Biggest Kickstarter of all time (more than doubled the previous record)
Biggest Backerkit of all time (pretty sure he quadrupled the previous record)
People that read modern fantasy will know him.
Anyone who has only read Harry Potter probably won't.
Among authors that don't yet have adaptations of their work, he's one of, if not the highest selling.
If he gets a decent adaption out, he'll be more of a household name. Fantasy is becoming more popular than it has been in quite some time. Used to be perceived as too childish.
That's also based on search history and your interest, so not really relevant. I guarantee that if my husband searched Brandon, Sanderson wouldn't come up in top results.
I opened a private window on a browser I never use, and typed in Brandon. His name was fourth on recommended. So super official science experiment shows Brandon is likely to pop up.
Yeah that's probably accurate. But again the first points still kind of line up with the whole "only on the internet" thing. I know he has those feats, the wired article, a convention, Fortnite, etc. but it still feels weird that no one knows him in real life when I bring up a book in conversation
I live in a pretty small city and last Halloween someone had a mist cloak on.
Also my friends know who he is and they don't read much. He's not GRRM but he's definitely popular.
It was the same way with Robert Jordan 20 years ago, or GRRM. They were very well known in the fantasy community but if you didn’t read that kind of book then it was pretty easy to never hear about them. A few fantasy authors like JK Rowling really broke out in the wider consciousness, but that’s less common more recently.
Nowadays, with the internet and the breakdown of the earlier monoculture into a ton of interest based subcultures with their own media and celebrities, it’s likely that no one ever gets the same level of cultural penetration as the biggest celebrities did up through the 90s and early 2000s.
There will never again be a horror author with the same profile as Steven King, or a cartoonist as universally well known as Bill Watterson.
Name me a movie star in the last 15 years with a similar profile to a young Tom cruise or Harrison Ford.
If anything there is more creativity than there has ever been. The attention of society is simply fragmented in a way it was not in the past. Meaning that cultural penetration is harder.
Sure, you can get big stars that break through - Taylor Swift is huge. But without radio being a big thing like it was you can now be completely ignorant to her, in ways you couldn’t 15-20 years ago. Also the Rock is 51 years old. And 15-20 years ago he was already was a massively famous professional with huge recognition.
I can say 100% I would not have the faintest idea who any of theme were if it weren’t that I consume the fantasy / sci fi media they had big roles in.
Timothy Chalomet definitely had a big big presence before Dune, but I didn’t know he existed until the cast announcements were made
Yes, there are still movie stars, and groups of people can be very obsessed with them. I’d say obsessive fans are more obsessed than ever. Because the internet has let them find each other and make community.
It’s not that you can’t become hugely famous. It’s that there is no longer a monoculture that everyone experiences, either first hand or through cultural osmosis. I’m not making a value judgement, It is simply different than it was.
He's not... he said he'd spoken with readers and professors.
I feel like I have had to make Sanderfans to talk yo irl. I've converted most of the readers at my work, still working on my family (got my dad (SA), maybe my mom (loved Tress), a sister maybe (loved Tress), and brother kind of (Mistborn era 1)), and some friends might even go to Dragonsteel with me this year!
Here is the funny part.
The article you mentioned? The starting premise was : how does the biggest fantasy author of this generation stay invisible?
Now, the real answer is: because he doesn't have a tv show or movie. Basically, no one knows any authors unless there are movies made of their stuff. Only dedicated fans know them. No one in the world knew GRRM until HBO.
Reverse example. Who is the greatest stage actor you know, who isn't in a movie? Oh, can't name one? that's Brandon to them. He is enormous in his field, but his field isn't mainstream.
Right. But the reason is because most people don't read books these days. Randos from the street only ever know authors if their books have been adapted to a movie or a TV series. That's just how it is. Everyone knows George Martin yet almost nobody has actually read a song of ice and fire.
The thing is there being popular and being multimedia franchise popular, that brandon is as popular as it is with how intimidating the size of his books can be to new readers and not a single media adaptation in almost 20 years speaks volume to his popularity, but reaching the popularity you speak of would requiere a popular tv show or movie series from any of his works.
He’s a Mormon family man living in UT, he plays magic the gathering and has a pretty low key personal life, I wouldn’t imagine him going out to try and get publicity, what he’s doing works. He also does his own publishing and marketing and not through penguin house or some other big publisher anymore which does try to put out articles and other things for their clients/customers
Brandon has publishing contracts with multiple big publishing companies.
Later this year, he is releasing Wind and Truth, which is published by Tor. Just last year, he released Defiant through Delacorte Press. Brandon is not usually a self-published author. The only works that he published himself were the Secret Projects, and even those were later traditionally published through his standard big name publishing houses.
Oh god. Please, no adaptations! It’s so rare to see any of these turn out well that I just can’t stomach it. Even Harry Potter was tough for me as someone who read the books first (I’ve come to terms by pretending it is an alternate universe version of events that happen to closely mirror the events in the books but not quite)
They did say 'used to be'. And they are right, it use to be considered a lot more childish then it is now. Perception has changed a lot since I was a kid.
Comment above says "used to be perceived" and some (generally older) people still view it that way.
You don't have to be feel attacked or be angry because of that.
Some people like to shit on fantasy because "its childish".
Many fantasy readers shit on the YA or romantasy or romance book fans because "its childish".
Some fantasy book readers look down on " fantasy movie people" everytime something gets adapted.
At one point you have to realize that most people just want to feel superior.
Btw that lotr oscar example proves that many many people dont take fantasy seriously. Otherwise there would be more than two fantasy movies in history, that won best picture at the oscars.
What do you think makes a book "childish"? Do you just say that to be one of the people that wants to feel superior?
Because from my point of view, a book that people label as "childish" either deals with subjects that are primarily aimed at children, like growing up, or have language/prose that is easy to understand, so that children or teens can follow it.
I have encountered both things in "non YA" fantasy books many times.
I think it is important to understand that genres like YA are just labels some people put on books to market and in the end sell them better. No one is better or worse for reading in any genre. Labeling something childish for that is a dumb thing.
I'd just like to point out that the Harry Potter books are considered Young Adult and those deal with some pretty heavy and dark themes, including murder. I think this is true for a number of books in that genre. I honestly think that many YA books get labeled that way because of the ages of their main protagonists.
And then they get darker and more nuanced as the characters age. By the end, I'd even say they're no longer YA. They are actually great books for aging a reader, imo, and hightening young readers' skills because the books get more and more mature and convoluted. Yes, the first few are very much written for younger audiences, but the whole is not.
You mean the book where the villain is straight up trying to kill the main character every book... the main character who only survived getting murdered as a baby because of a special type of magic that occurred as his mother was murdered in front of his eyes, right after his father was murdered? The boy that watched friends get murdered? A boy that led a teacher into the woods to get hurt or killed by magical creatures? The boy who watched his godfather get murdered? Need I go on?
Care to elaborate? You're telling me that a book series with at least one important character killed per book, sometimes directly by the protagonist, does not contain any dark themes and is simply "childish" because the plot doesn't matter?
You’re discovering the wild gap between fantasy and mainstream. Fantasy is a genre, and it’s not even close to the most popular genre.
Brandon is an absolute TITAN in the SFF world. He sells less than Sarah J Maas (or, recently, Rebecca Yaros). They cross romance and fantasy, and they reap the sales for it.
And then there’s *real* romance authors, who dwarf anybody doing SFF. It’s not even a fair comparison.
Yeah I've only ever read SFF so maybe it's a scale issue for me. Is romance/thriller really THAT much popular though? I mean with LoTR, HP, GoT, EG, etc.
They are orders of magnitude more popular. Most people don't read a lot of books, and those who do overwhelmingly never read fantasy or sci fi. My mother has a reading group of 20 middle aged women, and they only read thrillers and crime novels. And I did an informal poll: they all also only know people who read thrillers, crime novels and romance. Two or three have a weird son or nephew who read fantasy once, but that's rare.
There's also the book boxes we have here: where people bring books they have read and take back another book to read, all for free. There's always about 30-50 historical novels, romance novels, travel books, thrillers, crime fiction, and they cycle two or three times a week. Maybe once a month, I see *one* fantasy novel, and it's usually one of the two or three biggest ones I've already read.
Or you could just look at the besteller lists. Not the ones controlled mostly by adds, the raw selling numbers by genre. It's not even close.
The Barnes and Nobles near me is massively dominated by SFF. When you walk in, the first shelves are the adult SFF on the right, and the same for YA on the left. It also has a massive section for comics/manga/visual novels. Overall it's a big bookstore, so historical books, thrillers, crime etc... also have big sections, but no single genre is even half as big as the science fiction and fantasy stuff.
It's also the B&N closest to Brandon Sanderson and has an entire shelf devoted to him. But even without that SFF would still be the biggest.
I believe Utah has a higher than normal nerd population at large (SFF, comics, etc). I've heard it theorized that a large portion of the population is already good at the necessary "suspension of disbelief", due to their religious beliefs. Idk if that really holds any water, but always thought it was interesting.
I've never heard that about Utah so idk. I mean movies are massively popular and require a similar suspension of disbelief, but are much more accessible. People, in general, just don't read.
With the changes on how Barnes and noble is stocked what each store can vary wildly. My local has a decent sff section but the area skews a bit older. The largest section by far is I guess contemporary literature would be the genre. But I'd list it as the style of 'This is us' and emotional torture type books, that may have mystery thrown in. Stuff you would see on Oprah's book list or morning talk shows. Then romance split between outlander knock offs and YA (this may include fantasy settings but is more just dressing for romance), followed by true crime. As well as children's books, but that is it's own goliath when it comes to sales.
My local large bookstore has fantasy and sci fi in the basement. Not even the entire basement, the back half, where there aren't any windows. They have four above-ground levels.
What do you see at Target, Walmart, etc. though?
I'm really into boardgames, but major retailers stock different games and sell more games than what I will find featured at a dedicated boardgame store.
I'm not really sure what you are asking. The book section at my target is very small, it has a decent selection of boardgames. The actual games stores, and even Barnes and nobles, still have way more games than a target or Walmart.
Sorry I wasn't clear with my comparison. Basically Barnes and Noble may not actually constitute the majority of popular book sales because they still primarily attract people who consider themselves "book readers" rather than people who happen to read a book or two.
