Overnight Success

Brandon Sanderson is one of my favorite fantasy writers. I've probably read most of his books.

One thing about Brandon is that he's a writing machine. He can work on two or three books simultaneously. He posts weekly updates on his projects, and most importantly, he delivers finished books. There are other writers I enjoy reading but never finished the third book of their saga.

When Robert Jordan, author of the Wheel of Time (now as a series on Amazon Prime Video) was diagnosed with a terminal illness and saw he wouldn't finish the saga, he asked Brandon to write the last books of the series.

During the pandemic, Brandon couldn't travel. He suddenly found that he had spare time and nobody–his book agents, publishers, or his team–became aware of it. Besides the projects already on course, he could use that time to work on whatever he wanted! As he says, Sanderson + free time = stories. So... he wrote four additional novels! I wish I could be that productive.

As these projects were his own, he decided to launch a Kickstarter campaign.

The campaign was an overnight success. It raised $41 million dollars, the largest amount raised in a Kickstarter campaign to date.

Overnight success comes after years of serious work.