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Brandon Sanderson's Towers of Cash


SpaceChampion
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I think the Stormlight thread is closed so starting this new one for a more general Sanderson thread.

Yesterday he announced he has secretly written 5 novels, one of which is a Y.A. story probably going to be made into a comic book, the rest are adult novels with 3 for the Cosmere universe and one standalone.  He publishing these himself through his Dragonsteel business, as a monthly loot box.

One day later and it's raised about $17 million dollars.

Update:  Biggest Kickstarter of all time, now nearing about $26 million and still climbing.

Edited by SpaceChampion
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So… wait… there are Cosmere books… and they are in a loot box?  How’s that work?  I sign up and then hope I get the book I want?

I really liked Sanderson’s shorter stuff. Mistborn/Elantris/Warbreaker were all great short reads.  His short stories are generally fun reads.

Stormlight leaves me exhausted though.

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The Wax and Wayne series used his skillset the best, in my opinion. It (mostly) avoided the teenage soap drama that was much of the original Mistborn series, and it moves much faster than the absurdly overstuffed Stormlight Archives. I can't say I remember anything about the characters or plots, but I recall really enjoying them for an afternoon or so each.

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36 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

I am really seriously considering signing up for the deluxe loot box with all three versions of the books. $500. Sounds kinda stupid, right? Especially since just a week or two ago I was telling @Tywin et al. that I was too old to bother with special editions.

You're also not too young to buy me a Rolex. :leer:

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6 hours ago, Rhom said:

So… wait… there are Cosmere books… and they are in a loot box?  How’s that work?  I sign up and then hope I get the book I want?

 

The books are delivered quarterly, and if you purchase that option, you get merch in the other 8 months of the year.

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Impressive fundraising. Obviously, the subscription boxes have a lot of costs entailed -- designer(s), production of merchandise, fulfillment, returns, and so on -- but if the 40-60% profit margin from subscription boxes cited here is accurate, than based on current numbers the 8 subscription boxes alone are going to bring in ~$2.4-3.6 million given that they seem to have a notional retail pricing of $40.

Of course, this is a Kickstarter and the profit margins may in fact be lower -- but even halved, that's $1.2-1.8 million in profit after costs. And that's not counting the profit margin on the books themselves, where production and distribution costs are going to be way, way lower for the e-books and audiobooks. All told, right now Sanderson's looking to walk away with at least $2-2.5 million. And that's just for now, who knows how many more sign up, and the FAQ mentions that the books will eventually be released through "standard" channels, so there'll be more sales there.

Starting to feel like he's going further into dipping his toes into just getting out of regular publishing and just controlling his brand and IP entirely in-house.

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I don't ebook or audio book, so I'd only be interested in the physical copies and the price is far too high for those. I'll wait until they get a traditional release.

Sanderson is okay, but not outstanding, so I'm happy to wait to catch up (I still haven't read Warbreaker, the second and third Wax & Wayne books or Arcanum Unbounded, and nothing at all of his non-Cosmere books).

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1 hour ago, Werthead said:

I don't ebook or audio book, so I'd only be interested in the physical copies and the price is far too high for those. I'll wait until they get a traditional release.

Sanderson is okay, but not outstanding, so I'm happy to wait to catch up (I still haven't read Warbreaker, the second and third Wax & Wayne books or Arcanum Unbounded, and nothing at all of his non-Cosmere books).

If you watch the video he says these books will likely never have a traditional release. 

 

14 hours ago, Rhom said:

So… wait… there are Cosmere books… and they are in a loot box?  How’s that work?  I sign up and then hope I get the book I want?

I really liked Sanderson’s shorter stuff. Mistborn/Elantris/Warbreaker were all great short reads.  His short stories are generally fun reads.

Stormlight leaves me exhausted though.

If you order the books you get one a quarter in 2023.  Guaranteed 4 books, with ebooks getting delivered at midnight and physical/audio copies getting delivered as soon as they get them done.

 

4 hours ago, Ran said:

Starting to feel like he's going further into dipping his toes into just getting out of regular publishing and just controlling his brand and IP entirely in-house.

Unlikely in the near future.  He's got signed contracts for most of his cosmere work and publishers still provide a ton of value since this kind of thing is ridiculously labor intensive.

Here's an article about it that I read this morning that I thought was pretty interesting: https://whatever.scalzi.com/2022/03/01/very-quick-thoughts-on-brandon-sandersons-mega-kickstarter/

 

11 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

I am really seriously considering signing up for the deluxe loot box with all three versions of the books. $500. Sounds kinda stupid, right? Especially since just a week or two ago I was telling @Tywin et al. that I was too old to bother with special editions.

I almost did that, but the shipping costs bump it up quite a bit.  Even the hardcovers are an extra $40 for shipping, the loot boxes were another $100.  I "settled" for just the trio of book formats, but it bumped me up to about $300

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22 minutes ago, aceluby said:

If you watch the video he says these books will likely never have a traditional release. 

That contradicts the FAQ. I would guess he's thinking of self-publishing them as not "traditional", but I do believe the books will be made available outside of the Kickstarter down the road, probably under his own imprint.

25 minutes ago, aceluby said:

Unlikely in the near future.  He's got signed contracts for most of his cosmere work and publishers still provide a ton of value since this kind of thing is ridiculously labor intensive.

Will be interesting to see if new contacts with traditional publishers are announced in the future or if he simply starts publishing more and more like this.

Scalzi's points are good, but it's clear that Sanderson is specifically in a position to get out of the traditional publishing world if he wants, once contractual obligations are settled.

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1 minute ago, Ran said:

That contradicts the FAQ. I would guess he's thinking of self-publishing them as not "traditional", but I do believe the books will be made available outside of the Kickstarter down the road, probably under his own imprint.

Will be interesting to see if new contacts with traditional publishers are announced in the future or if he simply starts publishing more and more like this.

Scalzi's points are good, but it's clear that Sanderson is specifically in a position to get out of the traditional publishing world if he wants, once contractual obligations are settled.

I'm not sure about the FAQ, just going by what he said in the video - which boils down to he wouldn't commit either way.

I could see him possibly bucking the traditional publishing system 5 or 10 years from now, but I could see this as a secondary option and leverage for better contracts going forward.

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1 hour ago, aceluby said:

If you watch the video he says these books will likely never have a traditional release. 

 

He says the premium hardcovers probably won’t, but he doesn’t rule out then being released as regular books (ie without the illustrations)

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Yeah, they'll be released as regular paperbacks at some point, either through his own publishing house or through his standard publishers, otherwise you're just penalising all your poorer fans.

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I saw someone youtuber proclaim this is the future of publishing and thought that absurd for all the reasons Scalzi cited.

However, there may be room for a company that acts as a merch designer / loot box fulfiller for authors they contract with.  I don't know if Sanderson's Dragonsteel company is positioned to do that, but I doubt there is any better candidate.

Edited by SpaceChampion
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Sanderson's books are quite fun to read, and I'd gladly pay 160$ for four books, but paying 140$ shipping on top of that is a no for me. Plus, I've had bad experience with Serbia customs office when receiving my reward for backing The One Ring RPG. Original pledge of 80€ was increased by some 30-35€ for shipping and then I got slapped with 60-65€ in customs and handling fees. Considering I'd likely have to pay some fees for this as well, books would be likely to end up close to 100$ each which is absurd.

As fun as waiting for these packages would be, it's a no-go for me. I'll wait to see if they come out via other channels and get them then. If not, I'll just find something else to read.

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