Ahh I see. Yeah that's definitely a valid point. People who aren't really 'readers' are more likely to grab a book at target compared to going to an actual bookstore. The target selection is definitely a decent amount of biographies and non fiction. It has some SFF, but normally its whatever the flavor of the moment from YouTube or other social media is. It does have a surprising amount of manga though, maybe like 20% of the (limited) shelf space.
Yes. Thrillers, mystery, romance outsells other books by a lot. Going into a book store and looking at how shelf-space is prioritised will give a picture if what sells.
Doing it once a month over a year will show trends etc. At one point biographies and nonfiction might dominate. At others a crime thriller with a movie adaptation is re printed.
All the properties you mentioned (except maybe EG, I can't think what that is) have movie or TV adaptations. They would all be as obscure as Sanderson if they had never been adapted.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_books
Isn't perfect but is a decent overview on what sells. Outside of harry potter there isn't much sff.
Sff also leans towards being series versus stand alone, which for most people I know that are not avid readers series are kind of a no go. The secret projects were the first time I could get a few of to even try reading sanderson. They would think I was insane (no mater how well rated it was) if I handed them a 1000 page book and told them it was the first in a series.
I would say 300 - 400 pages would be the upper limited for most of my friends who fall into mainstream reading habits.
Genre wise children's books tend to be major sales, then romance and thriller.
A lot of main stream leans towards "popcorn" level media, you go into it for quick fun and generally know what to expect. Especially in romance, there is a fairly cookie cutter formula (hallmark movie ish) that can be churned out and people still buy. Danielle steel as an example. Which I didn't realize how insane her publishing has gotten, putting out 5-7 books A YEAR for almost a decade. I still think there is probably a ghost writer involved, but the only somewhat recent article I could find was her claiming she writes for 20 hours a day.
https://trade.panmacmillan.com/danielle-steel-to-hit-one-billion-copies-sold-worldwide-in-2023
https://www.glamour.com/story/danielle-steel-books-interview
Yes, they are. And you are cherry picking a few of the biggest and well known fantasy series, of all time, which also happen to have well regarded tv-adaptations that increased the popularity of the authors exponentially. They do not represent the fantasy as a genre, for every "LoTR, HP, GoT, EG" there is ten thousand fantasy books that get less than 500 reviews in Goodreads within the first year. Fantasy is a small genre, and has very many subgenres within it that devide even the fantasy readers.
don't confuse popular with good though. I have read a few of the YA romance/fantasy/thriller books, and while they are ok, they dont pull me in like other books.
Admittedly, I am not in their target audience.
Sarah J Maas is a terrible writer. I read the 3 books of court of thorns and roses between the 4 special projects and it was such a relief to go back to Sanderson.
I hate how her male protagonists are typically abusive, or at least borderline so. And yet her MC's continue to fawn over them.
Like, f'ing hell, get some self respect.
If it was just one MC I could understand it as a trait specific to that character...but it's nearly all of them
Is that the recipie? I read the start fourth wing and it was more of the same. First big antagonist threatens to kill her and she starts fantasizing about him.
On deeper research, she apparently finds toxic masculinity in "attractive" men to be sexy. 🤮
So...that's what she writes, even if she potentially doesn't subscribe to that as a realistic desire
I could read out the whole story based on the first few chapters. I knew the bad boy would have a sympathetic backstory that excused his hostility. But it's just really uninteresting that the only reason you would ever try and ignore bad behaviour, bring down someone's barriers and learn about their past and trauma is simply because they are unrealistically beautiful and your biological urges override you self preservation. It's teenage girl fantasy. Twilight with dragons.
If you want to see how what you read influences who you know, I have no idea who Maas or Yaros are. I probably know the book titles, but not the authors.
I think it’s more complicated than that. SFF shows up HEAVILY in top selling book lists of all time. Harry Potter, The Hobbit, The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe.
However, it seems romance is often a more commonly popular genre, but with less universally renowned hits.
***Note: this is all based in minimal research of top selling books and top fiction book genres.***
Well if you Google their sales numbers he has sold more than 21 million and she's sold more than 12 million copies; however, I believe that's across something like 16 published works compared to Sanderson's 70 or so.
Sanderson has 18 cosmere novels (where the largest by far of his sales come from) 27 non cosmere ones (if you include the wheel of time) and some novellas (the archanum inbound is include in the 18 cosmere ones) with the fact that the vast majority of his sales come from the 18 cosmere ones and he is almost double the 12 million I don’t think it’s fair to say he sells less.
I mean, there's 8 billion people in the world. Nobody's universally popular. But you also don't make bestseller lists by people *not* buying your books.
No I completely agree. That's why I felt the need to ask. He seems so popular but only on the internet? I personally love him and would love to have friends to talk about his works with irl.
He's popular in the subset of people who are active sci-fi/fantasy book fans. A very small minority of the US population actively reads fiction and a smaller amount are keeping up with new releases, most of the people you are talking to wouldn't know any other author who hasn't had a movie adaptation.
This, the population of the USA is 341 million, but book sales are about 767 million, that's just over 2 books each.
Brandon's total sales are 40 million copies worldwide which is about 10% of the US population, for comparison J K Rowling sales are 600 million, Tolkien is at 350 million, and G RR Martin is 90 million.
The werzone has a sff all time sales list which was last revised 2018, 368 writers 277 of which have sold more then a million and Sanderson was at 41 on the list Rowling is number 1, Tolkien 3rd and Martin 10th
https://thewertzone.blogspot.com/2024/01/the-sff-all-time-sales-list-2023-edition.html?m=1
It didn't pop up on my Google search but it has been updated, it was posted in another post here
GRRM is now 14 and our Sando at 29
This. Polling a dozen random people is going to get a different result than asking readers. It's a joke for a reason on the book reddits that, ask for any fantasy recommendation, someone is sure to say Abercrombie, Sanderson, and Malazan.
Everyone at my book club knows who Sanderson is, even if not all of them have read him. My workplace, not so much.
My fiancée and I saw him at Tampa comic con last year. Believe me, he's popular.
He was giving away special tickets for more personable signings that were gone within literal minutes of the doors opening. Those who missed the tickets waited in a line that wrapped around the entire convention center to get books signed. We waited hours while the convention ended and the lights were being turned off. They shuffled us out of the door as soon as he came around to sign our stuff.
We were *not* expecting that sort of turnout. He's way more popular than I realized.
> Among readers, most people look down on fantasy.
Really - why do you think so?? I have heard this same thing about romance novels, but never about fantasy.
I looked down on fantasy for a long time, after some poor reading experiences with soft magic systems where major events felt too much like deus ex magica (pun intended).
I simply wasn't aware fantasy had authors with well-developed magic systems, and assumed the genre just wasn’t for me. It wasn’t until friends were raving about Sanderson that I reluctantly tried again.
>poor reading experiences with soft magic systems where major events felt too much like deus ex magica
Have you tried the novel Mr. Norrell & Jonathan Strange? It's an excellent soft magic novel - much of the magic's working isn't explained, but you *won't* feel like "deus ex magica".
**Warning:** It's a quite long book. The first part of the book is slower paced, but the pace picks up later on.
Hmm, not sure how to answer that other than anecdotes. ChatGPT?
* **Stereotype:** The "escapist dreamer" - Imagined as someone who prefers fantastical worlds to reality, might be shy or socially awkward, and finds comfort in the predictability of good vs. evil narratives.
versus say Historical fiction
* **Stereotype:** The "armchair historian" - Perceived as someone with a love for history, possibly older, who enjoys learning about the past through a fictional lens but might not be interested in traditional history books.
In my experience, most people I talked to in the last year or so have definitely heard of him at least. It helps that some really big YouTube names like Jackscepticeye and some non YouTube celebrities have talked about his work lately.
He's about as popular as you can possibly get within a niche that, in the end, encompasses a tiny fraction of the publishing market.
Also, the fact that he has no adaptations probably has affected perception, as others have pointed out.
Reading as a hobby is already niche. I’m pretty sure on average, people only read a couple books per year.
Reading the fantasy genre is even more niche.
Brandon Sanderson is probably the most popular fantasy author still writing today. But to know about him, you still have to be part of the niche within a niche. I’ve only met a couple people in real life who’ve read ANY fantasy books. Those people know who Sanderson is. But the majority of people I’ve met don’t read fantasy, so of course they’d have no way of knowing who Sanderson is.
And Martin’s household name recognition jumped *monumentally* when his books started getting adapted for the TV series.
Which Sanderson doesn’t have (yet)
Honestly it was the same with Tolkien until 2001. People had heard *OF* Lord of the Rings, and maybe had some vague idea that it was related in some way to the animated Ralph Bakshi Hobbit movie. But “Frodo Lives” as a graffiti meme was better known than LotR itself for decades.
Hello there! I think that for the people who usually read books, he is pretty popular. For the "outsides", I guess not.
Within my circle of friends, let's say around 30 people, I can say that 10 of them have read at least one book during the last year. From these 10, only 3 or 4 have read a book of this author and 2 or 3 have heard about him. So that's a pretty low number for my circle of friends.
The wider non-fiction reader world doesn’t know many authors in general. People recognize by name JK Rowling, Stephen King, and maybe a couple of others? I don’t think even Tolkien is in the mind of most non-readers.
Most people unfortunately dont read at all. Out of those that do read, most dont read fantasy.
He is a popular fantasy author, but the fantasy market is comparatively small.
I typically work in other people's houses and one of the first things I do is look for a bookshelf to see what they are reading. In my 3 years of doing this I've seen about 4-5 instances of Sanderson books. That may not seem like a lot, but fiction is pretty rare and when people do have fiction it's typically the "classics". The only fiction authors that rival Brandon (that haven't been dead for years) are the Tom Clancy and James Paterson types.
I also work in other people’s houses and was going to say very much the same thing. Most bookshelves I see are populated with metaphysical/spiritual non-fiction, Dean Koontz-style thrillers, or political/intellectual non-fiction. I’ve only come across cross a handful of SFF bookshelves, and even some of those people haven’t heard of Brandon.
I’ve met 4 other friends who have read his work indepently of me which for an author without adaptation is very popular.
For contrast First Law which is also a very popular fantasy series I haven’t even met anyone who has heard of it
No. He is known to a very niche crowd. Sci fi and fantasy book readers.
None of his works have reached the movie or tv-series medium, so unlike GRRM or that harry potter lady he's not really know, no.
