[HN Gopher] State of the Sanderson 2022 ___________________________________________________________________ State of the Sanderson 2022 Author : say_it_as_it_is Score : 258 points Date : 2022-12-23 10:23 UTC (12 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.brandonsanderson.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.brandonsanderson.com) | taeric wrote: | I'm curious how comparable some of that data is. Specifically, | Audible may pay half what a bookstore does per sale, but are they | also charging less than half of what the same bookstore charges. | Such that you really need to compare revenue generated for the | artists, not just margin per sale. | | That said, I am in favor of trying market forces to see what sort | of change one can make. I... question anything out of the | publishing world, though. If Audible is a good company doing bad | things, most publishing houses are likely to be at best described | in the same way. And, spotify is a hilariously cursed example to | use as a "for the artists" system. | ReactiveJelly wrote: | First I've heard of the "m4b" file format. Looks like a variation | of m4a with stanardized metadata for (B)ooks, hence the b. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MP4_file_format#Filename_exten... | LesZedCB wrote: | pro-tip, you can convert your audible aax files to m4b with | ffmpeg! you need to determine your key which is like a 6 | character key, and fairly easy to figure out how to find. | DavidPiper wrote: | Fun fact, it's exactly the same as the m4a format, but with a | different file extension. (Which macOS uses to add some UI | sugar on top; but the data is the same.) | jmull wrote: | Wow... Sanderson is trying to back down Audible and their | monopoly on audio books. | | Looks like I'll be getting his books from Speechify from now on. | meristohm wrote: | Reacting to "Audible monopoly", and while it may technically be | so, it needn't- | | Most of what I read and listen to is provided by my tax- | supported public library. If I find something I think will make | a welcome gift, I buy it from bookshop dot org or a local | bookstore (Minneapolis is rich with them). If I had the | discretionary income I'd give more money to the Library | foundation, continue lobbying for strengthening the public | library system, and continue checking out books; it's a model | that lowers the barrier to accessing art, information, and | wisdom. | aniforprez wrote: | Do Audible published audiobooks end up in public libraries? | I'm assuming the exclusivity implies never leaving their | platform but I'm not knowledgable enough about this space | SamoyedFurFluff wrote: | Libraries have to pay a premiums for them, so it depends on | the budget of your library. (Some may only buy if someone | puts in a request for purchase & some may not have the | budget to buy at all.) | birken wrote: | I've listened to 10+ Sanderson books and all of them have | have been through my local library (via Libby app). The | only downside is that some have decently long wait times so | you have to plan in advance. | counttheforks wrote: | How can there be a wait time for an audiobook, a digital | file that can be reproduced infinitely? | counttheforks wrote: | > Looks like I'll be getting his books from Speechify from now | on. | | Some competition for Audible would be nice, but Speechify don't | even have an Android or Web app. So on top of not owning the | mp3 files they also lock you into the apple ecosystem. | taude wrote: | I find it pretty amazing their company has 60 employees. Also | worth the read to learn about Audible pricing. I didn't know. I'm | pretty addicted to audio books, but now will have to seek out | other alternatives when I can. | plandis wrote: | 60 employees didn't seem that wild when you consider they took | on the role of publisher for his secret projects kickstarter. | 186k backers of which a decent portion are getting 4 physical | books over the next year. | LegitShady wrote: | shipping 600k books to individual backers is a massive | undertaking without writing, editing, publishing, and other | merchandise. | Jemaclus wrote: | AFAIK, most of them are actually warehouse employees at entry- | level wages that ship his books/swag from his online store and | other endeavors, and also handle the kickstarter fulfillment | process, versus white-collar jobs like editors and artists and | so on. It's still impressive to have 60 employees, though, | especially as an author (Robert Jordan only had four, to my | knowledge). | Kiro wrote: | [flagged] | selykg wrote: | There is a lot of overhead for books like he is selling. | They're premium. He could maybe order a lot, but he'd be tying | up a lot of his own money with no idea of actual demand. Maybe | he under purchased? In which case what is available gets out on | eBay at high markup because the books are hard to get. Or he | over orders and loses his ass. | | By doing the Kickstarter he got a great idea of what the demand | was, and then had the money to make it happen without putting | his money at risk as well. He delivered superbly with his first | Kickstarter. He'll do the same with this one. | Kiro wrote: | > Defending a company is just weird. | | So why are you defending this company? | rk06 wrote: | Its because Kickstarter is not a charity platform. It is a | business platform. | | People are not fine with him collecting money. They are fine | purchasing some premium books written by him. | CrazyStat wrote: | Scam or not is determined by whether or not you deliver what | was promised, not by how much you raise. I'm not sure why you | bring it up at all. | | A project that raises $100 can be a scam if it doesn't deliver. | A project that raises $42 million can not be a scam, if it does | deliver. | | If Sanderson provides products that many people value at a | collective $42 million+, why should I not be fine with those | people giving him that much money? It's their money, they can | spend it how they like. | Kiro wrote: | The point is that he doesn't need the money. He's one of the | most successful authors in the world and the delivery is just | writing four books. I just don't understand why he made a | Kickstarter to begin with. The previous record holder | (Pebble) made sense because of R&D and hardware. | | The scam part is everyone always putting new Kickstarters | under extreme scrutiny regarding the money they're trying to | raise and if they really need it. Meanwhile this project has | no upfront costs, nothing, that defends asking people to | pledge money to it. | fabian2k wrote: | As far as I understand the books are essentially self- | published in this case, so there is certainly some | investment needed to make all of this happen. | Kiro wrote: | Kickstarter should be for financing things you can't get | out on the market without the investment. You're | basically saying "I need X money for Y to happen" and | instead of a regular investor you rely on the hopes of | future customers. Like a pre-order but without the | obligation to deliver because of the moonshot. | | In Sanderson's case it's just a pre-order where you milk | your fans for some extra bucks. He doesn't need this | money to make these four books happen. | idontpost wrote: | [dead] | wlesieutre wrote: | The other advantage of a pre-order is you know roughly | how many copies to print. If you're publishing your own | book you may not be able to predict that, and if you | estimate wrong you're out a bunch of your own money. | | Large publishers have some expertise in guessing that, | and probably still plan to eat some costs for the times | when they get it wrong. But on a smaller scale, "Oops I | have piles of extra copies of every single book I | printed" would be a big problem for someone self | publishing a couple of books. | | If your fans trust you to follow through on a | kickstarter, there's not