Warbreaker & Battling Obscurity over Piracy
June 14th, 2009Brandon Sanderson has just released a fantasy novel, Warbreaker, available simultaneously in print (published by TOR) and as a free PDF.
My biggest challenge as an author is obscurity. I believe in my novels, and believe that if people read them, they will want to read and buy more of them. I believe that readers like to own books and, yes, even like to buy them specifically to support authors they want to write more books.
This resonates with me, especially as I consider how I want to release my music.
For a creator lacking the momentum of industry cred, the doors are closed. Historically, you would need to fluke into the right place at the right time. Take it up the right orifice by the right person. How dreadfully unpleasant.
Exposure is the door-opener.
And with virtually free online distribution, it is a door we can open for ourselves.
[And save the indie artist's ass. Figuratively.]
Backstory: Who is this Sanderson guy?
I used to read fantasy obsessively: C.S. Lewis, then Tolkien, and many more. Then I found Robert Jordan’s A Wheel of Time. Fantastic books. Many characters and plot lines. But I was struggling to keep it all straight. I set the series on the shelf to wait for it to finish.
Sadly, Mr. Jordan passed away before finishing book 12, what he promised would be the final installment in the Wheel of Time. Fortunately for fans (and the Wheel of Time), Mr. Jordan was able to leave his wife (and editor) with enough information, notes and dictations, that the series could be finished by someone else.
Enter Brandon Sanderson, the someone else that was selected with this task. I had never read any Sanderson (or even heard of him) but I’ve been enjoying his blog, and following development on WoT, as well as hearing more about his process as an author. He was even kind enough to exchange a few emails with me.
I’ve been loving Warbreaker. It’s the first fantasy I’ve picked up in a long time. And by picked up, I suppose I mean opt+cmd+down arrowed, but hey, you know what I meant. And if you didn’t, my Mac key commands probably didn’t help.
Warbreaker has witty characters. This suits me fine; my memory of fantasy is that characters (and authors) take themselves much too seriously. It’s a fine line: too much buffoonery, and you lose any sense of of the epic. Sanderson makes it work by giving the irony to his characters. For example, there is a god character who doesn’t believe in his own divinity.
I love that Sanderson has been totally open with his process, and shared drafts from the various stages of Warbreaker’s development.
The free PDF plan has worked on me. I’m converted. Were I back in the land of milk, honey, limitless bandwidth and REASONABLY PRICED-BOOKS, I’d pick this up in a second. And I won’t hesitate to support him in the future.
Not only because my eyes hurt from PDF-reading.
Tags: fiction, free
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