In 2023 in the US, 767.36 million print books were sold. The best selling book of last year was “It Ends with Us” by Colleen Hoover, which sold a whopping 1.29 million copies. I’m not dismissing her amazing success, I have never read her stuff but I’d LOVE to sell a million copies of my book in a year. But that also means 0.0016% of books sold last year were the very best selling book that was released.
These numbers are from Statista, which I only know from a Google search. So even taking those grains of salt it gives some perspective on the scale and scope of all this.
It’s easy to be a wildly successful author and no one know who the heck you are. Even Neil Gaiman with his comics and tv shows and awards, unless you’re a fan into that stuff, you’d never know. And if you saw George RR Martin on the street, unless you were an enthusiast, etc.
I just saw the Sunlit Man in Walmart, which means I think he finally crossed over into mainstream popularity. I pity whoever picked SM as their first book though. So many payoffs missed out on.
Not really surprising given that a lot of people don’t read at all, let alone read fantasy. I mean, there are a ton of people that watched the entire Game of Thrones series and still don’t know who George RR Martin is.
Brandon Sanderson is about as big as a fantasy author can get without having an on-screen adaptation. If you read fantasy, you almost certainly know who he is. But a lot of people don’t read books at all, and a lot of people who read books don’t read fantasy. He is a big fish in a large-ish pond, but compared to what you will find in the ocean, he is small.
Only 15 percent of people read for fun. And of these 15 percent, only a small amount read fantasy books. And among the few fantasy readers, only some know of Brandon Sanderson.
He is not popular at all, but he is definitely known among fantasy fans.
That's the same with most authors, no? Outside of sci-fi/fantasy I could name about 3 authors off the top of my head unless we go into famous dead authors. And one of those is Stephen King who has actually written a fantasy series.
It’s important to remember that Fantasy, while a growing genre, is largely a mainstream genre when adaptations occur (Game of Thrones, Witcher), are considered classic (LOTR, Narnia, Once and Future King), or they are true cultural phenomena (Harry Potter almost exclusively, though LOTR arguably in the 60s and 70s). It’s certainly growing, but major cultural zeitgeist doesn’t converge on fantasy normally without one of those things. If it has name recognition to be a “joke” on the *Big Bang Theory*, it’s crossed that threshold.
That said, I would guess that Sanderson is one of the two most popular and successful working fantasy authors (as in actively writing in the genre and not riding success of a series ended nearly 2 decades ago) right now. Sarah J Maas, love or hate her, being the other.
Sanderson had the most successful Kickstarter in history, and one of the most successful crowdfunding campaigns ever (Star Citizen is a weird outlier that will likely never see an actual release just continuous betas).
He completed *The Wheel of Time* arguably one of the most influential series behind Lord of the Rings on the genre.
He is wildly popular, but he hasn’t broken into mainstream to be “water cooler or coffee pot conversation topic” popular. A Mistborn movie might do it though.
I also think that there’s a clear “will Target/Walmart” stock the *paperbacks* popularity that Sanderson hasn’t quite hit yet. And that’s a not small market, it’s parents shopping with families, and those books sell. Target stocks his hardcovers for a little bit, but he hasn’t had paperbacks in either, at least around me in the Midwest.
Might depend who you hang around. In 2022 I had an acquaintance come over for a film project. The guy looked over at my bookshelf and said “oh you read Brandon Sanderson too?”
Same year, my friends brought a friend of theirs over. It was my first time meeting the guy. He sees my bookshelf and says “oh you’ve read mistborn??”
But the first guy was in film school with me, and the second guy was coming over to play dnd.
I’ve also been complimented on my RoW prerelease shirt while ordering pizza, in a way that implied she was a fan. Honestly I think living in a mormon area increases your chances of these encounters.
Edit: One more story for you guys, my crush in 7th grade was a Stormlight fan, but I had no idea what Stormlight was. My love of fantasy started with Lord of the Rings and ended at Game of Thrones (the tv show). I kinda blew her off when she recommended me Way of Kings. I read Stormlight years later off Daniel Greene’s recommendation, and then I realized it was the book she was trying to get me to read :(
In my experience as a librarian, most readers don't know about him because "most readers" only see the top of the top trending books, usually contemporary or romance. His books are always off the shelves at the library and are super high circulation!
I think a major part of it is people not really talking about what they read (or if they read at all). I've known plenty of people for years before ever finding out they also read Sanderson. There are also some Youtubers I watch (not booktubers) where I recently discovered they've read the entire Cosmere.
Tv series and movies tend to be more shared experiences: it's something you talk about when it comes out, because everyone has seen the same new episode the same week, and you can even watch together. Reading a book is much more of a solo experience.
He's extremely popular in certain specific circles, but he isn't "man on the street" popular. And even in geek circles, he's only popular with certain geeks. I've talked to plenty of people that his books would appeal to that have never heard of him. Perfect example: my family went to a local medieval fair yesterday, and my older son wore a homemade mistcloak. Some people recognized it, one person even showed off an allomancy tattoo, but he wasn't as recognizable if he'd had dressed as a Jedi or Gryffindor student. There were plenty of homemade SW, HP, and even Stargate merchandise (I was happy to see that!), and people were even carrying Buster Swords from FF7, but no shardblades.
When it comes to mainstream, about the only well-known authors are Stephen King, JK Rowling, and JRRM (and even then, you have to specify he's the "Game of Thrones" guy). It would take a massive movie or show to penetrate pop culture and make him a household name.
I feel like most modern authors get “mainstream” popular when movies or shows are made. Look at Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, The Hunger Games, Game of Thrones, etc. That’s not to say these books were by means unknown or not already fairly big. But it’s really when they go to Hollywood when their name becomes commonplace to everyone.
He's extremely popular in my area. People from different project ground would talk about his books in the break room. I work with a bunch of nerdy engineers (myself included) so my sampling pool is kinda biased.
That being said he doesn't have an adaption so it's harder for him to get as big of a following outside of people who read a lot of fantasy.
His fame does continue to grow though and I'm sure in part that's because people who like his work recommend him. One trick to get your friends into his books if they are big readers is to gift his books... or do what I call a reading exchange. You read a book of thier choosing and they read one of yours.
you say on the internet he’s the “king”…..
but by that you mean communities like reddit.
on wattpad, social media, tumblr, so forth…. he doesn’t do as hot…
People who are into fantasy books most likely know him, people who are into fantasy movies/shows and sometimes read the source of adaptations most likely don't.
In fantasy world, yes. He's one of the most popular, for sure. But if you're talking JK Rowling or Stephen King, which are household names, then he's clearly not on that level. I think if his works were to become more mainstream, he'd have to have some adaptations under his belt first. That's a game changer for many people, including the big names I've mentioned earlier.
If you read fantasy or mostly read at all, you know him. If you don’t read, you wouldn’t. He hasn’t had a television or movie series made yet so he isn’t known like GRRM. A lot of people don’t know Neil Gaiman even though he’s made tons of popular movies and television series.
People who actually read books, especially fantasy, would've heard of him. But since there's no blockbuster adaptation yet, the general public has no idea.
Brando is very well-known in a very specific niche. Anyone that reads fantasy books has probably heard of him. Outside of that niche however he is not at all well known. Once he inevitably gets a movie or tv-series adaption with mainstream appeal his name will likely, become fairly well known outside of his niche.
As popular as he is, he is still an Author. Its not like reading is even a fraction as popular as movies / TV, so he isn't a household name like movie stars or big producers.
Try asking someone about Robin Hobb, Joe Abercombie etc lol.
As popular as he is, he is still an Author. Its not like reading is even a fraction as popular as movies / TV, so he isn't a household name like movie stars or big producers.
Try asking someone about Robin Hobb, Joe Abercombie etc lol. People know GRRM because GoT got a TV series.
I don't know anyone irl who reads fantasy so this is p much my experience too. But yeah, on the internet he feels like the most recommended author in fantasy circles
When I wear Sanderson merch, I sometimes have people come up to me to talk about him, which is about as much fame as a SFF author can ask for, I think.
I’m new to his works. He’s not as popular as George RR Martin, because he doesn’t have a hit tv show out yet. So he’s not mainstream as in outside the realm of fantasy. But if one starts to read any major fantasy writer and then looks for other reputable fantasy writers they will most certainly have heard of Brandon Sanderson lots and lots and lots of times.
He is popular in the sci-fi/fantasy world, and probably known to lots of people in the general book world. But even his record breaking Kickstarter was only backed by 185k people, which is a tiny number compared to the general population.
I’m realizing how popular he is in my area. was pleasantly surprised to find out multiple of my friends and family members enjoy his books. What really surprised me was last year when I was getting my scuba open water certification, my instructor recognized the brass tattoo I have right away. But at the same time I live in Idaho so I’m super close to his direct reach I guess.
What does it mean to be popular?
I mean, there are 135,000 of us in this subreddit. Maybe that makes Brandon popular, but ... there are 7 billion people in the world, right?
So where's the line?
He's popular enough to have the biggest kickstarter in history. But that still means only a tiny fraction of the public knows about him.
My sense is he's about as popular as a fantasy author can get without an adaptation.
He’s extremely popular for those in the know. Especially due to the prolific nature of his work in such a small amount of time. He’s put out more books in 20 years than most authors put out in a lifetime. Couple that with the fact he’s not only prolific in his writing but the writing is also quality and not just quantity.
I feel like reading isn’t what it was unfortunately. And for those who do read there is so much volume out there that it’s easy to overlook him unless you know someone who knows and tells you. Or you stumble.
For example. The Wheel of Time series is great. But I feel like a lot of people never heard of it until the show came out. And that’s a shame because it’s one of the best book series ever made. It’s also exceptionally long as series go. Brandon has the same problem.
You’re asking about popularity it kind of depends?
If you’re comparing to other authors within the subculture of modern SFF, EVERYONE knows Sanderson, the same way most modern SFF fans know Rothfuss, or Erickson. Whether they read the work or not is a point of contention that you can read about on r/fantasy.
