Most years, Brandon Sanderson makes about $10 million. Last year, he made $55 million. This is obviously a lot of money for anyone. For a writer of young-adult-is, never ending, speed-written fantasy books, it's huge. By Sanderson's estimation, he's the highest-selling author of epic fantasy in the world. On the day of his record-breaking Kickstarter campaign-$42 million of that $55 million I came to the WIRED offices ready to gossip. How'd he do it? Why now? Is Brandon Sanderson even a good writer?
Nobody had the first clue who or what I was talking about.
On the one hand, who cares. Sanderson has millions upon millions of fans all over the planet; it doesn't matter that some losers at a single magazine (even if it is one of the nerdier ones) had never heard of him. On the other, the ignorance goes far beyond WIRED. As far as I could tell, Sanderson, who has been topping bestseller lists for the better part of the 21st century, had not been written about in any depth by any major publication ever. I called his publicist to confirm this. "Well, we have a piece coming up in LDS Living," he told me. That's LDS as in Latter-Day Saints. It's a magazine for Mormons.
This story is from the June 2023 edition of WIRED.
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This story is from the June 2023 edition of WIRED.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
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