Brandon Sanderson writes fantasy novels.
And he’s extremely good at it, writing several successful series and selling more than 40m books. During the pandemic, he used the lockdowns to write four extra novels that he then offered to his fans via Kickstarter, raising an astonishing $41m. (Yup, you read that right.)
His company, Dragonsteel, now employs more than 70 people. He bought the property next door to his home in Utah and turned it into his company HQ, building this OTT “underground supervillain lair”.
And recently, he guested on The Tim Ferriss Show, giving an epic three-hour interview in which he talked in detail about how he’s achieved all this.
If you’re interested in succeeding as an author — or indeed in any kind of creative entrepreneurship — the full interview is well worth listening to. But here’s my overview of the key points.
1. Writing is good for you — even if you don’t make it pay.
Don’t feel that writing is only worthwhile if it leads to income, or a published book.
“I think writing is legitimately just good for people in the same way that working out is good for people.. The time you spend writing is improving you as a writer – and that is the most important thing. The book is almost a side-product.”
2. There is no right way to write.
Stephen King advises writers not to make an outline. Orson Scott Card insists writers need one. Both authors are right, because that’s what works for them. Your job? To find what works for you. And for your current book or project.
“A lot of things you’ll learn in writing you kind of have to choose one or the other and try it out and see how it works for you.”
3. Develop a writing habit.
if you want to try to be a professional writer, you need to write consistently. There are binge writers, Sanderson concedes, who disappear for two months and emerge with a finished book. But they’re rare.
“Most people are better served by writing a certain amount every day really consistently, or at least two or three times a week, and building a novel out of good habits.”
You can count the words you write, or the time you put in. But do your reps, and do them often.
Early on, Sanderson was told that his first five books would be terrible. So he wrote them quickly, with no thought about sending them out to agents, or getting them published. He was just learning his craft: “It was weight-training for my mind.”
4. Know your genre.
In this interview alone, Sanderson talks in depth about the differences between portal fantasy, heroic fantasy, epic fantasy. About structure and plot. Made-up languages. Different types of magic systems: how they work, and how they affect plot and story.
He knows his genre, and he knows all the key works in that genre. (That’s how he could take over the Wheel of Time series so efficiently, finishing original author Robert Jordan’s last three books after his death.)
You should too. You can’t innovate and break the rules, unless you know them!
5. Get comfortable throwing work away.
Professionals are willing to admit when something doesn’t work, and start fresh. Amateurs get more attached.
“There’s a lot of causes of writer’s block, but one of the main ones.. is that you’re writing the chapter wrong, you have enough instincts as a writer because you’ve practiced long enough to know you should throw it away. But you don’t want to, because you did the work.”
6. Make sure you get plenty of downtime.
Rookie writers try to work for long stretches without breaks, and inevitably either burn out quickly, or get distracted. Professionals tend to work in focussed blocks, with intentional breaks in between. They understand that taking a break is an important part of creative process.
Sanderson has an odd schedule. He sleeps most of the morning, writes for four hours in the afternoon, then hangs out with his family until late at night, when he does another four hours writing. This is a routine only someone with staff, a partner looking after the kids and no day-job could emulate, but that’s no the point he’s making, here. It’s at the long break between his two daily writing sessions.
“One of the most important things I ever did was take that time and demarcate it as non-writing time.”
7. A successful author also needs to be an entrepreneur.
You need to write. But if you want to make a living from it, you also need a head for business. Always be looking for new opportunities and income streams.
“I was raised by an accountant and a businessman… And I call this my superpower. My superpower is to be an artist raised by an accountant, and I’ve always had a bit of that entrepreneurial sense.”
8. Be laser-focussed.
Everything about his company Dragonsteel is designed to allow him to do the one thing only he can do: write his books and tell his stories. His water bottle is filled up by someone else, an editorial team inserts relevant comments by beta readers into his drafts for him to check while revising. The main thing he needs to do with his day is write.
“The more that I can keep out of my brain that I have to track, the better, because I am always constructing narrative. I’m always working on the story.”
What’s the high-value thing in your business that only you can do? Delegate, build systems, arrange everything so you can do this — and only this — as much as possible.
9. Don’t rely on gate-keepers.
Few of the traditional routes into publishing work any more. Even the route Sanderson took to his first book deals — going to conferences and befriending agents and publishers to see what they’re looking for — is now largely closed.
To succeed, you need to be agile. And build your own following, rather than relying on a publisher to do it for you.
10. You won’t get rich quick.
If you dream of instant fame and fortune, writing books probably isn’t the way. Sanderson’s first book deal earned him just $10k, spread over three years. His wife supported him while he wrote his early books, on her teacher’s salary.
Sanderson wrote five books before he even got published. Then he wrote and published four more epic novels before he got his first best-seller.
As he says, it could easily have turned out differently. Shelf space is at a premium, and book-sellers can’t keep supporting you if you don’t sell. It’s easy for authors to fall into a “death spiral”. And he came close to it.
11. Don’t depend on a single income source.
Amazon is the dominant player in the world of books. But Sanderson learned that you can’t rely on it after his publisher temporarily had all their books removed from the site after a dispute.
So he decided to Amazon-proof his business. He’s developed other income streams, such as selling premium, leather-bound editions of his books himself.
Whatever your business, if you’re reliant on just one distributor, client or income source, you’re vulnerable. Develop alternatives.
12. Learn from the disruptors.
Especially people outside your field or genre. Sanderson gives the example of his friend Howard Tayler, who sold print editions of his comic Schlock Mercenary in order to subsidise putting a free version online.
As a business model, this doesn’t seem to make sense: why would people pay for something they could get for free? But Tayler pointed out that not only did his Kickstarter campaigns make money — they also generated welcome publicity. And Sanderson listened.
His first Kickstarter, a leather-bound edition of his book The Way of Kings, raised $7 million. But it was his next one that got headlines worldwide: a four-book package that raised an astonishing $41 million. (Which, he explains in the podcast, was actually closer to $45m with the added products some fans chose to also buy.)
13. It’s hard to cut through the noise..
We’re overwhelmed with information, so we all tend to shut out the new in favour of what we know.
“In today’s media environment, people’s attention has a gravitational pull to what they’ve already been paying attention to. They love the things that they love and getting anything else to achieve that escape velocity, to go off and to make a splash.. is just super-difficult.”
14. ..So always tell a great story.
Learn to surprise and delight with your marketing, as well as your writing. Sanderson launched his big Kickstarter with a fake apology video, implying that he was retiring from writing because he’d done something awful. Instead, the secret he revealed were the four new books he’d written during the lockdowns.
People watched because they were curious. Then they were entertained, and they bought into his Kickstarter.
“I am a storyteller,” he says. “And that’s a video with a story. I live for the reveal!”
Want more from Brandon Sanderson? He has some free lectures on plotting and structure on his website. And of course his novels!
Want more from Tim Ferriss? His podcast, with a deep dive into the life and methods of a top performer, is always worth listening to.
Want more from me? Sign up for The Creative Companion, my free weekly letter for creative professionals (and people who aspire to be).
What do you think?