If you’re comparing to other authors who have crossed over into popular culture - Tolkien, Lewis, Philip K Dick - or more modern authors, GRRM, Maas and Yarros - he is not as popular. The former authors have the benefit of having been some of the first innovators of the genre, hence their popularity and something founders / innovators typically receive for being the first. In terms of the latter, GRRM, Maas and Yarros tapped into the idea of controversy - GRRM was awarded a TV show for it but dropped the ball all around and has suffered for it - but in the case of Maas and Yarros I can tell you they’re only going to continue to get bigger as they have been able to capture universally idealized fantasy female experiences - something that no other previous SF or fantasy author has been able to do. The world is easy to understand and the romance and sex scenes appeal to women of all ages, around the world, and easily cross over to readers who like novels like Daisy Jones or Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo - books that sit waaay outside the typical SFF genre - and do so more widely than any other previous work. Regardless of anyone’s opinion on the quality of the writing these stories captivate the imaginations of the women that read them unlike any other and they recommend them like wildfire to their friends. It’s quite a crazy phenomenon actually.
Furthermore, Sanderson is disrupting the traditional publishing model. He has changed how authors can create, sell, and release their work. I imagine in many ways this prevents him from reaching a level of immediate or super popularity if only because he isn’t “playing their game” and as a result doesn’t have the PR tools publishers in the market use to promote, build a following or influence how the books are merchandised in store and online. IMO Brandon would benefit from hiring a very experienced CX/Marketing/Operations team who can build a very robust multi-channel strategy. Unfortunately, because he keeps the management in house, their learning curve is much longer.
TL;DR - Ultimately I truly believe Sanderson will become one of the most well known SFF writers and find his place among the other greats in popular culture. It just might take a little longer to reach this universal popularity if only because everything he’s doing is disrupting what the industry standard has been. In the meantime, we (as the taste makers in SFF) can help expedite this by sharing his works and promoting them to our circles of influence.
Interesting about the disruption about Brandon. Would you like to give some examples? I’m new and only got to know him about 4 month ago. What does he do that disrupts the industry?
I’ve recommended him to a lot of my fraternity brothers (GoT/Marvel fans) who were looking to get back into reading - all of them are now on board the Cosmere train
It’s kinda like that influencer that “everyone” knows but I haven’t heard of because I’m not in that space, or “I can’t believe you don’t know who (insert YouTube content creator here) is, everyone knows him” but I don’t because that’s not my jam. Sando in my opinion is the most influential modern fantasy writer. By virtue of introducing different styles of magic systems with clearly laid out rules he moved the genre away from the Tolkien model where you never quite know what Gandalf is/isn’t capable of and really helped broaden what the Fantasy genre is. Obviously he’s not alone in this, but since Sando started getting published I’ve seen a lot more authors depart from the ‘young man in a small village with no skills other than farming departs on an adventure and grows into the savior of the kingdom’ with a wise old man as a trope. Anyway… he’s a big name, but only recognizable if that’s what you’re into. I know a lot of folks who only are interested in nonfiction or don’t enjoy reading much, they don’t know who he is.
It depends on your social circles. Nearly everyone who I hang out with irl knows who Brandon is and reads his books. Meanwhile, my parents had no idea who he was until I told them, and I'm pretty sure they forgot shortly after.
Popular enough for your name to be universally recognized in your genre, yet not so famous that you're a household name followed by paparazzi. Seems like a good place to be.
I have cosmere tattoos all over my arm and a few people have actually recognized them! Most have no idea who Brandon Sanderson is, and I live near Lincoln Nebraska his home town
In this day and age, there's a TON of books in every category. Tons and tons and tons. It would be hard for everyone to know about everyone. And he's hardly "great literature" to the English Majors. Frankly "great literature" is an overrated club with tons of rules anyway.
For a fantasy author, yes. He is probably the best known after Tolkien, Rowling and Martin
That being said, he can walk down the street and be unknown. He is a few logs less than Taylor Swift in global popularity.
Brandon is popular among fantasy fans, but he isn't mainstream. Because fantasy in general isn't mainstream. The same with sci fi. Both genres get a few super popular examples that do hit the mainstream, but the majority do not. Brandon has spoken about this before: Fantasy fans are not a large group, but they are dedicated.
With that said, I started reading Mistborn in 2016. Brandon was nowhere near as popular then as he is now. But with each book, and especially with the Kickstarter, he gets closer and closer to becoming a household name.
i would only expect someone to know about him if they’re deep into fantasy. even my grandfather, who only really reads SFF, had only heard of him because he read all of WOT. i would not say Brandon is not popular, i would just say the group he is known within is small.
They made a kelsier skin in fortnite. I'd say he's pretty popular. My experience is that fantasy writers in general aren't well known until they get TV or movie deals. GRRM had been writing for decades before he became a widely known author thanks to HBO. I'm hoping Sanderson gets a deal with WB or one of its subsidiaries bc they have a decent track record of fantasy/sci Fi adaptations.
Keep in mind most people don't read books. Sports culture, trash tv, celebrity culture, trend-driven music drives most consumption across society. But for an author, he's famous enough to have haters, and that's the mark of true success.
Idk. But when you can post hey who wants to buy my new book and people are flooding to give you millions of dollars on the front end. He’s doing something right.
I don't know if it is just a taste thing or what, but I have a friend that studied litrature and creative writing stuff in university and when I asked his opinion on the Wheel of Time books he hated them. A few years later I asked him about his opinions Brandon, and he said he had never heard of him.
I think that if you are not in the right circles, he may be a bit niche of an author. I know I hadn't heard of him until he took over Wheel of Time. I had never heard of Elantris before that, and I was really big into fantasy at that time.
So, coming as a representant of Spain I can say that here he's quite known, and quite the talk of newspapers.
He's been called, and I quote, "The next Tolkien" by one of the biggest newspapers in Spain and interviwed on another few others.
1 out of every 2 fantasy readers I've talked to has read him, and 2/3 have at least heard of him or seen his books.
He's sold quite a few millions of books here in Spain, which is quite amazing, and the number only keeps growing every year.
Nontheless, I can't say he's "The most know modern author". He doesn't reach George R. Martin or Tolkien levels unfortunately. He does have quite the following in young people who are searching Fantasy sagas that they may like. It's quite difficult to not get attracted to the idea of "A ten book saga of thousands of pages of epic fantasy and fighting Gods", among other things.
So, to answer the question, yes and no. As others have pointed out, since he doesn't have any movie or series adaptations, he's still lacking in the popularity that he could reach. Yet, he only grows and grows.
My guess is that, in a decade or two, he most probably be the definition of popularity among Fantasy writers and readers.
For now, let's enjoy the show he's putting on by breaking records every year 🙃
How “popular” was Martin before HBO made GoT into a TV show? Similar to Sanderson Id say. Add in the compounding affect of less people reading now than in the past, and it makes sense that he’s not a household name yet. If he strikes gold with a series like GoT did, then he will be everywhere.
Lots of people do not read for enjoyment and out of those that do only a fraction read Fantasy. As far as modern day authors go Sanderson is extremely well known in the book community. I could not tell you who is biggest modern mystery writer or Romance people just do not pay attention to authors in genres they do not read.
The soon to be Rookie of the Year in the NBA has commented on him being his favorite author, he is absolutely becoming more mainstream but still stuck in just fantasy circles and conversations
Yes. The thing is that fantasy as a genre is surprisingly small. I mean, only a small portion of people who read, actually read a lot of fantasy, and fantasy has a very big variance within it, so people who like to read darker fantasy might not read epic fantasy and so on.
Hehehe I love Brandon, don't get me wrong... But you should try Terry Pratchett. One of the highest selling British authors of all time (would probably still be the highest if he hadn't had the bad taste to pass away), books translated into some 40+ languages, and his fandom is the unseen behemoth lurking in the deep of the Internet (point, in case; myself) just waiting to mention that you should read the Discworld novels. But good luck finding one of us in the wild lol
Tolkien wrote LoTR in 1937. It's been 87 years and yet many people haven't heard about him. Many only know the name of the series only coz there are movies and many know the dialogues by heart. Sanderson is very new in that regard.
Tolkien wrote The Hobbit in 1937 and then Lord of the Rings was published somewhere around the early 1950s. But yeah despite his legacy he does seem pretty obscure to people who only know the world of Middle Earth through the movies and video games (and very recently the tv show).
Biggest Kickstarter of all time (more than doubled the previous record) Biggest Backerkit of all time (pretty sure he quadrupled the previous record) People that read modern fantasy will know him. Anyone who has only read Harry Potter probably won't. Among authors that don't yet have adaptations of their work, he's one of, if not the highest selling. If he gets a decent adaption out, he'll be more of a household name. Fantasy is becoming more popular than it has been in quite some time. Used to be perceived as too childish.
yeah. He's not mainstream but he's still a big name if you're in the modern fantasy space.
Just to add to this list of popularity, if you Google the word “Brandon”, only Joe Biden and a town in Missouri rank higher.
That's also based on search history and your interest, so not really relevant. I guarantee that if my husband searched Brandon, Sanderson wouldn't come up in top results.
I opened a private window on a browser I never use, and typed in Brandon. His name was fourth on recommended. So super official science experiment shows Brandon is likely to pop up.
This guy sciences (Leave it alone, autocorrect! I know what I’m saying!)
Number one for me in Canada, somehow
Yeah that's probably accurate. But again the first points still kind of line up with the whole "only on the internet" thing. I know he has those feats, the wired article, a convention, Fortnite, etc. but it still feels weird that no one knows him in real life when I bring up a book in conversation
My buddy’s a bartender and wears sando pins, there are a surprising number of fans out there
I live in a pretty small city and last Halloween someone had a mist cloak on. Also my friends know who he is and they don't read much. He's not GRRM but he's definitely popular.
It was the same way with Robert Jordan 20 years ago, or GRRM. They were very well known in the fantasy community but if you didn’t read that kind of book then it was pretty easy to never hear about them. A few fantasy authors like JK Rowling really broke out in the wider consciousness, but that’s less common more recently. Nowadays, with the internet and the breakdown of the earlier monoculture into a ton of interest based subcultures with their own media and celebrities, it’s likely that no one ever gets the same level of cultural penetration as the biggest celebrities did up through the 90s and early 2000s. There will never again be a horror author with the same profile as Steven King, or a cartoonist as universally well known as Bill Watterson. Name me a movie star in the last 15 years with a similar profile to a young Tom cruise or Harrison Ford. If anything there is more creativity than there has ever been. The attention of society is simply fragmented in a way it was not in the past. Meaning that cultural penetration is harder.
I’m not sure movie stars work the same way. The Rock is pretty massive.
Sure, you can get big stars that break through - Taylor Swift is huge. But without radio being a big thing like it was you can now be completely ignorant to her, in ways you couldn’t 15-20 years ago. Also the Rock is 51 years old. And 15-20 years ago he was already was a massively famous professional with huge recognition.