really a downside. | amluto wrote: | Again, the ebooks were a minor part of the total. If you | write a book, sell $5 million of physical copies and | associated swag, I guarantee you either need to outsource | the whole operation to a competent publisher or you need | money to make it happen. | | Brandon Sanderson appears to be running most of this | operation in house, and he would have pulled it off | entirely on schedule if it weren't for a massive storm | introducing a (short!) delay. | matsemann wrote: | > _Kickstarter should be..._ | | According to _you_. If you don 't like it, your gripe is | with KS, not Sanderson. And it's pretty common for things | to launch their v2, v3 etc on KS even if strictly not | needed. It's a hype channel, not an investment channel. | | > _In Sanderson 's case it's just a pre-order where you | milk your fans for some extra bucks._ | | Why so loaded language? It's not milking, it's fan | service. People specifically want these extra things. | Hence the success of the KS..... | Kiro wrote: | It's not about whether I like it or not. It's about | people being hypocritical and giving him a pass while | criticizing others for doing the same thing. For some | reason Sanderson is untouchable. | CrazyStat wrote: | It's not hypocritical at all to support some kickstarters | and not others, irrespective of how much money they | raise. Sanderson has an established history of delivering | books, and people trust him to deliver the promised | books. Some random guy without an established reputation | is going to encounter much more skepticism. | | Reputations matter. It's a fact of being human. | matsemann wrote: | Who are being hypocritical? Are you sure it's not | different people having different opinions? | fmorel wrote: | No upfront costs? | | They have to get the books recorded and printed without | overproducing and losing money while also not getting a | worse deal with a smaller print + miss out on sales. Same | thing for merchandise. All of it needs to be warehoused | until it's ready for delivery. Plus probably other things | I'm unaware of. | | A major publisher already has all this infrastructure to | take a gamble on new books while paying with current sales. | Dragonsteel is still very small. | amluto wrote: | The bulk of the kickstarter campaign was selling actual | objects. These objects need to be produced, they have lead | times, they have scaling issues both ways (there are | economies of scale, but scaling up also involved a bunch of | hiring -- one can't just snap one's fingers). And Brandon | Sanderson apparently wanted to sell however many people | wanted to buy at a a preset price. | | So what exactly is wrong with using kickstarter for this? | It's essentially a platform for placing orders for things | that won't be delivered for a while, which is _exactly_ | what happened here. | | (Note that Brandon Sanderson and Dragonsteel have spent or | committed a lot of the money already despite having | delivered nothing yet. Those employees aren't working for | just equity without money or benefits!) | plandis wrote: | They did the Kickstarter to crowdfund money to _publish_ the | books under his own company Dragonsteel instead of likely using | Macmillan /Tor. They didn't set out to collect so much money, | the initial goal was to raise $1M. | | Fwiw, Sanderson took some of that money and backed every single | publishing Kickstarter that wasn't against the TOS or NSFW. | epage wrote: | He didn't expect to rake in that much and iirc kickstarter | doesn't let you pass on economy of scale to your backers (hence | stretch goals in a lot of campaigns). | | Like with his Audible comments, this also served as another way | for him to use his clout to help other authors. I think he has | said that he was trying to pull in people who don't normally | back projects so they'd be more comfortable doing it with other | authors. They even highlighted some other projects and | redirected some of them money to them | (https://youtu.be/TVdZ018gsRw) | TulliusCicero wrote: | From most people's perspectives it's just a preorder (Sanderson | is so consistent in output there's essentially zero doubt he'll | deliver), so nothing to get outraged about. | | Some people complain that he doesn't 'need' the kickstarter -- | which is true, sure -- but he's not hurting or tricking anyone, | so why would anyone be incensed? | kace91 wrote: | I already commented it on reddit, but I was very surprised by the | fact (mentioned in passing) that 75% of pre-buyers for | Sanderson's last book were audiobooks. | | For each person reading the book there are 3 people hearing it. | Those are wild numbers for me. | kneebonian wrote: | I'm one of those people. Simply because sitting down to read | requires a complete devotion and time out which is hard with 4 | small children and a wife. | | But listening allows me to do chores around the house, and | enjoy at the same time. | taeric wrote: | This is probably skewed heavily by the credits system that | Audible uses. Combined with the bundle where the Audible and | Kindle versions are discounted together, it is often very low | friction to get the audio version. | | Of course, this is where my question of this view comes in. If | you cut out Audible, how certain is Sanderson that the same | number of audio books would be purchased? If it cuts over half | of the sales, than that more than justifies the lower cut in | profit, no? | unnamed76ri wrote: | With these books specifically, he already made money from his | core fan base via a Kickstarter campaign. So the sales | through Audible would have already been lower than a regular | release. | taeric wrote: | Well, yeah. But that isn't helping his stance here. Doesn't | necessarily hurt, but is a distraction. | | He is claiming that audible gives a raw cut of profit, | particularly to the smaller artists. But is there evidence | that they give a smaller net payout to the same audience? | pugio wrote: | It's worth noting that the narrator - Michael Kramer - is | exceptional. One of the characters in this particular series is | known for his ability with accents, so listening to the | audiobook with a good narrator is an extra amount of fun. | | I've read most of Sanderson's books in print, but for this one | I also bought the audiobook specifically for that kind of | narration. | kneebonian wrote: | The other narrator commonly used Kate Reading is also | exceptional and is Michaels wife. | nindalf wrote: | Not surprised Kate Reading narrates audiobooks. | therealdrag0 wrote: | I know I'm in the minority but I stopped reading Sanderson | because I dislike Kramer so much. His inflection makes | everything sound so corny. | kace91 wrote: | Dumb question: is "reading" also used as a verb for | audiobooks? (English is my second language). | stock_toaster wrote: | No, in the dictionary sense, being told a story is not | the same as reading. As with many words these days, | certain liberties are taken. | hejaodbsidndbd wrote: | [dead] | freedomben wrote: | Yes. It's not without controversy, but it's widely | accepted. | hejaodbsidndbd wrote: | GraphicAudio provides an alternative audio production for | most of them. | erinnh wrote: | Im confused by it. I cannot listen to audiobooks without either | fully focusing on it or forgetting half of it when Im listening | to it while doing something else. | | Even with podcasts I have the same issue, but there I dont | really need to listen to every second and fully remember all of | it. | | How do you guys listen to audiobooks? Are you just so much | better than me in focusing on multiple things at the same time | or are you _just_ listening to audiobooks and not doing | anything at the same time? | Arrath wrote: | I moved somewhere for work, that doesn't have NPR on the | radio dial, and the app just isn't that great. So instead of | listening to the