his criticisms.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My son liked a series of his books when he was 12-14 yrs old. I think that's his target audience, YA.
But a friend of mine who is also a successful YA writer pointed out that a lot of Brandon Sanderson's stuff is heavily influenced by Christianity.
Is this something you've noticed?

Well, the Bible is perhaps the most influential book in the entire world, so if this is true it wouldn't surprise me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My son liked a series of his books when he was 12-14 yrs old. I think that's his target audience, YA.
But a friend of mine who is also a successful YA writer pointed out that a lot of Brandon Sanderson's stuff is heavily influenced by Christianity.
Is this something you've noticed?

I don't think he's overly LDS in his writing. There are some themes, but he has multiple fully fleshed out belief systems operating at the same time in a lot of his books and he never seems to imply one is right or better. Where is does come through is that even his adult books don't have graphic sex scenes or language that you would be uncomfortable with a kid reading.

[Anonymous]

Sanderson responded on Reddit and took the high road:

'But he also feels sincere in his attempt to try to understand. While he legitimately seems to dislike me and my writing, I don't think that's why he came to see me. He wasn't looking for a hit piece--he was looking to explore the world through his writing. In that, he and I are the same, and I respect him for it, even if much of his tone seems quite dismissive of many people and ideas I care deeply about.

The strangest part for me is how Jason says he had trouble finding the real me. He says he wants something true or genuine. But he had the genuine me all that time. He really did. What I said, apparently, wasn't anything he found useful for writing an article. That doesn't make it not genuine or true.

I am not offended that the true me bores him. Honestly, I'm a guy who enjoys his job, loves his family, and is a little obsessive about his stories. There's no hidden trauma. No skeletons in my closet. Just a guy trying to understand the world through story. That IS kind of boring, from an outsider's perspective. I can see how it is difficult to write an article about me for that reason.


I do want to make it clear, again that I bear Jason no ill will. I like him. Please leave him alone. He seems to be a sincere man who tried very hard to find a story, discovered that there wasn't one that interested him, then floundered in trying to figure out what he could say to make deadline. I respect him for trying his best to write what he obviously found a difficult article.

He’s a person, remember, just like each of us."

https://www.reddit.com/r/brandonsanderson/comments/1200dzk/on_the_wired_article/

Meanwhile the author is getting flamed on Twitter

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My son liked a series of his books when he was 12-14 yrs old. I think that's his target audience, YA.
But a friend of mine who is also a successful YA writer pointed out that a lot of Brandon Sanderson's stuff is heavily influenced by Christianity.
Is this something you've noticed?

I don't think he's overly LDS in his writing. There are some themes, but he has multiple fully fleshed out belief systems operating at the same time in a lot of his books and he never seems to imply one is right or better. Where is does come through is that even his adult books don't have graphic sex scenes or language that you would be uncomfortable with a kid reading.

I was raised Mormon and I’m actually surprised about the way he deviates from Mormon theology. And the way he talks about religion seems to undermine the concept of organized religious institutions as a whole.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sanderson responded on Reddit and took the high road:

'But he also feels sincere in his attempt to try to understand. While he legitimately seems to dislike me and my writing, I don't think that's why he came to see me. He wasn't looking for a hit piece--he was looking to explore the world through his writing. In that, he and I are the same, and I respect him for it, even if much of his tone seems quite dismissive of many people and ideas I care deeply about.

The strangest part for me is how Jason says he had trouble finding the real me. He says he wants something true or genuine. But he had the genuine me all that time. He really did. What I said, apparently, wasn't anything he found useful for writing an article. That doesn't make it not genuine or true.

I am not offended that the true me bores him. Honestly, I'm a guy who enjoys his job, loves his family, and is a little obsessive about his stories. There's no hidden trauma. No skeletons in my closet. Just a guy trying to understand the world through story. That IS kind of boring, from an outsider's perspective. I can see how it is difficult to write an article about me for that reason.


I do want to make it clear, again that I bear Jason no ill will. I like him. Please leave him alone. He seems to be a sincere man who tried very hard to find a story, discovered that there wasn't one that interested him, then floundered in trying to figure out what he could say to make deadline. I respect him for trying his best to write what he obviously found a difficult article.

He’s a person, remember, just like each of us."

https://www.reddit.com/r/brandonsanderson/comments/1200dzk/on_the_wired_article/

Meanwhile the author is getting flamed on Twitter

I’ve always liked Sanderson, and this makes me like him more. I thought the author of the Wired article sounded petulant and resentful; not a good look.

I loved the first three in the Mistborn series, but didn’t like the Skyward series as much. I haven’t read anything else.

[Anonymous]

Something important to note about Sanderson is that he is trying to help us avoid a world where Amazon has a monopoly on publishing. He got a lot of criticism for getting so much money in his Kickstarter but among that criticism there wasn’t much acknowledgement that the whole point of it was to opt out of Amazon (and audible too).

[Anonymous]

I've read and enjoyed some of his books. He's not a prose master, but I found the books completely readable, and I've quit reading books where I liked the story but the writing was so bad that it got in the way. His prose doesn't get in the way.