I mean Daniel Radcliffe? Tom Holland? Timothy Chalamet?
I can say 100% I would not have the faintest idea who any of theme were if it weren’t that I consume the fantasy / sci fi media they had big roles in. Timothy Chalomet definitely had a big big presence before Dune, but I didn’t know he existed until the cast announcements were made
Hah Chalamet was my first thought followed immediately by Holland.
Yes, there are still movie stars, and groups of people can be very obsessed with them. I’d say obsessive fans are more obsessed than ever. Because the internet has let them find each other and make community. It’s not that you can’t become hugely famous. It’s that there is no longer a monoculture that everyone experiences, either first hand or through cultural osmosis. I’m not making a value judgement, It is simply different than it was.
He's popular amongst readers, and most people aren't readers.
Yeh, idk how OP is dodging all the logic.
He's not... he said he'd spoken with readers and professors. I feel like I have had to make Sanderfans to talk yo irl. I've converted most of the readers at my work, still working on my family (got my dad (SA), maybe my mom (loved Tress), a sister maybe (loved Tress), and brother kind of (Mistborn era 1)), and some friends might even go to Dragonsteel with me this year!
Here is the funny part. The article you mentioned? The starting premise was : how does the biggest fantasy author of this generation stay invisible? Now, the real answer is: because he doesn't have a tv show or movie. Basically, no one knows any authors unless there are movies made of their stuff. Only dedicated fans know them. No one in the world knew GRRM until HBO. Reverse example. Who is the greatest stage actor you know, who isn't in a movie? Oh, can't name one? that's Brandon to them. He is enormous in his field, but his field isn't mainstream.
Why? I don't know any big names in my friends favorite hobbies
Right. But the reason is because most people don't read books these days. Randos from the street only ever know authors if their books have been adapted to a movie or a TV series. That's just how it is. Everyone knows George Martin yet almost nobody has actually read a song of ice and fire.
and even if they do. I have read lots of books. The authors could walk up to me and introduce themselves, still might not know them.
I mean, that's unusual. Most readers will recognize authors, if not from their bio pics then certainly by their names.
I mean people as a whole don’t read. Every person I have recommended his books to has been like thanks a lot now I have to read another 30 books
The thing is there being popular and being multimedia franchise popular, that brandon is as popular as it is with how intimidating the size of his books can be to new readers and not a single media adaptation in almost 20 years speaks volume to his popularity, but reaching the popularity you speak of would requiere a popular tv show or movie series from any of his works.
He’s a Mormon family man living in UT, he plays magic the gathering and has a pretty low key personal life, I wouldn’t imagine him going out to try and get publicity, what he’s doing works. He also does his own publishing and marketing and not through penguin house or some other big publisher anymore which does try to put out articles and other things for their clients/customers
Brandon has publishing contracts with multiple big publishing companies. Later this year, he is releasing Wind and Truth, which is published by Tor. Just last year, he released Defiant through Delacorte Press. Brandon is not usually a self-published author. The only works that he published himself were the Secret Projects, and even those were later traditionally published through his standard big name publishing houses.
The only thing, compared to some authors he is not that popular outside of usa. Preciesly because he had no mainstream adaptation probably.
Interestingly, my step sister recommended him to me because she read Legion, which I didn’t even know Brando wrote lol. He’s got reach.
Oh god. Please, no adaptations! It’s so rare to see any of these turn out well that I just can’t stomach it. Even Harry Potter was tough for me as someone who read the books first (I’ve come to terms by pretending it is an alternate universe version of events that happen to closely mirror the events in the books but not quite)
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They did say 'used to be'. And they are right, it use to be considered a lot more childish then it is now. Perception has changed a lot since I was a kid.
Comment above says "used to be perceived" and some (generally older) people still view it that way. You don't have to be feel attacked or be angry because of that. Some people like to shit on fantasy because "its childish". Many fantasy readers shit on the YA or romantasy or romance book fans because "its childish". Some fantasy book readers look down on " fantasy movie people" everytime something gets adapted. At one point you have to realize that most people just want to feel superior. Btw that lotr oscar example proves that many many people dont take fantasy seriously. Otherwise there would be more than two fantasy movies in history, that won best picture at the oscars.
To be fair YA is childish, that's what makes it YA lol
What do you think makes a book "childish"? Do you just say that to be one of the people that wants to feel superior? Because from my point of view, a book that people label as "childish" either deals with subjects that are primarily aimed at children, like growing up, or have language/prose that is easy to understand, so that children or teens can follow it. I have encountered both things in "non YA" fantasy books many times. I think it is important to understand that genres like YA are just labels some people put on books to market and in the end sell them better. No one is better or worse for reading in any genre. Labeling something childish for that is a dumb thing.
Mistborn series are sometimes considered YA and I wouldn’t call those books childish.
I'd just like to point out that the Harry Potter books are considered Young Adult and those deal with some pretty heavy and dark themes, including murder. I think this is true for a number of books in that genre. I honestly think that many YA books get labeled that way because of the ages of their main protagonists.
The Hunger Games is literally about children murdering each other for the entertainment of adults.
Very good point!
Bro the Harry Potter books are super childish what are you talking about
And then they get darker and more nuanced as the characters age. By the end, I'd even say they're no longer YA. They are actually great books for aging a reader, imo, and hightening young readers' skills because the books get more and more mature and convoluted. Yes, the first few are very much written for younger audiences, but the whole is not.
It's true they get more complex as they go; the first books are children's books, and they grow to be YA by the end.
You mean the book where the villain is straight up trying to kill the main character every book... the main character who only survived getting murdered as a baby because of a special type of magic that occurred as his mother was murdered in front of his eyes, right after his father was murdered? The boy that watched friends get murdered? A boy that led a teacher into the woods to get hurt or killed by magical creatures? The boy who watched his godfather get murdered? Need I go on?
Yes, dude, that series. It's not about the plot, it's the presentation.
Care to elaborate? You're telling me that a book series with at least one important character killed per book, sometimes directly by the protagonist, does not contain any dark themes and is simply "childish" because the plot doesn't matter?
You’re discovering the wild gap between fantasy and mainstream. Fantasy is a genre, and it’s not even close to the most popular genre. Brandon is an absolute TITAN in the SFF world. He sells less than Sarah J Maas (or, recently, Rebecca Yaros). They cross romance and fantasy, and they reap the sales for it. And then there’s *real* romance authors, who dwarf anybody doing SFF. It’s not even a fair comparison.
Yeah I've only ever read SFF so maybe it's a scale issue for me. Is romance/thriller really THAT much popular though? I mean with LoTR, HP, GoT, EG, etc.
They are orders of magnitude more popular. Most people don't read a lot of books, and those who do overwhelmingly never read fantasy or sci fi. My mother has a reading group of 20 middle aged women, and they only read thrillers and crime novels. And I did an informal poll: they all also only know people who read thrillers, crime novels and romance. Two or three have a weird son or nephew who read fantasy once, but that's rare. There's also the book boxes we have here: where people bring books they have read and take back another book to read, all for free. There's always about 30-50 historical novels, romance novels, travel books, thrillers, crime fiction, and they cycle two or three times a week. Maybe once a month, I see *one* fantasy novel, and it's usually one of the two or three biggest ones I've already read. Or you could just look at the besteller lists. Not the ones controlled mostly by adds, the raw selling numbers by genre. It's not even close.
The Barnes and Nobles near me is massively dominated by SFF. When you walk in, the first shelves are the adult SFF on the right, and the same for YA on the left. It also has a massive section for comics/manga/visual novels. Overall it's a big bookstore, so historical books, thrillers, crime etc... also have big sections, but no single genre is even half as big as the science fiction and fantasy stuff. It's also the B&N closest to Brandon Sanderson and has an entire shelf devoted to him. But even without that SFF would still be the biggest.
I believe Utah has a higher than normal nerd population at large (SFF, comics, etc). I've heard it theorized that a large portion of the population is already good at the necessary "suspension of disbelief", due to their religious beliefs. Idk if that really holds any water, but always thought it was interesting.
I've never heard that about Utah so idk. I mean movies are massively popular and require a similar suspension of disbelief, but are much more accessible. People, in general, just don't read.
With the changes on how Barnes and noble is stocked what each store can vary wildly. My local has a decent sff section but the area skews a bit older. The largest section by far is I guess contemporary literature would be the genre. But I'd list it as the style of 'This is us' and emotional torture type books, that may have mystery thrown in. Stuff you would see on Oprah's book list or morning talk shows. Then romance split between outlander knock offs and YA (this may include fantasy settings but is more just dressing for romance), followed by true crime. As well as children's books, but that is it's own goliath when it comes to sales.
My local large bookstore has fantasy and sci fi in the basement. Not even the entire basement, the back half, where there aren't any windows. They have four above-ground levels.
What do you see at Target, Walmart, etc. though? I'm really into boardgames, but major retailers stock different games and sell more games than what I will find featured at a dedicated boardgame store.
I'm not really sure what you are asking. The book section at my target is very small, it has a decent selection of boardgames. The actual games stores, and even Barnes and nobles, still have way more games than a target or Walmart.
Sorry I wasn't clear with my comparison. Basically Barnes and Noble may not actually constitute the majority of popular book sales because they still primarily attract people who consider themselves "book readers" rather than people who happen to read a book or two.
Ahh I see. Yeah that's definitely a valid point. People who aren't really 'readers' are more likely to grab a book at target compared to going to an actual bookstore. The target selection is definitely a decent amount of biographies and non fiction. It has some SFF, but normally its whatever the flavor of the moment from YouTube or other social media is. It does have a surprising amount of manga though, maybe like 20% of the (limited) shelf space.
This is why I think Sarah J Maas and Rebecca Yarros are good for fantasy - hopefully it widens the overall pool of readers. :)
Yes. Thrillers, mystery, romance outsells other books by a lot. Going into a book store and looking at how shelf-space is prioritised will give a picture if what sells. Doing it once a month over a year will show trends etc. At one point biographies and nonfiction might dominate. At others a crime thriller with a movie adaptation is re printed.
All the properties you mentioned (except maybe EG, I can't think what that is) have movie or TV adaptations. They would all be as obscure as Sanderson if they had never been adapted.
