Brandon Sanderson broke the minds of many in the publishing industry two years ago with a secret novel campaign on Kickstarter for four books, which raised over $41 million on the site from more than 185,000 backers. Now, he’s back in the crowdfunding game, showing that his work has staying power through a BackerKit sale for a leatherbound edition of his Stormlight Archives book, Words of Radiance.
Everyone surrounding fantasy novels was surprised at how well Brandon Sanderon’s Kickstarter did in sales. He is one of the best-known names in the genre and beloved by fans for being accessible and a nice person in addition to having a nearly magical ability to finish books at incredible speeds, providing content at a level that keeps readers engaged, which is a stark contrast to other writers in epic fantasy like the incredibly late George R.R. Martin.
With such success, Brandon Sanderson also gave back to the writing community by going and backing every Kickstarter project active in literature at the time as a thank you for the tremendous support. He helped other authors fulfill their dreams and constantly acts as an advocate for independent writers.
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What many people who followed but didn’t back the campaign don’t know is that Brandon Sanderson also maximized profits further in a brilliant business move via the website BackerKit, an aftermarket add-on for Kickstarter that brings backers into an online storefront to sell other products. There, he sold leatherbound editions of his other books for hyper-premium products fans would enjoy. Those books sold millions more in revenue on top of the already successful Kickstarter.
He’s back with his fan favorite Stormlight Archives, producing a new leatherbound edition of Words of Radiance. Much like the first book in the series, it’s split into two as leather binding can’t handle the giant tomes Brandon Sanderson produces in just one volume. He’s also accompanied this campaign with another secret book project for fans to enjoy.
Backerkit as a website aggregates the data from Kickstarters and not only puts up a storefront when used but also integrates an e-mail list for Brandon Sanderson to mine his prior Kickstarter backers and sell to them again. It’s a brilliant system, and doing this campaign directly to Backerkit makes it far easier to manage for the fulfillment end, where the site also has an integrated assistance option.
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Words of Radiance leatherbound has already made more than $14 million from 44,000 backers as of this writing, and the campaign’s only been open one day. To get the full package with a secret novel and the books, customers have to drop a cool $325, which is expensive for fans, but for leather books, they know what they’re paying for.
The second success of Brandon Sanderson proving that his Stormlight Archives leatherbound can do numbers most authors only dream of in the field has to rattle traditional publishers, whose model relies on large authors like Brandon Sanderson covering the losses of smaller upcoming authors. If big authors can do it on their own, what’s the point of big publishers?
What do you think of the Stormlight Archives Words of Radiance leatherbound from Brandon Sanderson on BackerKit? Leave a comment and let us know.
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