radio, I play audiobooks during my commute. | rootusrootus wrote: | Some people can do it. I'm with you, I cannot. My mom likes | to listen while driving, but if I try to do that I lose the | story really fast because I pay too much attention to | driving. | rufusroflpunch wrote: | The simple answer to this is to pay less attention to | driving! | [deleted] | burkaman wrote: | Commuting, washing dishes, walking or driving to do an | errand, that kind of thing. Sometimes I pause if I'm in a | particularly complex driving situation or something, but | usually I am able to focus and retain a normal amount. | romanhn wrote: | I listen to audiobooks in fits and starts - when driving, | when cleaning or washing dishes, when brushing teeth. | Basically whenever I can do something else essentially on | autopilot. | Volundr wrote: | FWIW you described the exact reason I listen to so many | audiobooks. I struggle with insomnia, and one thing that | helped quite a bit was taking a walk before bed while | listening to an audiobook. If I listened to music I could | just tune it out and my brain would just continue cycling on | whatever track it was on. Audiobooks forced me to actually | pay attention and stop thinking about whatever was in my | head. Breaking that thought cycle really helped with getting | to sleep after. | swyx wrote: | you might be underestimating the number of people with long | drives and mundane chores that use their eyes and hands but | not their full attention | AuryGlenz wrote: | I listen to audiobooks that I've already read while working | on task that aren't mentally challenging. Sanderson's books | are actually great for this as they're all interconnected and | that makes for a good reason to "reread" then. | romanhn wrote: | I love reading, but there's too much going on in my life to be | able to devote an uninterrupted chunk of time to reading. So | audiobooks are a compromise that fills in the gaps that I do | have, even if a few minutes long. These add up throughout the | day, and I've covered quite a significant amount of fiction and | non-fiction in the 15-ish years I've been doing this. | yreg wrote: | As a customer I'd like to see a Netflix/Spotify-like audiobook | service, where I pay a subscription and can listen whatever they | have in catalogue, whenever. | | Sadly, it wouldn't probably be great for small authors either, | just the same as Spotify isn't great for unknown musicians. OTOH, | like Netflix, they could fund authors to write books or at least | produce the audiobooks for them. Of course the service would want | exclusivity, but perhaps it might work out. | TheAceOfHearts wrote: | It's not quite what you're asking for, but Audible records a | lot of Audible Originals which are all freely accessible to | members without having to use any credits. Unfortunately most | Audible Originals aren't very good. | | I think Audible also offers an unlimited subscription for | romance novels, although it's been a few years since I checked. | yreg wrote: | Didn't knew about this, thanks | freedomben wrote: | Audible is somewhat like this. They have some "included" stuff | that is all-you-can-eat with your subscription. Just like | Netflix, the big titles aren't there, but if you search within | the included content you'll find good stuff to consume. | CobaltFire wrote: | If you are in the US try your public library. Pretty much every | one has one of two eLibrary applications with audiobooks | included. | | They may not have everything, but there's been plenty for me. | It has drastically cut my use of audible to the point that I've | been canceled for two years. | irowe wrote: | Apparently publishers have seriously been turning the screws | on libraries wrt to license fees for ebooks and audiobooks, | so the current golden age of getting them from the library | may be ending. | | [0]: https://www.npr.org/2022/11/09/1135639385/libraries- | publishe... | CobaltFire wrote: | Of course they would do that. It's one of the last places | where you don't have to pay to exist, and where you can be | educated and entertained without paying those companies. | plorg wrote: | I am glad Sanderson can make this deal with Spotify. I wonder if | this same structure will be extended to the many other services | that license audiobooks from (what used to be) Findaway (until | they bought it). While it's good to have an opposing weight to | Audible, it will amount to very little if this is all just a play | that accrues power to a second oligopolist in the industry. | Gatsky wrote: | So... are the books any good? Or is that irrelevant now? | CatWChainsaw wrote: | Assuming your question isn't snark, you could try reading The | Emperor's Soul. It's a short novella, so you can finish it in a | 2-3 hour reading session. And it will give you a taste of his | writing style as well as a metaphysical primer to his Cosmere | universe. | Gatsky wrote: | My question was genuine. Thank you for the suggestion. | mcv wrote: | Sanderson sounds like an awesome guy. And I've heard great things | about his books too. I should probably read some. | _whiteCaps_ wrote: | The Mistborn series is a great one to start with. His magic | systems are really well done. | coltonweaver wrote: | Mistborn is definitely a great intro to the cosmere books. | I'd almost definitely start there, see if you like it, and | then get into the rest because it can be pretty overwhelming | with how much there is. | freedomben wrote: | Mistborn (Era 1) is the best book(s) I think I have ever | read. Truly remarkable. | Jemaclus wrote: | Read more! ;) | | All seriousness aside, Mistborn (Era 1) is fantastic, | especially as an introduction into Sanderson's world. | Part of the reason it's great is because he was able to | write all three books at once -- book 1 went to print as | book 2 was in editing stages and as he was wrapping up | the first draft of book 3. That means he was able to keep | it tight and put proper foreshadowing and have everything | kind of work out really well. You can see in his other | books that it hasn't worked out quite as well. They're | all good books, but Mistborn stands out to me as | fantastic because of that. | | But back to my serious joke, read more! Sanderson's a | great author, but he's far from the only good one, and | there are some truly brilliant folks out there that just | aren't as good at marketing themselves as Sanderson is, | and they deserve recognition and more for their good work | too! | astrange wrote: | His completion of WoT was fine, and my favorite part was | original to him, but it was pretty clear he's the squarest man | alive and has never been in the same room as the concept of | sex. And one or two of the added characters were clearly there | just to have extremely plot-convenient special magic talents. | But that did lead to some very efficient KPI-meeting books. So | if you're a systematizing turbonerd, go wild. | mkoubaa wrote: | "Someone has different taste than me, I must insult them" - | parent comment | dagw wrote: | Sanderson is by far my favourite author whose books I just | cannot read. | CatWChainsaw wrote: | Sanderson fan chiming in to promote The Emperor's Soul over | Mistborn as a primer. | | From another comment: "It's a short novella, so you can finish | it in a 2-3 hour reading session. And it will give you a taste | of his writing style as well as a metaphysical primer to his | Cosmere universe." | beezlebroxxxxxx wrote: | Sanderson's books appeal to a certain reader who is extremely | invested in world building and "hard" magic systems. I would | say his plots and characters usually play second fiddle to | those things, and he infamously has his writing tics. I think | the majority of his books would be vastly improved with a | better editor, frankly (especially the last Stormlight one, | jesus). But I'm generally in the minority in that respect. He | has