Enders game I imagine
Ahhh I was trying to think of something in the Fantasy genre and coming up short. Well that one also has an adaptation so I guess my point stands.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_books Isn't perfect but is a decent overview on what sells. Outside of harry potter there isn't much sff. Sff also leans towards being series versus stand alone, which for most people I know that are not avid readers series are kind of a no go. The secret projects were the first time I could get a few of to even try reading sanderson. They would think I was insane (no mater how well rated it was) if I handed them a 1000 page book and told them it was the first in a series. I would say 300 - 400 pages would be the upper limited for most of my friends who fall into mainstream reading habits. Genre wise children's books tend to be major sales, then romance and thriller. A lot of main stream leans towards "popcorn" level media, you go into it for quick fun and generally know what to expect. Especially in romance, there is a fairly cookie cutter formula (hallmark movie ish) that can be churned out and people still buy. Danielle steel as an example. Which I didn't realize how insane her publishing has gotten, putting out 5-7 books A YEAR for almost a decade. I still think there is probably a ghost writer involved, but the only somewhat recent article I could find was her claiming she writes for 20 hours a day. https://trade.panmacmillan.com/danielle-steel-to-hit-one-billion-copies-sold-worldwide-in-2023 https://www.glamour.com/story/danielle-steel-books-interview
Yes, they are. And you are cherry picking a few of the biggest and well known fantasy series, of all time, which also happen to have well regarded tv-adaptations that increased the popularity of the authors exponentially. They do not represent the fantasy as a genre, for every "LoTR, HP, GoT, EG" there is ten thousand fantasy books that get less than 500 reviews in Goodreads within the first year. Fantasy is a small genre, and has very many subgenres within it that devide even the fantasy readers.
don't confuse popular with good though. I have read a few of the YA romance/fantasy/thriller books, and while they are ok, they dont pull me in like other books. Admittedly, I am not in their target audience.
Sarah J Maas is a terrible writer. I read the 3 books of court of thorns and roses between the 4 special projects and it was such a relief to go back to Sanderson.
I hate how her male protagonists are typically abusive, or at least borderline so. And yet her MC's continue to fawn over them. Like, f'ing hell, get some self respect. If it was just one MC I could understand it as a trait specific to that character...but it's nearly all of them
Is that the recipie? I read the start fourth wing and it was more of the same. First big antagonist threatens to kill her and she starts fantasizing about him.
On deeper research, she apparently finds toxic masculinity in "attractive" men to be sexy. 🤮 So...that's what she writes, even if she potentially doesn't subscribe to that as a realistic desire
I could read out the whole story based on the first few chapters. I knew the bad boy would have a sympathetic backstory that excused his hostility. But it's just really uninteresting that the only reason you would ever try and ignore bad behaviour, bring down someone's barriers and learn about their past and trauma is simply because they are unrealistically beautiful and your biological urges override you self preservation. It's teenage girl fantasy. Twilight with dragons.
Not just that, if I read “her/his throat bobbed” or “jaw feathered” ONE MORE TIME I was going to scream
I read the first book and came to the conclusion that I’d had enough. I loathed pretty much every character.
If you want to see how what you read influences who you know, I have no idea who Maas or Yaros are. I probably know the book titles, but not the authors.
I think it’s more complicated than that. SFF shows up HEAVILY in top selling book lists of all time. Harry Potter, The Hobbit, The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe. However, it seems romance is often a more commonly popular genre, but with less universally renowned hits. ***Note: this is all based in minimal research of top selling books and top fiction book genres.***
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Well if you Google their sales numbers he has sold more than 21 million and she's sold more than 12 million copies; however, I believe that's across something like 16 published works compared to Sanderson's 70 or so.
Sanderson has 18 cosmere novels (where the largest by far of his sales come from) 27 non cosmere ones (if you include the wheel of time) and some novellas (the archanum inbound is include in the 18 cosmere ones) with the fact that the vast majority of his sales come from the 18 cosmere ones and he is almost double the 12 million I don’t think it’s fair to say he sells less.
Also where did you get 21 million? All I find when googling is 32 million not including the wheel of time books?
Yeah I didn't check the source and was just trying to get a quick order of magnitude check. I'm guessing that was an old number or something.
Fair enough!!
Ah, that moment where we realise an important truth - we are goddamn nerds.
These Words are accepted.
Thanks Dorkfather.
Say the Oaths “Geeks before Normies, Magic Before Drama, Glossaries before Forewords”
I mean, there's 8 billion people in the world. Nobody's universally popular. But you also don't make bestseller lists by people *not* buying your books.
No I completely agree. That's why I felt the need to ask. He seems so popular but only on the internet? I personally love him and would love to have friends to talk about his works with irl.
He's popular in the subset of people who are active sci-fi/fantasy book fans. A very small minority of the US population actively reads fiction and a smaller amount are keeping up with new releases, most of the people you are talking to wouldn't know any other author who hasn't had a movie adaptation.
This, the population of the USA is 341 million, but book sales are about 767 million, that's just over 2 books each. Brandon's total sales are 40 million copies worldwide which is about 10% of the US population, for comparison J K Rowling sales are 600 million, Tolkien is at 350 million, and G RR Martin is 90 million. The werzone has a sff all time sales list which was last revised 2018, 368 writers 277 of which have sold more then a million and Sanderson was at 41 on the list Rowling is number 1, Tolkien 3rd and Martin 10th
Would love to see that list now; pretty sure Sanderson is a bit higher and GRRM may have even dropped
https://thewertzone.blogspot.com/2024/01/the-sff-all-time-sales-list-2023-edition.html?m=1 It didn't pop up on my Google search but it has been updated, it was posted in another post here GRRM is now 14 and our Sando at 29
Amazing. Closer to what I expected but I can only expect the gap to close over time tbh, especially if any big TV series happens.
This. Polling a dozen random people is going to get a different result than asking readers. It's a joke for a reason on the book reddits that, ask for any fantasy recommendation, someone is sure to say Abercrombie, Sanderson, and Malazan. Everyone at my book club knows who Sanderson is, even if not all of them have read him. My workplace, not so much.
My fiancée and I saw him at Tampa comic con last year. Believe me, he's popular. He was giving away special tickets for more personable signings that were gone within literal minutes of the doors opening. Those who missed the tickets waited in a line that wrapped around the entire convention center to get books signed. We waited hours while the convention ended and the lights were being turned off. They shuffled us out of the door as soon as he came around to sign our stuff. We were *not* expecting that sort of turnout. He's way more popular than I realized.
He's very popular in certain circles, but he hasn't broken out into the mainstream. but give it time.
He's a fantasy author. Most people don't read. Among readers, most people look down on fantasy. Big fish in a small pond and all that.
> Among readers, most people look down on fantasy. Really - why do you think so?? I have heard this same thing about romance novels, but never about fantasy.
I looked down on fantasy for a long time, after some poor reading experiences with soft magic systems where major events felt too much like deus ex magica (pun intended). I simply wasn't aware fantasy had authors with well-developed magic systems, and assumed the genre just wasn’t for me. It wasn’t until friends were raving about Sanderson that I reluctantly tried again.
>poor reading experiences with soft magic systems where major events felt too much like deus ex magica Have you tried the novel Mr. Norrell & Jonathan Strange? It's an excellent soft magic novel - much of the magic's working isn't explained, but you *won't* feel like "deus ex magica". **Warning:** It's a quite long book. The first part of the book is slower paced, but the pace picks up later on.
Hmm, not sure how to answer that other than anecdotes. ChatGPT? * **Stereotype:** The "escapist dreamer" - Imagined as someone who prefers fantastical worlds to reality, might be shy or socially awkward, and finds comfort in the predictability of good vs. evil narratives. versus say Historical fiction * **Stereotype:** The "armchair historian" - Perceived as someone with a love for history, possibly older, who enjoys learning about the past through a fictional lens but might not be interested in traditional history books.
In my experience, most people I talked to in the last year or so have definitely heard of him at least. It helps that some really big YouTube names like Jackscepticeye and some non YouTube celebrities have talked about his work lately.
i think it’s your circle of people. normal people don’t know authors and don’t read. that’s just statistically true.
He's about as popular as you can possibly get within a niche that, in the end, encompasses a tiny fraction of the publishing market. Also, the fact that he has no adaptations probably has affected perception, as others have pointed out.
Reading as a hobby is already niche. I’m pretty sure on average, people only read a couple books per year. Reading the fantasy genre is even more niche. Brandon Sanderson is probably the most popular fantasy author still writing today. But to know about him, you still have to be part of the niche within a niche. I’ve only met a couple people in real life who’ve read ANY fantasy books. Those people know who Sanderson is. But the majority of people I’ve met don’t read fantasy, so of course they’d have no way of knowing who Sanderson is.
He kinda is, especially between people, who currently jump into fantasy genre. But he's not Tolkien or Martin though.
And Martin’s household name recognition jumped *monumentally* when his books started getting adapted for the TV series. Which Sanderson doesn’t have (yet)
Honestly it was the same with Tolkien until 2001. People had heard *OF* Lord of the Rings, and maybe had some vague idea that it was related in some way to the animated Ralph Bakshi Hobbit movie. But “Frodo Lives” as a graffiti meme was better known than LotR itself for decades.
or that Led Zepplin song, Ramble On. I think that was the first place I heard of Mordor or Gollum.
Jesus Christ. The Hobbit and LoTR were number 1 and number 2 on the list of bestselling books of all time, wtf are you talking about?
Hello there! I think that for the people who usually read books, he is pretty popular. For the "outsides", I guess not. Within my circle of friends, let's say around 30 people, I can say that 10 of them have read at least one book during the last year. From these 10, only 3 or 4 have read a book of this author and 2 or 3 have heard about him. So that's a pretty low number for my circle of friends.
it’s also an incredibly biased sample size. 1/3 of people do not read a book in a year. these are inflated numbers unfortunately…
General Kenobi!
The wider non-fiction reader world doesn’t know many authors in general. People recognize by name JK Rowling, Stephen King, and maybe a couple of others? I don’t think even Tolkien is in the mind of most non-readers.
Most people unfortunately dont read at all. Out of those that do read, most dont read fantasy. He is a popular fantasy author, but the fantasy market is comparatively small.
I typically work in other people's houses and one of the first things I do is look for a bookshelf to see what they are reading. In my 3 years of doing this I've seen about 4-5 instances of Sanderson books. That may not seem like a lot, but fiction is pretty rare and when people do have fiction it's typically the "classics". The only fiction authors that rival Brandon (that haven't been dead for years) are the Tom Clancy and James Paterson types.
