Dragonsteel Entertainment

by Isaac Stewart

Company logo by Isaac Stewart

Dragonsteel Entertainment LLC is a company founded and operated by Brandon Sanderson.

Dragonsteel owns the copyright on many of Brandon's books and it has self-published some of Brandon's stories in both electronic and print formats. It also operates Brandon's merchandise store, which rebranded as Dragonsteel Books in 2021. It also produces the Writing Excuses and Intentionally Blank podcasts.

Employees

by Dragonsteel Entertainment

Lopen, Adam's corgi, provides the cute

The company, which is sometimes referred to as "Team Sanderson", started small and gradually grew as Brandon found increasing success with his books. As of 2022, Dragonsteel employs around 53 people and it has a physical warehouse in Pleasant Grove, Utah.

Some of the employees include:

• Emily Sanderson - Brandon's wife and COO of Dragonsteel
• Kara Stewart - CFO and Vice President of Fulfillment, Events, and Store
• Peter Ahlstrom - Vice President of Editorial
• Karen Ahlstrom - Continuity editor and keeper of Brandon's internal wiki
• Adam Horne - Vice President of Publicity and Marketing
• Isaac Stewart - Vice President of Creative Development and internal art director
• Matt Hatch - Vice President of Operations and Director of Human Resources
• Dan Wells - Vice President of Narrative

Crowdfunding Campaigns

The Way of Kings 10th Anniversary Leatherbound Kickstarter (2020)

In 2019, Brandon got the idea to fund the 10th anniversary leatherbound edition of The Way of Kings through the crowdfunding website Kickstarter after talking to a cartoonist friend, Howard Tayler. He decided Kickstarter was a good fit due to the site's flexible management tools that would allow him to sell a variety of bundles including both digital and physical bonus items. It also allowed Dragonsteel to have control over the leatherbound itself, from the paper and binding to the font, illustrations and layout. Brandon also decided to include both Dawnshard and The Way of Kings Prime in the backer rewards and the team developed a variety of exclusive merchandise.

When the campaign went live in July 2020, it surpassed its goal of $250,000 within minutes. After one month, it finished with nearly 30,000 backers and $6.8 million in funding, making it the most-funded publishing Kickstarter of all time. The team was blown away by the response and quickly got to work on the book and other rewards. Although the COVID-19 pandemic presented some logistical problems that delayed production and shipment of some items, all of the backer rewards were fulfilled by September 2021.

Four Secret Novels Kickstarter (2022)

On February 28, 2022, Brandon posted a seemingly somber video on YouTube alluding to potential changes in his career that he needed to talk about. After a day of rampant speculation by fans, he posted a follow-up video wherein he revealed that he was actually announcing good news. He explained that the limitations on travel caused by the COVID-19 pandemic had caused him to cancel his book tours starting in 2020. Although he was disappointed that he couldn't see the world and interact with fans, the side effect was that he suddenly had much more time on his hands, and he used this time to write. Initially, he wrote one novel in secret as a gift for his wife. As the pandemic continued, he realized that these secret novels were a great creative outlet for him since they fell outside of his "core" series. He went on to write four more secret novels while simultaneously working on his previously announced books, not even revealing them to the Dragonsteel staff. One of the books is a middle-grade story inspired by his kids called Super Awesome Danger that may become a graphic novel. Of the four adult novels, three are set in new worlds of the cosmere and the remaining novel is non-cosmere. The books themselves are not interconnected (other than three of them taking place in the cosmere).

At the same time that the announcement video was posted, a new Kickstarter campaign for the four secret novels went live. The campaign is intended to make 2023 a "Year of Sanderson", with the top backer tier including monthly rewards: one of the secret novels each quarter (in e-book, audiobook, and hardcover formats) plus eight boxes of themed merchandise in the other months of 2023. The campaign's goal was set at one million dollars, and it surpassed that amount in 35 minutes. Within 24 hours, it had raised $15.4 million, the single most successful day of any Kickstarter campaign. After three days, the campaign broke the previous Kickstarter funding record of $20.3 million held by the Pebble Time smartwatch. The project ended on March 31, 2022, with 185,000 backers and $41.7 million in funding, attracting widespread media attention due to its sheer size and groundbreaking nature within the publishing industry.

Brandon released the titles and performed readings from all four novels on his YouTube channel during the Kickstarter campaign. However, to maintain a level of secrecy for those who did not want spoilers, he continued referring to them as Secret Project One (for Tress of the Emerald Sea), Two (for The Frugal Wizard's Handbook for Surviving Medieval England), Three (for Yumi and the Nightmare Painter), and Four (The Sunlit Man) whenever he could.

Words of Radiance 10th Anniversary Leatherbound BackerKit (2024)

After posting a number of videos about the Knights Radiant featuring Senne Khald, Brandon officially announced the crowdfunding campaign for the 10th anniversary leatherbound edition of Words of Radiance on March 5th, 2024, this time using BackerKit. Within a short time of the project going live, it became the largest BackerKit campaign of all time, despite the website crashing due to heavy traffic. The BackerKit campaign also features a new Sanderson Curiosity, Dragonsteel Prime, a second edition of The Way of Kings Prime, and other tiers and add-ons including merchandise themed to each Radiant Order.

At the end of the announcement video, Brandon revealed the existence of a new secret project that is part of the campaign: a future-era cosmere novel with "high cosmere connectivity". It will ship in 2025, and the title will be revealed on March 21, 2024.

See Also

• Mainframe, another company co-founded by Brandon focused on audio originals and other types of media

Notes

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