extremely devoted fans. I would set your expectations for | the books at about Avengers movie quality, which for some | people sounds amazing and that's exactly what they are looking | for. Personally, I enjoyed the core Malazan books far more as | fantasy with very intense world building sensibilities and a | more mature edge. But I don't go to Sanderson looking for | fantasy with literary sensibilities. | knighthack wrote: | I've always noticed that Audible has been a bit of a scam | (despite that I use it, because there are few other usable market | alternatives). I love Graphic Audio but there's too little choice | in comparsion. | | So I'm glad that Sanderson's going to take on Audible - | especially to help out the little guys, since he's now a force on | his own as an author to be reckoned with. | | That said, I still remember when Sanderson was a small author. I | was beaming about a book he had written on Reddit; yet he | personally wrote back to me, when he could have just been quiet. | That spoke volumes. | | All this while Sanderson's personality remains just as humble, | despite how big he's become. So I wish for Brandon all the best, | and hope that his noble campaign to take on Audible and bring | down the Goliath succeeds, for the betterment of all authors. | 0cf8612b2e1e wrote: | >I've always noticed that Audible has been a bit of a scam | | You and I have had very different experiences. Someone has been | dying to juice the subscriber stats and every year or two, | Audible throws me a sweetheart deal too good to refuse. | | This year, they offered me three free months to rejoin. Took my | three books and canceled, not paying anything. A month or two | later, they offered me a $20 credit + three months at a reduced | rate of $5(? Maybe it was $10). Fully intend to cancel | subscription when that completes end of January. Netting me ~7 | books for maybe a one month of out of pocket subscription. | lfowles wrote: | A while back I realized I bought a series I didn't really | like after the first book, but forgot about. Audible | exchanged each book for a credit no questions asked (even the | first one that I did listen to!) That plus the constant | credit deals and audiobooks for $5 or less... I don't see how | they do it. | Volundr wrote: | I had to look up GraphicAudio, but FWIW Downpour.com seems to | have a pretty good collection of books published by them | (including Sanderson titles). I've been using them for years | because (almost) all of their stuff is DRM free. | Uvix wrote: | Downpour is my vendor of choice for most books, but | GraphicAudio also sells the titles DRM-free directly, with | the option of lossless format. (And in Sanderson's case it | doesn't look like Downpour has all of their titles.) | asicsp wrote: | > _I found two companies only--in all of the deals I investigated | --who are willing to take on Audible. Spotify and Speechify._ | | I wonder if they looked into general digital products companies | like Gumroad as well. | | > _So I'm not putting these books on Audible. Not for a year at | least. Maybe longer._ | | I hope there will be other authors who can make such statements | in the coming months. | | > _The Lost Metal preorders were 75% audio--almost all through | Audible._ | | I wouldn't have expected audio to be such a high percentage. I | would've guessed about 20-30%. | | --- | | Stormlight Archive 5 title revealed. Okayish, but cool to see | they are committed to ketek. | plandis wrote: | Wayne's character is done really well by the audiobook | narrator, Michael Kramer. | lefstathiou wrote: | Michael Kramer, who reads many of his books on audible, is | incredible. I enjoyed listening to several more than reading | them because of him. | fernandotakai wrote: | >I wouldn't have expected audio to be such a high percentage. I | would've guessed about 20-30%. | | i follow a couple of authors that basically write their books | with audiobooks in mind, because most of their orders come from | audible. | | i, myself, switched exclusively to audiobooks[0], and i | couldn't be happier. | | [0] https://imgur.com/a/DJgSfdX | swsieber wrote: | Does gumroad actually have good audio book management? Is it | intending to take on position itself as an audible competitor? | I'm not very familiar with Gumroad but it strikes me as a | glorified shop and not a good media manager. | burkaman wrote: | Libro.fm is another good one, I use it exclusively instead of | Audible and they give some (undisclosed and probably very | small) portion of profits to your local bookstore. Sanderson's | books are available there. | plorg wrote: | Speculation, but I read Spotify here as Findaway, who were the | largest non-Audible audiobook platform (underlying services | like Scribd and other stores) before getting bought by Spotify | earlier this year. He had to have been talking to them before | the acquisition. It is disappointing that the only option | outside Audible was (swallowed by) another monopolist, rent- | seeking behemoth. | christophilus wrote: | Scribd should be on that list, I'd think. | fragen wrote: | I'm waiting for You-Know-Who's novel to come out so Paul Graham | can flip the remote activate switch (I still don't know what that | feels like) and I can spam Twitter with hate for a book I've | never read. | | Admit it, you're curious too if we can beat that guy. | InTheArena wrote: | It's interesting to see a few dynamics here. 1) Sanderson already | delivered a huge shot across the bow with the secret novel | kickstarter. TOR had to have been livid with the kickstarter - | it's 41 million of revenue from their top line, but more | importantly It kick started a whole ton of other authors. The | kickstarters started because a loophole in their contract, and | Brandon has very successfully exploited it as much as his | characters exploit magic systems. 2) Dragonsteel is basically | growing to the point that it is a publishing house. Others should | keep this in mind - Brandon knows how to scale a business. I | think of other creative battles - think comic Bill Waterson who | won creative rights to Calvin and Hobbes, only to stop publishing | a few years later because of how difficult the format changes he | insisted on were. This path is not sustainable for a ton of | people. 3) TOR has also got to be livid in that they basically | handed the keys to the kingdom w/ Brandon by asking him to finish | WoT (technically Harriet, Jordan's wife did) 4) Now he is trying | to do the same thing to Audible. | | Having met Sanderson before he started on WoT - Ut's incredible | how far he's gone... but somehow he keeps going. | defen wrote: | > The kickstarters started because a loophole in their | contract, and Brandon has very successfully exploited it as | much as his characters exploit magic systems | | Can you go into more detail on that? I know what you mean about | exploiting magic systems, but I don't know anything about | Sanderson's contract with Tor or what he did. | legobmw99 wrote: | I don't remember the details, someone asked about Right of | First Refusal from Tor during the Q&A live stream following | the kickstarter announcement and he said something like a | polite version of "we can sort of do what we want as long as | we keep giving them the big series" | swsieber wrote: | Except it's not 41 million from their top line. I expect a lot | of that is in ebook, audio book and swag items. | SamoyedFurFluff wrote: | I hope Sanderson can become something akin to a Rick Riordan, | where "Rick Riordan presents" has become a huge household name | launching new careers in childrens lit. | ncann wrote: | Anyone knows why Audible's pay is that low? Is it because of the | cost to them to produce the audio? | ben_w wrote: | Based on what cstross and others say about book sales in | general, I suspect that even at such low rates Audible loses | money on the median