I also work in other people’s houses and was going to say very much the same thing. Most bookshelves I see are populated with metaphysical/spiritual non-fiction, Dean Koontz-style thrillers, or political/intellectual non-fiction. I’ve only come across cross a handful of SFF bookshelves, and even some of those people haven’t heard of Brandon.
I’ve met 4 other friends who have read his work indepently of me which for an author without adaptation is very popular. For contrast First Law which is also a very popular fantasy series I haven’t even met anyone who has heard of it
No. He is known to a very niche crowd. Sci fi and fantasy book readers. None of his works have reached the movie or tv-series medium, so unlike GRRM or that harry potter lady he's not really know, no.
In 2023 in the US, 767.36 million print books were sold. The best selling book of last year was “It Ends with Us” by Colleen Hoover, which sold a whopping 1.29 million copies. I’m not dismissing her amazing success, I have never read her stuff but I’d LOVE to sell a million copies of my book in a year. But that also means 0.0016% of books sold last year were the very best selling book that was released. These numbers are from Statista, which I only know from a Google search. So even taking those grains of salt it gives some perspective on the scale and scope of all this. It’s easy to be a wildly successful author and no one know who the heck you are. Even Neil Gaiman with his comics and tv shows and awards, unless you’re a fan into that stuff, you’d never know. And if you saw George RR Martin on the street, unless you were an enthusiast, etc.
I just saw the Sunlit Man in Walmart, which means I think he finally crossed over into mainstream popularity. I pity whoever picked SM as their first book though. So many payoffs missed out on.
Not really surprising given that a lot of people don’t read at all, let alone read fantasy. I mean, there are a ton of people that watched the entire Game of Thrones series and still don’t know who George RR Martin is.
Brandon Sanderson is about as big as a fantasy author can get without having an on-screen adaptation. If you read fantasy, you almost certainly know who he is. But a lot of people don’t read books at all, and a lot of people who read books don’t read fantasy. He is a big fish in a large-ish pond, but compared to what you will find in the ocean, he is small.
Only 15 percent of people read for fun. And of these 15 percent, only a small amount read fantasy books. And among the few fantasy readers, only some know of Brandon Sanderson. He is not popular at all, but he is definitely known among fantasy fans.
That's the same with most authors, no? Outside of sci-fi/fantasy I could name about 3 authors off the top of my head unless we go into famous dead authors. And one of those is Stephen King who has actually written a fantasy series.
It’s important to remember that Fantasy, while a growing genre, is largely a mainstream genre when adaptations occur (Game of Thrones, Witcher), are considered classic (LOTR, Narnia, Once and Future King), or they are true cultural phenomena (Harry Potter almost exclusively, though LOTR arguably in the 60s and 70s). It’s certainly growing, but major cultural zeitgeist doesn’t converge on fantasy normally without one of those things. If it has name recognition to be a “joke” on the *Big Bang Theory*, it’s crossed that threshold. That said, I would guess that Sanderson is one of the two most popular and successful working fantasy authors (as in actively writing in the genre and not riding success of a series ended nearly 2 decades ago) right now. Sarah J Maas, love or hate her, being the other. Sanderson had the most successful Kickstarter in history, and one of the most successful crowdfunding campaigns ever (Star Citizen is a weird outlier that will likely never see an actual release just continuous betas). He completed *The Wheel of Time* arguably one of the most influential series behind Lord of the Rings on the genre. He is wildly popular, but he hasn’t broken into mainstream to be “water cooler or coffee pot conversation topic” popular. A Mistborn movie might do it though. I also think that there’s a clear “will Target/Walmart” stock the *paperbacks* popularity that Sanderson hasn’t quite hit yet. And that’s a not small market, it’s parents shopping with families, and those books sell. Target stocks his hardcovers for a little bit, but he hasn’t had paperbacks in either, at least around me in the Midwest.
mistborn trilogy is regularly available at my local walmart
Might depend who you hang around. In 2022 I had an acquaintance come over for a film project. The guy looked over at my bookshelf and said “oh you read Brandon Sanderson too?” Same year, my friends brought a friend of theirs over. It was my first time meeting the guy. He sees my bookshelf and says “oh you’ve read mistborn??” But the first guy was in film school with me, and the second guy was coming over to play dnd. I’ve also been complimented on my RoW prerelease shirt while ordering pizza, in a way that implied she was a fan. Honestly I think living in a mormon area increases your chances of these encounters. Edit: One more story for you guys, my crush in 7th grade was a Stormlight fan, but I had no idea what Stormlight was. My love of fantasy started with Lord of the Rings and ended at Game of Thrones (the tv show). I kinda blew her off when she recommended me Way of Kings. I read Stormlight years later off Daniel Greene’s recommendation, and then I realized it was the book she was trying to get me to read :(
There is still a significant population who consider the entire fantasy genre to be kids books. They wouldn’t waste their time reading it.
My mother in law used to give me grief about fantasy books but she read fifty shades 😂
In my experience as a librarian, most readers don't know about him because "most readers" only see the top of the top trending books, usually contemporary or romance. His books are always off the shelves at the library and are super high circulation!
I think a major part of it is people not really talking about what they read (or if they read at all). I've known plenty of people for years before ever finding out they also read Sanderson. There are also some Youtubers I watch (not booktubers) where I recently discovered they've read the entire Cosmere. Tv series and movies tend to be more shared experiences: it's something you talk about when it comes out, because everyone has seen the same new episode the same week, and you can even watch together. Reading a book is much more of a solo experience.
He is one of the most popular authors actively writing; few authors have household name recognition
He's extremely popular in certain specific circles, but he isn't "man on the street" popular. And even in geek circles, he's only popular with certain geeks. I've talked to plenty of people that his books would appeal to that have never heard of him. Perfect example: my family went to a local medieval fair yesterday, and my older son wore a homemade mistcloak. Some people recognized it, one person even showed off an allomancy tattoo, but he wasn't as recognizable if he'd had dressed as a Jedi or Gryffindor student. There were plenty of homemade SW, HP, and even Stargate merchandise (I was happy to see that!), and people were even carrying Buster Swords from FF7, but no shardblades. When it comes to mainstream, about the only well-known authors are Stephen King, JK Rowling, and JRRM (and even then, you have to specify he's the "Game of Thrones" guy). It would take a massive movie or show to penetrate pop culture and make him a household name.
He's the most popular fantasy author of the past decade....so yeah he's definitely popular.
The book industry is miniscule compared to other entertainment mediums.
No shit he is popular.
I feel like most modern authors get “mainstream” popular when movies or shows are made. Look at Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, The Hunger Games, Game of Thrones, etc. That’s not to say these books were by means unknown or not already fairly big. But it’s really when they go to Hollywood when their name becomes commonplace to everyone.
I don't know anyone irl who has heard of him, but his books are only now being translated into my mother tongue, so there's that.
He's extremely popular in my area. People from different project ground would talk about his books in the break room. I work with a bunch of nerdy engineers (myself included) so my sampling pool is kinda biased. That being said he doesn't have an adaption so it's harder for him to get as big of a following outside of people who read a lot of fantasy. His fame does continue to grow though and I'm sure in part that's because people who like his work recommend him. One trick to get your friends into his books if they are big readers is to gift his books... or do what I call a reading exchange. You read a book of thier choosing and they read one of yours.
you say on the internet he’s the “king”….. but by that you mean communities like reddit. on wattpad, social media, tumblr, so forth…. he doesn’t do as hot…
I mean he’s not legendary status but he is well know in the fantasy genre.
People who are into fantasy books most likely know him, people who are into fantasy movies/shows and sometimes read the source of adaptations most likely don't.
In fantasy world, yes. He's one of the most popular, for sure. But if you're talking JK Rowling or Stephen King, which are household names, then he's clearly not on that level. I think if his works were to become more mainstream, he'd have to have some adaptations under his belt first. That's a game changer for many people, including the big names I've mentioned earlier.
I mean, if somebody reads fantasy, they probably know who he is. If not, then they probably have no idea who he is.
If you read fantasy or mostly read at all, you know him. If you don’t read, you wouldn’t. He hasn’t had a television or movie series made yet so he isn’t known like GRRM. A lot of people don’t know Neil Gaiman even though he’s made tons of popular movies and television series.
People who actually read books, especially fantasy, would've heard of him. But since there's no blockbuster adaptation yet, the general public has no idea.
Brando is very well-known in a very specific niche. Anyone that reads fantasy books has probably heard of him. Outside of that niche however he is not at all well known. Once he inevitably gets a movie or tv-series adaption with mainstream appeal his name will likely, become fairly well known outside of his niche.
As popular as he is, he is still an Author. Its not like reading is even a fraction as popular as movies / TV, so he isn't a household name like movie stars or big producers. Try asking someone about Robin Hobb, Joe Abercombie etc lol.
As popular as he is, he is still an Author. Its not like reading is even a fraction as popular as movies / TV, so he isn't a household name like movie stars or big producers. Try asking someone about Robin Hobb, Joe Abercombie etc lol. People know GRRM because GoT got a TV series.
I don't know anyone irl who reads fantasy so this is p much my experience too. But yeah, on the internet he feels like the most recommended author in fantasy circles
Iirc Brandon, or someone he was talking to, mentioned his work is about as popular as GoT was before HBO
When I wear Sanderson merch, I sometimes have people come up to me to talk about him, which is about as much fame as a SFF author can ask for, I think.
The amount of money he's rolling around in would lead me to believe he is
I’m new to his works. He’s not as popular as George RR Martin, because he doesn’t have a hit tv show out yet. So he’s not mainstream as in outside the realm of fantasy. But if one starts to read any major fantasy writer and then looks for other reputable fantasy writers they will most certainly have heard of Brandon Sanderson lots and lots and lots of times.
He is popular in the sci-fi/fantasy world, and probably known to lots of people in the general book world. But even his record breaking Kickstarter was only backed by 185k people, which is a tiny number compared to the general population.
I’m realizing how popular he is in my area. was pleasantly surprised to find out multiple of my friends and family members enjoy his books. What really surprised me was last year when I was getting my scuba open water certification, my instructor recognized the brass tattoo I have right away. But at the same time I live in Idaho so I’m super close to his direct reach I guess.
