Brandon Sanderson

Brandon Winn Sanderson (born December19, 1975) is an American author of high fantasy, science fiction, and young adult books. His best known novels include the Mistborn series and The Stormlight Archive, which are set in the "Cosmere", a fictional universe. Outside of the Cosmere, he has written several young adult and juvenile series including The Reckoners, the Skyward series,Efn|The Skyward series is published as adult outside of the US. several of which have topped The New York Times best seller list. Sanderson's March 2022 Kickstarter campaign to self-publish four novels became one of the most successful in history, finishing with 185,341 backers pledging US$41,754,153. In January 2026, Apple TV purchased the film and television rights to Sanderson's Cosmere universe in a unprecedented deal that gives Sanderson extensive creative control over the shows.

Personal life

Early life Sanderson was born on December 19, 1975, in Lincoln, Nebraska, He made several early attempts at writing his own stories.

In 1997, Sanderson returned to BYU and changed his major to English literature. While an undergraduate, Sanderson took a job as a night auditor at a local hotel in Provo, Utah, which allowed him to write while working. While at BYU, Sanderson was on the staff of Leading Edge, a semi-professional speculative fiction magazine published by the university, and served as its editor-in-chief during 2001. One of the secret projects during the pandemic, Tress of the Emerald Sea, was released in book form in April 2023. In March 2024, Sanderson announced a further 'secret project' novel set for a 2025 release.

Sanderson also collaborated with Unknown Worlds Entertainment to create the lore and setting for the video game Moonbreaker, which was released via early access in September 2022.

The "biggest release the [fantasy] genre has seen in years" came about in December 2024 with the unveiling of Wind and Truth. This is Sanderson's fifth and final book in the first arc of The Stormlight Archive. Sanderson projects there will be at least five more books in the series, but the printing of these novels is not expected until 2031. The agreement seeks to develop feature films based on the Mistborn series and a television series adaptation of The Stormlight Archive, both of which are among Sanderson’s most commercially successful and widely read works. The deal is described as significant within the industry because it grants Sanderson an unusually high degree of creative involvement: he is expected to write, produce, consult on the adaptations, and retain approval rights over key production elements. Production roles have begun to take shape for The Stormlight Archive television project, with the production company Blue Marble Pictures attached and executive producer Theresa Kang linked to the series.

Dragonsteel Entertainment, LLC Dragonsteel Entertainment, LLC is a company acting as publisher, storefront, and producer for various Sanderson-related products and projects. It is also known as Dragonsteel Books, according to Sanderson's personal blog, as a rebranding tactic in 2021. It holds copyrights to many of Sanderson's novels and has self-published several of his stories in both digital and print formats.

In 2024, Sanderson appeared before 5,000 fans at FanX in Salt Lake City, Utah, at a 50-minute panel. During the panel, Sanderson announced that Dragonsteel Entertainment had purchased land to "theoretically build a bookstore" called Dragonsteel Plaza. Dragonsteel Plaza would be home to a bookstore, outside market, and the headquarters for Dragonsteel Entertainment, LLC.

Kickstarter campaigns Sanderson first turned to Kickstarter in 2020, when he generated $6.7 million from almost 30,000 backers to produce a collectable leather-bound 10th anniversary edition of the Stormlight Archive novel, The Way of Kings.

In 2022, in his second Kickstarter project, Sanderson raised over $41.7 million for four secret books, all intended as stand-alone novels, through Dragonsteel Entertainment. The crowdfunding campaign became the largest in Kickstarter history by pledge volume, surpassing the previous record holder by more than double. It also set new records for the most funds raised in the first 24 hours, with $15.4 million, as well as the highest number of backers and total funding within the same time period.

In August 2024, Sanderson teamed up with Brotherwise Games to create a tabletop role-playing game (TTRPG) based on the mythical universe the Cosmere, featured in many of his fantasy novels. With over $14.6 million in pledges, the Kickstarter campaign broke the previous record in pledges for a tabletop RPG. Jane Horne is the director of the organization. and stories contained in Arcanum Unbounded: The Cosmere Collection are all set. This idea came from Sanderson's desire to create an epic-length series while also attempting to convince publishers to sell his books as a new writer. Sanderson has estimated that the Cosmere sequence could conclude with at least 40 books.

Sanderson's Laws of Magic Sanderson makes an express distinction between "soft" and "hard" magic for purposes of world building and creating magic systems in fictional settings.

Sanderson from 2008 to 2022 participated in the weekly podcast Writing Excuses with authors Dan Wells, Mary Robinette Kowal, and web cartoonist Howard Tayler.