Fantasy author raises record-setting $41 million on Kickstarter for secret books
Author Brandon Sanderson was looking to raise $1 million on Kickstarter to fund his four latest books written during the pandemic. He got a lot more than he bargained for.
The author of several well-known epic fantasy series, including "Mistborn" and "The Stormlight Archive," raised more than $41 million for the four secret books, all of which will be stand-alone novels.
On his Kickstarter campaign, created by Dragonsteel Entertainment, Sanderson's own publishing company, Sanderson wrote, "These books are an excellent place to start into my work, as they are each standalone novels that require very little previous knowledge of anything I've written before."
The campaign is the biggest project in Kickstarter history by pledge volume and is more than double the previous record holder. It also set a record for both the most money raised in the first 24 hours ($15.4 million) as well as the most funding and backers for the same time period.
Sanderson isn't revealing much about the books, but that didn't seem to deter fans from opening their wallets. Depending on the donation, the untitled books are available in formats including hardcover, e-book and audiobook and will be delivered throughout 2023. For some donors, swag boxes of material related to the author's work will be sent. The only other information the author is revealing is that three books are set in the Cosmere universe and one is not.
In a YouTube video linked to his Kickstarter campaign, Sanderson explains why he was able to write the four novels during the pandemic. Before the pandemic, he had a heavy traveling schedule of 80 to 120 days a year. But once everything shut down, traveling was off the table, and his desire to branch out with new books could be fulfilled. "This extra writing time has become very precious to me," he said. "Before 2020, I had begun to let all these ideas wither away, as there wasn't time for them."
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Sanderson has been a regular on USA TODAY's Best-Selling Books list with 28 bestsellers to his name, including three novellas co-written with Janci Patterson. Four of the novels he wrote were to complete the final books in Robert Jordan's epic series "The Wheel of Time" after the author's death. Of those, "The Wheel of Time" novel "A Memory of Light" reached No. 1. The series has recently been turned into a television series on Amazon.
For readers unable to wait until 2023 to get a Sanderson book in their hands, "Skyward Flight: The Collection," co-written with Patterson, will be available in print on Tuesday. The series of novellas – "Sunreach," "ReDawn" and "Evershore" – was previously available only as e-books and audiobooks.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Brandon Sanderson sets Kickstarter record at $41 million for new books
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