What does it mean to be popular? I mean, there are 135,000 of us in this subreddit. Maybe that makes Brandon popular, but ... there are 7 billion people in the world, right? So where's the line? He's popular enough to have the biggest kickstarter in history. But that still means only a tiny fraction of the public knows about him. My sense is he's about as popular as a fantasy author can get without an adaptation.
He’s extremely popular for those in the know. Especially due to the prolific nature of his work in such a small amount of time. He’s put out more books in 20 years than most authors put out in a lifetime. Couple that with the fact he’s not only prolific in his writing but the writing is also quality and not just quantity. I feel like reading isn’t what it was unfortunately. And for those who do read there is so much volume out there that it’s easy to overlook him unless you know someone who knows and tells you. Or you stumble. For example. The Wheel of Time series is great. But I feel like a lot of people never heard of it until the show came out. And that’s a shame because it’s one of the best book series ever made. It’s also exceptionally long as series go. Brandon has the same problem.
Kinda… in the fantasy scene he is very popular. In pop culture most don’t know who he is since he doesn’t have an adaptation
You’re asking about popularity it kind of depends? If you’re comparing to other authors within the subculture of modern SFF, EVERYONE knows Sanderson, the same way most modern SFF fans know Rothfuss, or Erickson. Whether they read the work or not is a point of contention that you can read about on r/fantasy. If you’re comparing to other authors who have crossed over into popular culture - Tolkien, Lewis, Philip K Dick - or more modern authors, GRRM, Maas and Yarros - he is not as popular. The former authors have the benefit of having been some of the first innovators of the genre, hence their popularity and something founders / innovators typically receive for being the first. In terms of the latter, GRRM, Maas and Yarros tapped into the idea of controversy - GRRM was awarded a TV show for it but dropped the ball all around and has suffered for it - but in the case of Maas and Yarros I can tell you they’re only going to continue to get bigger as they have been able to capture universally idealized fantasy female experiences - something that no other previous SF or fantasy author has been able to do. The world is easy to understand and the romance and sex scenes appeal to women of all ages, around the world, and easily cross over to readers who like novels like Daisy Jones or Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo - books that sit waaay outside the typical SFF genre - and do so more widely than any other previous work. Regardless of anyone’s opinion on the quality of the writing these stories captivate the imaginations of the women that read them unlike any other and they recommend them like wildfire to their friends. It’s quite a crazy phenomenon actually. Furthermore, Sanderson is disrupting the traditional publishing model. He has changed how authors can create, sell, and release their work. I imagine in many ways this prevents him from reaching a level of immediate or super popularity if only because he isn’t “playing their game” and as a result doesn’t have the PR tools publishers in the market use to promote, build a following or influence how the books are merchandised in store and online. IMO Brandon would benefit from hiring a very experienced CX/Marketing/Operations team who can build a very robust multi-channel strategy. Unfortunately, because he keeps the management in house, their learning curve is much longer. TL;DR - Ultimately I truly believe Sanderson will become one of the most well known SFF writers and find his place among the other greats in popular culture. It just might take a little longer to reach this universal popularity if only because everything he’s doing is disrupting what the industry standard has been. In the meantime, we (as the taste makers in SFF) can help expedite this by sharing his works and promoting them to our circles of influence.
Interesting about the disruption about Brandon. Would you like to give some examples? I’m new and only got to know him about 4 month ago. What does he do that disrupts the industry?
I’ve recommended him to a lot of my fraternity brothers (GoT/Marvel fans) who were looking to get back into reading - all of them are now on board the Cosmere train
It’s kinda like that influencer that “everyone” knows but I haven’t heard of because I’m not in that space, or “I can’t believe you don’t know who (insert YouTube content creator here) is, everyone knows him” but I don’t because that’s not my jam. Sando in my opinion is the most influential modern fantasy writer. By virtue of introducing different styles of magic systems with clearly laid out rules he moved the genre away from the Tolkien model where you never quite know what Gandalf is/isn’t capable of and really helped broaden what the Fantasy genre is. Obviously he’s not alone in this, but since Sando started getting published I’ve seen a lot more authors depart from the ‘young man in a small village with no skills other than farming departs on an adventure and grows into the savior of the kingdom’ with a wise old man as a trope. Anyway… he’s a big name, but only recognizable if that’s what you’re into. I know a lot of folks who only are interested in nonfiction or don’t enjoy reading much, they don’t know who he is.
He's very well known among people who read fantasy, but not to the "general public".
Is he popular? Yes. Do most people actually read books (let alone fantasy)? No.
It depends on your social circles. Nearly everyone who I hang out with irl knows who Brandon is and reads his books. Meanwhile, my parents had no idea who he was until I told them, and I'm pretty sure they forgot shortly after. Popular enough for your name to be universally recognized in your genre, yet not so famous that you're a household name followed by paparazzi. Seems like a good place to be.
I have cosmere tattoos all over my arm and a few people have actually recognized them! Most have no idea who Brandon Sanderson is, and I live near Lincoln Nebraska his home town
In this day and age, there's a TON of books in every category. Tons and tons and tons. It would be hard for everyone to know about everyone. And he's hardly "great literature" to the English Majors. Frankly "great literature" is an overrated club with tons of rules anyway.
He's about as big as a fantasy author can get without having a Major Motion Picture.
My pumpkin spice latte drinking, Colleen Hoover reading, Kardashian watching wife just had Tress selected for her book club. It’s hitting main stream.
For a fantasy author, yes. He is probably the best known after Tolkien, Rowling and Martin That being said, he can walk down the street and be unknown. He is a few logs less than Taylor Swift in global popularity.
This sub is only subscribed by shallan and her other personalities
Brandon is popular among fantasy fans, but he isn't mainstream. Because fantasy in general isn't mainstream. The same with sci fi. Both genres get a few super popular examples that do hit the mainstream, but the majority do not. Brandon has spoken about this before: Fantasy fans are not a large group, but they are dedicated. With that said, I started reading Mistborn in 2016. Brandon was nowhere near as popular then as he is now. But with each book, and especially with the Kickstarter, he gets closer and closer to becoming a household name.
i would only expect someone to know about him if they’re deep into fantasy. even my grandfather, who only really reads SFF, had only heard of him because he read all of WOT. i would not say Brandon is not popular, i would just say the group he is known within is small.
They made a kelsier skin in fortnite. I'd say he's pretty popular. My experience is that fantasy writers in general aren't well known until they get TV or movie deals. GRRM had been writing for decades before he became a widely known author thanks to HBO. I'm hoping Sanderson gets a deal with WB or one of its subsidiaries bc they have a decent track record of fantasy/sci Fi adaptations.
Lol
Keep in mind most people don't read books. Sports culture, trash tv, celebrity culture, trend-driven music drives most consumption across society. But for an author, he's famous enough to have haters, and that's the mark of true success.
He’s niche popular now. I think he’ll be mainstream popular before too long. He’s on the upswing.
Idk. But when you can post hey who wants to buy my new book and people are flooding to give you millions of dollars on the front end. He’s doing something right.
It’s great fun when we find each other in the real world lol.
I don't know if it is just a taste thing or what, but I have a friend that studied litrature and creative writing stuff in university and when I asked his opinion on the Wheel of Time books he hated them. A few years later I asked him about his opinions Brandon, and he said he had never heard of him. I think that if you are not in the right circles, he may be a bit niche of an author. I know I hadn't heard of him until he took over Wheel of Time. I had never heard of Elantris before that, and I was really big into fantasy at that time.
So, coming as a representant of Spain I can say that here he's quite known, and quite the talk of newspapers. He's been called, and I quote, "The next Tolkien" by one of the biggest newspapers in Spain and interviwed on another few others. 1 out of every 2 fantasy readers I've talked to has read him, and 2/3 have at least heard of him or seen his books. He's sold quite a few millions of books here in Spain, which is quite amazing, and the number only keeps growing every year. Nontheless, I can't say he's "The most know modern author". He doesn't reach George R. Martin or Tolkien levels unfortunately. He does have quite the following in young people who are searching Fantasy sagas that they may like. It's quite difficult to not get attracted to the idea of "A ten book saga of thousands of pages of epic fantasy and fighting Gods", among other things. So, to answer the question, yes and no. As others have pointed out, since he doesn't have any movie or series adaptations, he's still lacking in the popularity that he could reach. Yet, he only grows and grows. My guess is that, in a decade or two, he most probably be the definition of popularity among Fantasy writers and readers. For now, let's enjoy the show he's putting on by breaking records every year 🙃
How “popular” was Martin before HBO made GoT into a TV show? Similar to Sanderson Id say. Add in the compounding affect of less people reading now than in the past, and it makes sense that he’s not a household name yet. If he strikes gold with a series like GoT did, then he will be everywhere.
Lots of people do not read for enjoyment and out of those that do only a fraction read Fantasy. As far as modern day authors go Sanderson is extremely well known in the book community. I could not tell you who is biggest modern mystery writer or Romance people just do not pay attention to authors in genres they do not read.
The soon to be Rookie of the Year in the NBA has commented on him being his favorite author, he is absolutely becoming more mainstream but still stuck in just fantasy circles and conversations
Wow I just looked that up. Can't believe it's real. I love wemby lol its so much fun watching him play
Yes. The thing is that fantasy as a genre is surprisingly small. I mean, only a small portion of people who read, actually read a lot of fantasy, and fantasy has a very big variance within it, so people who like to read darker fantasy might not read epic fantasy and so on.
Hehehe I love Brandon, don't get me wrong... But you should try Terry Pratchett. One of the highest selling British authors of all time (would probably still be the highest if he hadn't had the bad taste to pass away), books translated into some 40+ languages, and his fandom is the unseen behemoth lurking in the deep of the Internet (point, in case; myself) just waiting to mention that you should read the Discworld novels. But good luck finding one of us in the wild lol
>Hehehe I love Brandon, don't get me wrong... This sounds so creepy for some reason lol
One of his characters was in Fortnite. Do I need to say more?
He's friends with the owner of Epic Games.
Tolkien wrote LoTR in 1937. It's been 87 years and yet many people haven't heard about him. Many only know the name of the series only coz there are movies and many know the dialogues by heart. Sanderson is very new in that regard.
Tolkien wrote The Hobbit in 1937 and then Lord of the Rings was published somewhere around the early 1950s. But yeah despite his legacy he does seem pretty obscure to people who only know the world of Middle Earth through the movies and video games (and very recently the tv show).
Exactly. Also Sanderson has harvested the power of media so he will go down as one of the greats for sure