Brandon Sanderson — Building a Fiction Empire, $40M+ Kickstarter Campaigns, and Unbreakable Habits

Tim Ferriss is one of Fast Company’s “Most Innovative Business People” and an early-stage tech investor/advisor in Uber, Facebook, Twitter, Shopify, Duolingo, Alibaba, and 50+ other companies. He is also the author of five #1 New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestsellers: The 4-Hour Workweek, The 4-Hour Body, The 4-Hour Chef, Tools of Titans and Tribe of Mentors. The Observer and other media have named him “the Oprah of audio” due to the influence of his podcast, The Tim Ferriss Show, which has exceeded 900 million downloads and been selected for “Best of Apple Podcasts” three years running. Sign up for "5-Bullet Friday" (Tim's free weekly email newsletter): https://go.tim.blog/5-bullet-friday-yt/ Follow the Tim Ferriss Podcast: https://tim.blog/podcast/ Visit the Tim Ferriss Blog: https://tim.blog/ Follow Tim Ferriss on Twitter: https://twitter.com/tferriss/ Follow Tim Ferriss on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/timferriss/ Like Tim Ferriss on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TimFerriss/ [00:00] Start [01:20] How “50 Nifty United States” became Brandon’s default soundcheck. [02:29] Brandon’s unusual memory. [03:30] Optimizing productivity. [05:32] Brandon’s Seoul connection and how it informed his creative process. [07:29] Why Korean is an ideal starter Asian language for Westerners. [11:01] Creating worlds’ worth of conlangs (constructed languages) without succumbing to worldbuilder’s disease. [15:10] The game-changing influence of David Farland. [20:17] Brandon’s approach to teaching creative writing and publishing insights. [23:20] Writing styles: gardeners vs. architects. [25:35] Helping students navigate past writing roadblocks. [28:55] Brandon’s average daily word count. [31:37] What made Brandon want to become a writer? [39:24] Brandon’s journey from a C Student to an A Student. [40:40] We trade stories about the influence of great teachers. [42:50] Teaching students how to understand narrative and plot. [48:47] Recommended reading for narrative building. [50:14] Brandon is part gardener, part architect who takes inspiration from improv. [50:57] The art of character development — what happens when it goes right (and wrong). [01:03:58] Finding a balance between personal and professional life. [01:08:35] Why did Brandon and his wife build the Dragonsteel company? [01:12:41] What characterizes an epic fantasy? [01:13:58] Aside: Brandon’s Joe Abercrombie story. [01:17:20] Brandon’s financial realities as a prolific but relatively unknown writer. [01:20:06] Hitting the bestseller list and adapting to an Amazon-dominated publishing world. [01:23:19] Brandon’s DIY approach to changing an inflexible industry on his own terms. [01:27:36] Sure, time is money. But how much is that worth? [01:30:59] Team building, remainder recycling, runaway crowdfunding success, and lessons learned. [01:42:06] The escape velocity of attention. [01:46:36] How COVID helped Brandon reclaim creative freedom and family time. [01:54:32] Brandon’s viral video “confession.” [01:56:53] The Colbert Report (sort of) cameo. [01:57:46] Outperforming Kickstarter expectations and shipping limited run subscription boxes. [02:02:54] Test readers and the feedback process. [02:09:26] Warbreaker and the Creative Commons experiment. [02:22:50] Navigating the sordid world of publishing deals and platforms. [02:27:06] How Brandon got tapped to complete the celebrated Wheel of Time series. [02:37:28] How Mistborn went from floundering to flourishing. [02:38:42] Building an audience that would follow Brandon anywhere in The Cosmere. [02:42:02] The dreaded publishing Death Spiral. [02:48:54] Why Brandon finds magic systems to be an integral part of his worldbuilding. [02:53:58] Sanderson’s Three Laws of Magic. [03:07:20] The Zeroth Law and final thoughts.