#794: Brandon Sanderson on Building a Fiction Empire, Creating $40M+ Kickstarter Campaigns, Unbreakable Habits, The Art of World-Building, and The Science of Magic Systems
The Tim Ferriss Show
Tim Ferriss: Bestselling Author, Human Guinea Pig
4.6 • 17.4K Ratings
🗓️ 5 February 2025
⏱️ 203 minutes
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Summary
Brandon Sanderson is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Stormlight Archive series and the Mistborn saga; the middle-grade series Alcatraz vs. the Evil Librarians; and the young-adult novels The Rithmatist, the Reckoners trilogy, and the Skyward series. He has sold more than 40 million books in 35 languages, and he is a four-time nominee for the Hugo Awards, winning in 2013 for his novella The Emperor’s Soul.
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Timestamps:
00:00 Meet Brandon Sanderson
07:10 Soundcheck Fun and Memory Skills
11:21 Brandon's Writing Journey and Creative Process
25:35 Teaching Creative Writing and Publishing Insights
38:08 Brandon's Early Reading Experience
44:18 Discovering the Magic of Storytelling
45:32 A Journey from C Student to A Student
47:02 The Influence of a Great Teacher
48:51 Understanding Narrative and Plot
56:42 The Art of Character Development
01:09:42 Balancing Writing and Personal Life
01:24:04 Meeting Editors and Early Struggles
01:24:30 First Book Sale and Financial Realities
01:25:28 The Danger of the Second Book
01:25:49 Hitting the Bestseller List
01:26:34 Amazon and the Changing Market
01:29:03 Entrepreneurial Shift and Direct Sales
01:36:45 Building a Team and Crowdfunding
01:42:50 Kickstarter Success and Lessons Learned
01:52:22 COVID and Creative Freedom
02:02:53 Brandon Sanderson's Colbert Report Cameo
02:03:48 Kickstarter Success and Subscription Boxes
02:09:01 Test Readers and Feedback Process
02:14:16 Warbreaker and Creative Commons Experiment
02:22:50 Navigating Publishing Deals and Platforms
02:33:26 The Wheel of Time Opportunity
02:42:36 The Call to Finish The Wheel of Time
02:43:10 Negotiating the Deal
02:43:56 The Struggles of Mistborn
02:45:02 The Cosmere and Building an Audience
02:48:25 The Death Spiral in Publishing
02:52:29 Magic Systems and Their Importance
03:00:39 Sanderson's Three Laws of Magic
03:14:35 The Zero Law and Final Thoughts
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi-da-ha, boys and girls, ladies and germs, this is Tim Ferriss. Welcome to another episode of the Tim Ferriss show, where it is my job every episode to deconstruct world-class performers to figure out how they do, what they do, what you can use, what you can emulate. And this episode ended up being a master class. I had so much fun with it. My guest, who I've wanted to interview for years, |
| 0:22.7 | is Brandon Sanderson. He is the number one New York Times bestselling author of the Stormlight |
| 0:27.5 | Archive series and the Miss Born Saga, the middle grade series, Alcatraz versus the evil |
| 0:32.7 | librarians, and the young adult novels, the Rhythmist, the Reckiners trilogy, and the Skyward series. |
| 0:39.1 | He has sold more than 40 million books in 35 languages. He has architected 40 million plus |
| 0:46.4 | dollar Kickstarter campaigns, and he is a four-time nominee for the Hugo Awards, |
| 0:51.5 | winning in 2013 for his novella, The Emperor's Soul. That same year, |
| 0:56.6 | he was chosen to complete Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time series, which is a big, big deal, |
| 1:01.3 | culminating in a memory of light. Brandon co-hosts with fellow author Dan Wells, the popular |
| 1:06.7 | intentionally blank podcast, and teaches creative writing at Brigham Young University. We did this one |
| 1:12.9 | in person, which made all the difference in Brandon's massive cavernous offices right next to |
| 1:19.8 | his warehouse. It was a hell of a ride and we covered a lot of ground and a lot of really |
| 1:27.3 | nitty-gritty tactical advice related to fiction, |
| 1:31.8 | business, publishing, innovating across the board, how he architected his record-breaking |
| 1:37.8 | Kickstarter campaign and much, much more. You can find him at brandonsanderson.com. That's B-R-A-N-D-O-N-Sanderson.com. |
| 1:47.6 | And you can find him all on X, Instagram, and YouTube at Brand-Sanderson. That's B-R-A-N-D-Sanderson. |
| 1:54.8 | And I definitely recommend checking out all of those. So we're going to hop right into it, get into the meat and potatoes, a lot of varied |
| 2:00.9 | terrain with Brandon Sanderson. First, just a few words from the people who make this podcast |
| 2:05.6 | possible. Listeners have heard me talk about making before you manage for years. All that means to |
| 2:12.5 | me is that when I wake up, I block out three to four hours to do the most important things |
| 2:16.7 | that are generative, creative, podcasting, writing, et cetera to four hours to do the most important things that are generative, |
| 2:17.7 | creative, podcasting, writing, et cetera, before I get to the email and the admin stuff and the reactive |
... |
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