book, and only bother with most of the | audiobooks so they can advertise how many audiobooks they have. | swsieber wrote: | You explain a little? I'm having trouble understanding why | hosting an audio book is going to lose audible money. | | Do they also produce said books? | ben_w wrote: | They produce some at least, but even when they're just a | shopfront they almost certainly pay another fraction of the | sales to whoever did make it. | | Big thing though is how few copies the median book actually | sells. From what I can tell, the actual sales for a median | book across all media are only the low thousands. Audible's | mean (not median) gross revenue per book is | ($200e6/y)/(200k titles) = $1k/title/year. | | I tried looking up Audible's financial info, but the only | financial report I saw was from 2007, which said their | revenue and expenses for years ending 2006 and 2007 were | about equal to each other, and at about half what people | say are their current revenue levels: | https://last10k.com/sec-filings/1077926 | EEBio wrote: | Most likely because they are de-facto monopoly, so they will | take as much as they can. | christophilus wrote: | They have to cover those S3 egress fees somehow, amirite? | | In all honesty, Audible is a practical monopoly, so it can get | away with monopolistic behavior. | asicsp wrote: | > _Is it because of the cost to them to produce the audio?_ | | The rates being talked about in the article is just for | distribution, doesn't include creating the audiobook. Audible | is a publisher as well, but those probably have different | deals. | taeric wrote: | My gut response is because their prices are lower. They offer | half the cut, and are usually selling well below half the cost | elsewhere. More, most of their sales are almost certainly | credit system based, which super complicates how much they sold | for. (That and bundled with ebook purchases.) | | If anyone has data in how much they pay out and how elastic the | demand is to increased prices, I'd be interested. As it is, | this feels misguided, though. | montenegrohugo wrote: | This is the stuff I love. Sanderson doesn't _have_ to take a | stand against Audible , and yet he does. Of course he is in a | position of privilege to be able to do it, but so many other | people are too and act very differently. | | Audible giving creators only a 25% cut (or 40% if they sign an | exclusive deal) is absolutely exploitative. For a DIGITAL | product! That's insane. | | Props to Sanderson, and props to all the other people with | integrity. | wcarss wrote: | > I've made enough on this Kickstarter. I don't need to squeeze | people for every penny--but what I do want to do is find a way | to provide options for authors. | | This is a kind of sentiment I wish was not exceptional. People | often talk about how one day they may have enough, and _then_ | they'll help others -- but it's rare to see someone (especially | with less than a billion dollars) say out loud that they did | it, and in the same breath they start helping. (At a certain | time, Kaladin wouldn't believe this kind of guy exists!) | beezlebroxxxxxx wrote: | I think it's important to realize just how rare a position | Brandon Sanderson is in, really. Publishing and the literary | scene outside of the major publishers has always been people | using the little money they make to try and keep it alive | outside of the dominant system that's creeping towards a | monopoly in NA. Most stuff just doesn't have the huge | marketing capability that Sanderson does and usually fails. | Frankly, most authors are barely able to make a living doing | it. Sanderson is far from the only person trying to help | authors in publishing, but his 0.1% level financial success | in publishing likely means he can accept much more risk than | even more well known authors. | | That said, I do find it kind of ironic that he made a secret | deal with Spotify, which has its own pitiful history of | payouts to artists. But atleast free accounts get access to | the books as well. | ffssffss wrote: | Not only is it rare for someone to experience success like | Sanderson, it's even rarer for an author to so consistently | put out high quality work. The man practically writes a | 1,000 page novel a year. He's lucked (and hard-worked) into | a lot of leverage here. | Kalium wrote: | If anything, I think you're overselling it. Most authors | make at best a very small amount of money from their work | and are nowhere near being able to make a living from it. | Most books simply don't sell much at all (200-300 for an | average author), to the point where even 100% of sticker | price wouldn't pay for a person's living expenses. | | A _generous_ assumption is hardbacks at $25 a pop. That | would put an average author at 5k to 7.5k in a year... | under the very improbable assumption of 100% of sticker | price going to the author. | | Spotify and the music world has a distinctly different | problem. Last I read, the vast majority of their revenue is | going to their licensing deals. The license-holders then | don't pay much to the artists. You can blame Spotify for | this if you choose, and many artists like to publicly, but | as with many things in music it comes back to the labels. | [deleted] | pirate787 wrote: | Important to consider that most books range from barely | readable to trash. I think the book distribution of | quality is more concentrated among elite authors, whereas | music is a lot more linear -- the average musician is a | lot closer to elite musicians. | nwiswell wrote: | > whereas music is a lot more linear -- the average | musician is a lot closer to elite musicians. | | Gosh, I don't know. This is quite a claim. | | First off is the obvious question: who is a musician? | High school band? Play Friday nights at the local pub? Or | are we talking "survives exclusively on record sales" / | "is a member of a symphony"? That's a lot of selection | bias. Almost nobody publishing rubbish is surviving off | that income. | | Second, "musician" is actually conflating two things: | songwriting/composition and _performance_. Composition is | the thing that really bears direct comparison, and I 'd | venture a guess you've not even heard all the awful songs | out there because nobody with any talent is interested in | performing them (unlike the ease with which anyone can | publish total rubbish). | | Finally, if you consider the size of the corpus -- all | songs vs all English text -- it's pretty clear which one | is easier to curate (covers in music are super common, | which is probably not an accident). | | Just anecdotally, I saw a video on reddit the other day | of an African dictator casually wetting himself. But what | was really striking to me was how _absolutely awful_ the | state band was. | | I found the link: | | https://old.reddit.com/r/CrazyFuckingVideos/comments/znsk | e2/... | ProAm wrote: | > Audible giving creators only a 25% cut (or 40% if they sign | an exclusive deal) is absolutely exploitative. For a DIGITAL | product! That's insane. | | It's Amazon, what do you expect? They can't make an Amazon | Basics of a book you wrote and steal all your profit so they | have to do it this way. | kace91 wrote: | >Audible giving creators only a 25% cut (or 40% if they sign an | exclusive deal) is absolutely exploitative. | | Also, who are the creators? I mean, does the author of the book | have to share that piece of the cake with the narrator as well? | that makes the cut even lower. | LegitShady wrote: | why would anyone give a % of income to a narrator? That's a | service you pay for once and thats it. They don't have to | read it again for each customer. They just get hired to read | and record it the first time. | taeric wrote: | This is silly. You could use the same argument for the | writer. | | And, indeed, this is done. If I'm remembering correctly, | Hardy Boys