this post was submitted on 20 Aug 2024
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On the other hand we have Brandon Sanderson with 20 year roadmap and consistent release coupled with all the secret novels that he wrote.
I have this sneaking suspicion that he has this black magic power to suck all the creative will of writers, including GRRM and Patrick Rothfuss.
With Brando the Mando Sando it boils down to work ethic and process.
He has said in lectures that while writing a first draft, an author should be able to push out a thousand words an hour. That's pretty reasonable if you're a decent typist and you're just focusing on getting rough ideas down. Once he's got a draft, he throws it to his editor(s) who gets to work. If he's gotten a draft back from them with notes, he gets on that. Otherwise, he's cranking away at the next first draft.
The man is prolific because he's got his team dialed in and treats it like any other job. He shows up with a plan and executes.
Then he turns around and tithes to one of the most socially backwards, openly corrupt churches to be formed in the last 200 years.
If that wasn't bad enough, he scammed the community into backing a 43 million dollar kickstarter for an exclusive, never-to-be-released-on-audible project. Not even a year after release, he reverses completely and releases everything to audible without even a credit to the backers.
Absolute scam artist. I'm 85% convinced he's gonna come out with a Salt Lake City "creativity compound" where he's got a 20 cell sweatshop of indentured "employees" pumping out cosmere drafts. Dude has had creepy Cosby vibes for years and there's definitely a reason somewhere.
This might be the largest gap between technically correct and ungenerous reading of events that I've ever seen.
I know nothing about this author but people always recommend his books. Is OP wrong? Or is there missing context.
It's just a very ungenerous interpretation of a lot of factually correct things. Brandon Sanderson is, indeed, Mormon and while I've never heard him say as much explicitly, the way he talks a out his faith makes me believe that yes, he does tithe to the church.
As for the audio book stuff, when Sanderson was doing his massive kickstarter for his four secret projects, he said that the audio books would not initially be available on Audible/Amazon. He said this was because he believed Amazon had too much market power and that he was successful enough that he didn't need them and would thus withhold releasing his books on that platform. I don't recall him ever saying that they would never be released there. Partway through fulfillment of the kickstarter, he announced that Amazon had changed its compensation structure (for all authors, not just him) in the direction he wanted and tbuse he felt it was okay to release his books on Amazon's platform.
If you like heroic fantasy with unique magic systems, I recommend giving him a shot. I like to compare him to Marvel movies: not groundbreaking or innovative or the pinnacle of the art form, but competently made that hits all the emotional beats you want out of the story in a familiar and comforting way.
Ok.
I stopped reading Sanderson specifically because he puts out so many books with unnecessarily huge page counts that I just don't care anymore.
I'm not allergic to long books either, having read the entire WoT series 3+ times. But I'd much rather read stuff that authors have spent time on instead of mass producing.