How Angry Should Other Writers Be About Brandon Sanderson’s $22M Kickstarter?
slate.com
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Brandon is a great writer, who created his own multifaceted universe through a large volume of interconnected fantasy novels. His world building is excellent and his work rarely disappoints. He practically saved the Wheel of Time, that had become a slog until he took over.
Other authors can be envious, but being vocal about that jealousy feels petty. It's a free market, the customer decides where the money goes.
I have a theory about readers. We are not interested in the story as much as how the writer's style presents it. I've passed some books after a chapter but when an audiobook version comes out - turns out it was actually a masterpiece.
Curious.
Striking a balance between the two things must be a huge challenge as an author.
This is also why fantasy genre tends to repel many readers, I think. A lot of fantasy novels come with worldbuilding stuff that is very challenge to present to a reader seamlessly, especially since the characters in the books already should know the information the reader needs.
A decent proportion of fantasy novels have invented language, maps, and indices full of trivia that readers must reference to get the whole picture.
I’d be far angrier that someone has to write this article but they have to make a living too…
Sanderson’s YouTube lectures of his BYU 2020 creative writing class:
Up until 6 months ago, I had read probably 3 books in 10 years. 6 months ago I started reading again.
I started with Rothfuss' Kingkiller Chronicles, books 1 and 2. That set a high bar.
Next was the Dune trilogy after I saw the movie. Overall it was good but a bit heavy for reading before bed, I often didn't manage for more than 30 mins before starting to drift off, whilst with Kingkiller chronicles I could easily read 1+ hours. I gave up on Dune book 3, I'll read it on vacation some time.
Then I tried Ready Player One, which opened up a whole world of realizing that books can be really bad, just like other art forms. I feel like I've never read a bad book before this (despite not reading for 10 years, I did read a lot as a teenager).
The first 25% of the book relies 80s references every other sentence, clearly the writer is trying to nostalgia trip the reader into enjoying it. Then after that he is describing playing a video game. People bemoan how there is a big cultural shift towards watching people play video games, but here is even worse; he describes a super boring boss battle involving an 80s arcade game. Every chapter I read, I got more annoyed at how bad the book was, until I realized I could just abandon it.
And now I just started Sanderson's Mistborn #1: The Final Empire, and it feels good to be reading something quality again.
Literally no one is angry at Sanderson for this. The article itself mentions only two tweets, out of which one is private (invisible to public) and the other gets clarified by its author's next tweet that she doesn't have a problem with Sanderson raising that much money, she was only pointing out how fantasy readers just settle with a few favourite authors and don't try anything new.
I wish people stopped reacting to such nonsense and giving it clicks and views.
We should be happy for the success of others.
(When the success of others is based on extraction, rent-seeking, and other methods which tend towards exclusivity... not so much)
However I didn’t know about his success in raising this much money. I read Mistborn, and then I tried to read some other books but found his writing to be immature and his characters flat and not compelling. Am I in the minority?
I had just finished reading the Expanse series, which are extremely well written, so maybe it was whiplash.
The Publisher obviously gave him an advance for the last two books. Not finishing them...and not returning the money (which tbh we don't know if he did or did not) is theft.
Plus it undermines trust and causes issues with the Publisher being able to deploy those funds elsewhere. He obv. no longer cares about the fans; he sold us off to HBO as soon as he could and has insulted us left, right and sideways. He is correct; he doesn't owe us anything, but we gave him millions collectively with the understanding that we would be receiving a conclusion to our series.
No problem; I'm never going to give him another cent, but if the Publisher cares about being taken seriously from now on, then they will find an author to finish the last two novels. They should have no difficulty. I'm quite sure that there is an author in Germany or The Scandies with the skill and lyric talent to do the last two books justice. We have probably never heard of them because a great many books are never translated for the US audience. It is thought that fantasy doesn't sell well here enough to make it worthwhile.
Meanwhile, HBO maybe in for a painful experience. Because yes, we are all still very angry at not only not having a completed series, but about how badly the TV series ended. Hollywood seems to have forgotten the books that they used to read when they needed to escape from things going badly. I am quite sure they all have favorite books; at the same time, they treat our Worlds badly and then wonder why we refuse to support the crap they produce at the levels they want/expect us to...hmmm, seems a no-brainer to me. Peter Jackson found success with a difficult and dangerous (life-threatening) project because he had enough sense to treat Tolkien's World respectfully...and he sold Weta for $2 Billion. By my reckoning, HBO has left Billions on the table by abusing Westeros and they won't make it back by making new spin-offs. But that's just my half penny...which matters not at all.
No, it's not.
If it was planned when he got the money, it might be false pretenses.
Otherwise, its (at most, depending on the actual terms) civil breach of contract.
> if the Publisher cares about being taken seriously from now on, then they will find an author to finish the last two novels.
The publisher doesn't own the copyright and can't contract out derivative works of the existing novels without the permission of the copyright owner (Martin).
I should have been more clear. It leaves a bad impression and all parties should want to clear it up. The issue of copyright isn't insurmountable. They would simply license the the works from Martin on a limited basis. Obv. it is short-term because we are only talking about the two missing books which were originally promised. No extensions to fatten the publisher's pockets. And I did say that we don't actually know the terms of his deal...but the perception is pretty ghastly. And yes, that is just my opinion....and matters it not a whit.
For an industry that constantly complains about how poorly it's doing, you'd think they would be more careful. Things like this have a tendency to leave a permanent stain. Look at journalism....it may never recover from the reputational damage done by the Buzzfeed era...and you have no idea quite how much it pains me to say/think/type that....but I believe it to be true. Publishing is facing the same Rubicon...and this the Vanguard.