and such were done this way, with the actual | writer paid in a different way. | LegitShady wrote: | when the writer is not the primary owner of the property | it would make sense. When the writer is the primary owner | and creator it does not. | taeric wrote: | This feels contrived. And is in the face of, for example, | how Disney tried to not pay a Star Wars writer. | | I agree it feels like this could be easy to argue one way | or another. I am willing to assert it is often not simple | and many of the complications are from pushing simple | solutions. | LegitShady wrote: | >This feels contrived | | How so? | | >how Disney tried to not pay a Star Wars writer. | | the star wars writer is just a contract worker. He | doesn't own star wars etc. But he should still get paid | according to the agreement disney inherited. | matsemann wrote: | What about the writer that "only writes it once"? Or a | singer on an album that only sings it once? | LegitShady wrote: | They are the primary creator of the work. The narrator is | not. | sokoloff wrote: | Is the songwriter or lead vocalist the primary creator of | a piece of music? | plorg wrote: | The narrator is similarly inseparable from the | performative work (as, say, an orchestral recording of a | symphony), the only difference seems to rest in who has | the power and incentive to claim royalties. | | None of this explicitly follows from first principles, | it's all just negotiation for what, through the vehicle | of contract law, will get enforced by social convention | and the fist of the government. | LegitShady wrote: | >None of this explicitly follows from first principles, | it's all just negotiation for what, through the vehicle | of contract law, will get enforced by social convention | and the fist of the government. | | Absolutely. But there are many more people who can voice | audiobooks than there are high quality writers, and the | writer's work is being the primary author of the work. It | doesn't make any sense for the owner to give % of the | profit unless the narrator would attract business on | their own. | DoughnutHole wrote: | If you release of a cover (ie a performance) of a song | someone else wrote you own the copyright on the recording | of that performance and are entitled to compensation for | use of that recording. | | There's not real any intrinsic difference between a | recorded performance of a song someone else wrote and | recorded narration of a book someone else wrote. The | audiobook recording has its own copyright, which _can_ be | owned by the narrator. It 's usually not though, being | recorded for hire with the narrator ceding all rights. | LegitShady wrote: | > If you release of a cover (ie a performance) of a song | someone else wrote you own the copyright on the recording | of that performance and are entitled to compensation for | use of that recording. | | negative. if you're covering a song in copyright you need | a license agreement from the owner if you intend to | monotize it. You own a copyright to your version but you | can't make money from it. | Uvix wrote: | Depends on the deal the author negotiated with the narrator | (i.e. were they paid up front or in royalties). That money | comes out of the author's 40%. | O__________O wrote: | Worth noting that Audible has been a subsidiary of Amazon since | 2008, so it's basically just Amazon exploiting creators: | | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audible_(service) | taeric wrote: | If the 25% cut is over three times the sales... I don't know | that I agree it is bad. :( | | I'd feel much more comfortable talking about net profits for | everyone involved here. Audible got me hooked, specifically, by | not expecting me to pay 40+ for a book. | Helmut10001 wrote: | In another genre, photography, istockphoto (Getty) pays | exclusive photographers 30%. I think this is common (not saying | this is good). | hooloovoo_zoo wrote: | Hard to believe audible is taking a 75% cut and still has so | many syncing glitches on iPhone. What are they doing with the | money? | wardedVibe wrote: | What else do you do with an unregulated quasi-monopoly? Pay | out to shareholders | hombre_fatal wrote: | For years now, the "Explore Spanish language titles on | Audible Latino" button on the main iOS screen doesn't even do | anything. | optymizer wrote: | I worked for a few years at Audible as a dev. Based on my | experience, I'd say the culture at the company was good, in | that we were not trying to exploit people, neither externally | nor internally. | | One thing that was pretty clear was that our audiobooks were at | the mercy of publishing houses / content owners, and a lot of | restrictions came from licensing deals (geographic | reastrictions, time-based, formats, etc), so I'm inclined to | assume that the low cut for authors may be due to publishers | wanting a big cut of the sales. | | That said, there was a floor which we were not allowed on, and | I believe that was the sales floor, so there could have been a | whole other side to this company that I was not exposed to. | epage wrote: | > That said, there was a floor which we were not allowed on, | and I believe that was the sales floor | | Is it just me or is this nuts? The only time I've seen | restricted access is when there are security concerns | (national security, special equipment, etc). | zdragnar wrote: | I've often wished it were the other way around. Engineering | was a floor that sales weren't allowed into without special | invite. I've had two good experiences with open floor | plans, but the open floor was spacious and dedicated to | development. The one bad experience we shared the open | floor with sales and they were... _loud_. | thaumasiotes wrote: | I once worked in an open office shared with sales. At | some point the decision was made to put up a wall to | segregate the engineers from sales. | | I was sad about that; listening to sales had reminded me | of my grandmother. | zdragnar wrote: | I liked my grandparents as well. I wouldn't want them | chatting loudly, cheering or taking phone calls next to | my desk while I'm working, though. | LegitShady wrote: | What does that have to do with indie authors not attached to | big publishers, though? | | And why would big publishers be able to dictate payment terms | to unaffiliated indie authors? sounds like illegal price | fixing if true. | galangalalgol wrote: | I still remember when the kindle first came out, it would | read to you. Before publishers threatened to sue. With modern | text to speech getting so good, there really is no reason an | inference model couldn't run on every device to read to us. I | guess book readers were the first to have their jobs replaced | by AI, but contracts didn't let it happen. | TylerE wrote: | Really not nearly as close as you're implying. | | Human narrators do things like use different inflection | depending on who's speaking. | atorodius wrote: | That is probably easily possible with a bit of | engineering.. Can't be too hard to figure out who's | speaking with some NLP? | r00fus wrote: | In 2007 the state of playback was pitiful. Of course the | authors guild saw the trend lines, but even in 2022, we | know Siri/Alexa don't sound human at all (my pre-teens | make fun of them). | | It's all possible but I doubt it'll be here in 10 years. | TylerE wrote: | There's also a huge difference between acceptable for a | few sentences (Alexa) and acceptable for hours and hours. | drc500free wrote: | My worry is that you could do something 60% as good for | 1% of the cost, at which point a well-narrated audiobook | becomes an extreme luxury good. Most people will pay | $5-$10 for the "good enough" algorithmic version, and | there aren't enough people who care to pay the fixed cost | of Michael Kramer doing a version. | savanaly wrote: | Chat gpt can already parrot back some idea to you in the | written "voice" of any famous historical figure you care | to name, and remembers context from earlier in your | session to inform its written inflection as well. | Presumably this implies we have "line of sight" to doing | something analogous in the audio space, at least in this | generation. Certainly if you fed a whole book into chat | gpt that it had never read before and asked it to | describe the intonation of a character's voice it would | have some level of accuracy (e.g. "husky" vs "meek") so I | think we would want to do something similar for the AI | reading. It could also probably pick up on context in | what it's reading and read it with emotion. | gnopgnip wrote: | The kindles made in the last 5 years or so have this | feature again, called voiceview | mindvirus wrote: | It wasn't publishers, it was the Author's Guild, the union | representing voice talent for audiobooks. https://www.googl | e.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/technology/... | galangalalgol wrote: | I like Neil Gaiman's quote in there, and I agree if you | record someone reading a book you can copyright that, but | that copyright has no bearing on the copyright status of | the recording of a another person or machine reading the | book. If I own the content, I can format shift, that is | actually in law in the US. Audio is a format. | | I think what actually happened is that they convinced | Amazon that there was more money in audiobooks than they | thought, and it wasn't worth using it as a feature to | sell kindles. Now Amazon knows how much money is in | audiobooks and they aren't sharing. Are they surprised? | | Copilot and chatgpt are going to replace me, so I say | this with all humility, don't protect jobs from AI. They | are saving us effort we can spend on other things. This | is just industrialization taken another step. | irrational wrote: | I don't know. I've been listening to an unabridged | audiobook of the Count of Monte Cristo. The single narrator | has done a fantastic job of giving a different voice to | every single character. Even if a particular character | hasn't appeared for tens of hours, when they do reappear, I | remember who they are from their unique voice. | | Plus, the narrator does a great job of pronouncing names | with a french accent (at least, it sounds legit to me, a | non-french speaking person). I wonder how a computer voice | would do with speaking English with a distinct French | accent. Would it understand when to go more heavily English | vs French? | brolumir wrote: | Absolutely. There's a world of difference between a | professional voice actor narrating an audiobook, and | AI/amateur. Personally I can't listen to anything | narrated by anyone other than (good) pro voice actors, it | just kills the enjoyment. | | On a similar note, Sanderson's own books in "graphic | audio" format (multiple voice actors, sound effects, | music, etc) are a wonderful piece of art and is my | preferred way to consume audiobooks when possible. I | don't see that being replaced with AI any time soon. | thaumasiotes wrote: | > I wonder how a computer voice would do with speaking | English with a distinct French accent. Would it | understand when to go more heavily English vs French? | | If you can get a synthesized voice to speak French in a | French accent, you can also get it to speak English in a | French accent. That part's easy. | | > Would it understand when to go more heavily English vs | French? | | For this, I assume you'd just annotate each word. | hoten wrote: | This is my favorite book, I'm due for a reread(listen). | Who's the narrator? | irrational wrote: | Bill Homewood | idontpost wrote: | [dead] | cdash wrote: | Well in this case, these are self-published audio-books so it | can't be the publisher. | SergeAx wrote: | (not sarcasm, geniunely interested) | | What prevents anyone from building a company that gives authors | 50% or even 75% cut? From the technical standpoint, an app to | download/listen for audio is not a big feat. One may host and | serve audio files via any Bandwidth Alliance[1] CDN and keep | the bill quite low, it is just audio, in the end. I'd say, a | viable prototype is just a couple of months of work for a team | of two-three people with day jobs. | | [1]https://www.cloudflare.com/bandwidth-alliance/ | SpeedilyDamage wrote: | What prevents most of these kinds of ideas from happening is | something super mundane; a person to see it through. | | That's it. You could definitely create this service, but | you'd have to be very good at building a company in a market | with big incumbents. | | Maybe "pay creators more" is enough, or maybe consumers don't | really care where their money goes. You'd have to figure that | out! | | But are you willing to dedicate the next 3-5+ years of your | life to this problem? Is anyone? | Shorel wrote: | > From the technical standpoint, an app to download/listen | for audio is not a big feat. | | With adequate DRM? It definitely is a big feat. | | Just distributing the files, without any type of encryption, | is far from trivial. The fact you link to Cloudflare | demonstrates you know you can't host the servers yourself =) | | Almost anything for ten users is trivial, doing it at scale | is hard work. | SergeAx wrote: | I link to Bandwidth Alliance to emphasize that there is a | way to lower a CDN bill. On my previous job we served video | via AWS CloudFront and even negotiated a special price for | that and S3. | | Any CDN with their own object storage will hanlde heavy | lifting of audio, it is not a big deal and not that | expensive to the point of making a garden variety CDN on | Digital Ocean or other cloud provider nonsensical. | | I have to research about DRM, but isn't it goes out of the | box on Android and iOS? | quesera wrote: | I would assert that network transfer costs for audiobook | sales are a vanishingly insignificant part of the total | cost of running an audiobook publishing business. Rounds | to zero, I suspect. | | This is based on a good knowledge of the size of | audiobooks, good knowledge of the price of network | transfer, and a reasonable guess on the number of books | sold. | SergeAx wrote: | What is a major cost then, in your opinion? | quesera wrote: | I'm guessing, but: | | Marketing, payroll, royalties, and operations. In that | order. | | Network transfer fees would come out of operations, and | are probably less than 10% of same. | lolinder wrote: | I wonder about DRM. With Audible taking _such_ a big cut, | it would be interesting to see a platform that gives | creators an 80-90% cut of DRM-free sales. Does piracy | represent such a large threat to sales that making >2x | more per sale wouldn't be worth it? | | Sanderson is distributing raw audio to all backers, so he | clearly doesn't think so. | plorg wrote: | There are a lot of providers who sell DRM-free | audiobooks. Until Spotify bought them Findaway was the | biggest "distributor" for a lot of these companies. I | don't personally look forward to yet another industry | locking away content behind a proprietary, subscription | streaming service. | SergeAx wrote: | Most of Amazon ebooks are easily available via Z-Library, | so I thing that DRM is not very helpful in fending off | piracy. | Waterluvian wrote: | Edit: I big brained and wrote this whole thing while thinking | Spotify. I believe my thoughts on the matter stand, though. So | I'll just correct the wording. P.S. I don't hold this opinion | strongly. I'm eager to hear other thoughts on the matter. | | I'm not a fan of this perspective because it can sound like | people believe it's the company who is behaving wrongly, and | they want a form of charity from it. They want Audible to give | up profit because they don't l feel it's fair. If Audible isn't | worth 60-75%, don't use it to distribute your media. Which is | probably not a viable option. I think this leads to the real | complaint candidates: | | "Audible has a monopoly over audiobook creation/distribution by | breaking laws, and should be dealt with by the government." | | "Audible has a monopoly without breaking laws but I think there | should be laws." | | "I don't like how capitalism works." | | "Capitalism isn't working in my favour this time." | | Audible isn't the right audience for any of these complaints. | | If Audible's service isn't worth anywhere near that much, they | either are acting in a way where government should intervene, | or there's a deliciously ripe opportunity for another business | to thrive if they can overcome the inertia of the incumbent. | | Don't get me wrong, I think the creators should take home the | bulk, and I bet, on intuition alone, that there's plenty of | money to run a music service at a fraction of the take. | vageli wrote: | Audible is not a music service but an audiobook and podcast | service. | Waterluvian wrote: | Omg I'm thinking Spotify. Thank you. Let me correct my | comment. | Calavar wrote: | Critcizing and/or boycotting Audible is probably the strategy | that's most likely to effect change. | | Yes, I do think the government should intervene, but is that | realistic? How often does the US file antitrust suits against | big tech companies or their subsidiaries? I've seen lawsuits | to block mergers/acquisitions, but the last time I remember | actually breaking up an existing monopoly as an option on the | table was Microsoft over 20 years ago. | | I dont see any deliciously ripe business opportunity here. If | you want to compete with Audible, you need to attract authors | to your platform. Yes, you can try luring them with a more | generous share of the profits. But you will run into a brick | wall because the sheer size of Audible's user base means that | authors have bigger potential earnings there even though | Audible takes an extortionate cut. And you won't be able to | match Audible's user base until you have a similarly | large/diverse selection of authors and works to choose from. | | The only way to break the chicken and egg problem is to come | with a huge amount of capital that allows you bribe | authors/users onto your platform by selling at a loss while | you build up volume. Which, of course, is exactly how Audible | built its monopoly in the first place. But back then it was | an emerging market and the competitors were smaller and less | entrenched. Audible feels comfortable taking an extortionate | cut now precisely because it knows that no one else has both | the capital and the will to compete with them. This is not | something that I would bin under "the free market working as | it should." | | I'm surpised that some people still don't recognize the | playbook. This is 20th century tech strategy. Amazon was | already doing this with physical books in the 90s - it | shouldn't be the least bit surprising that they are doing it | again with digital audiobooks. | lenzm wrote: | This strikes me as market absolutism - if you are | participating in a market then you have to believe that the | market will solve all of your problems or else they aren't | valid. People can believe a company is behaving "wrongly" | even if it profitable and successful. | | But there are almost always other social dynamics at play, | true free markets are rare. You can generally "like how | capitalism works" and not believe that markets will optimally | solve every problem all the time. | | Also, "the market" is an abstraction. What actually kills | companies? People stop using their product. | Criticism/boycotting is a market force. Capitalism requires | informed consumers and this is consumers sharing information. | | Markets also take time. Even if you believe the market will | solve a problem, it will take time for the "bad" company to | die and other firms to take it's place. | mcv wrote: | "Capitalism only works well if there is sufficient | competition" | | That's the valid complaint here. There's not enough | competition for Audible, so they can afford to charge | extortionate prices. More competition is good, so that's what | Sanderson invests in. Sounds like an awesome move to me. | Waterluvian wrote: | That really feels like a great solution. | | Perhaps I'm muddied in semantics, but I don't think the | complaint can be "Audible exploits people." I think it is, | "someone needs to exploit the opportunity Audible has | presented by charging so much." | safety1st wrote: | That's the option I like too, but it's easier said than | done. We have these quasi-monopolies popping up around | digital intellectual property of nearly every sort: | charge a lot. Everybody uses Microsoft Office. There's | only a handful of Hollywood studios. Etc. Etc. | | It seems that for some combination of legal and technical | reasons it's very hard to beat an incumbent in these | industries. Maybe it's just that the economies of scale | are so good, I don't know. but when you think about it, | _everything involved is man-made,_ the very concept of | intellectual property itself is a human invention. | Patents, copyrights etc. all just stuff we cooked up. If | we have defined it to be a self-reinforcing monopoly- | generating thing, maybe we should redefine it. | [deleted] | mcv wrote: | I think "Audible exploits people" is a perfectly valid | complaint. But it's important to understand that it's the | natural inclination of corporations to exploit people | whenever they can, and if you want them to stop, you need | to make it harder for them to do so. | | There's a lot of ways you can do that. By introducing | regulation, competition, empowering people, or even | banning corporations. The first two seem to be the most | popular in our society. | gilbetron wrote: | Wait, his kickstarter averaged over $200 per backer?? That's | crazy. A $41 million kickstarter - my head is exploding. | throw0101a wrote: | > _That 's crazy. A $41 million kickstarter - my head is | exploding._ | | After which he turned around and used some of that money to | fund other people's crowdfunding projects: | | * https://www.tubefilter.com/2022/03/25/brandon-sanderson- | back... | | * https://winteriscoming.net/2022/03/29/brandon-sanderson- | back... | bitexploder wrote: | I bought a $200 version of Way of Kings [1]. It is actually two | books. It is nicest book I own, and I have some pretty nice | books. I only did $60 for the kickstarter campaign. That gets | you all the books and audio books. | | Brandon does stuff for his fans. Sure he is probably quite | wealthy at this point, but he is just writing books for /us/ | still. He actually finishes stories and is a good guy. I freely | support him with $. I know many fans feel the same way. He | writes books for everyone and has some really fun stories. | Reading his blog post about Audible just affirms my long | support for him. | | [1] https://www.dragonsteelbooks.com/products/the-way-of- | kings-l... | wiredfool wrote: | And just recently, commenters here were saying that no one | reads complicated books any more. | | (My kids read Sanderson. In volume. One of them is responsible | for an average chunk of that kickstarter) | providedotemacs wrote: | Sanderson's fans are very loyal, and he has proven that he will | deliver. | KptMarchewa wrote: | There's really not much people I have so high opinion of as | him, and practically no one with such differing personal | beliefs. | CatWChainsaw wrote: | I'm not sure what I can add to this comment to make it | substantial. I just support every word of it. | | He really is the kind of person everyone should aspire to | be, in both work-ethic and ethic-ethic. | VHRanger wrote: | Right, he's the polar opposite of Rothfuss | 0cf8612b2e1e wrote: | Ouch. Right in the feels. Evidently Name of the Wind came | out in 2007. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-12-23 23:00 UTC)