“This is a story where she falls in love with a man who goes off and gets captured by pirates. “Princess Buttercup is really kind of useless,” Sanderson said.
Sanderson and his wife love the 1987 film, “ The Princess Bride.” But as they watched it one day at home in 2020, something in the classic movie bothered them. Warning: There is a small spoiler ahead for Sanderson’s secret novel fans. ‘The Princess Bride’ and the Kickstarter origin story Sanderson recently spoke with the Deseret News to tell the story behind the $33 million Kickstarter and how it has impacted his writing career. I knew the potential was there because I have a lot of fans, but I didn’t know if I could reach them or if I could convince them to do a Kickstarter.” We didn’t set out to break the record, and yet here we are. “To hit $30 million is just mind-boggling. We figured that would sell enough copies to be worth all the time and effort to put this together,” he said. “We were prepared to be successful at $1 million. That Kickstarter pulled in more than $6.5 million and he hoped this one would at least hit $4 million.
He had only done one previous Kickstarter for a reprint leather bound edition of one of his most popular books. The popular author who teaches a creative writing class at Brigham Young University said he had no idea what to expect. 1 Kickstarter of all-time when it surpassed $20 million in the first three days. His fans responded in a big way - nearly 145,000 backers have pledged more than $33 million as of March 25, with another week to go. Brandon Sanderson is releasing four secret novels.Brandon Sanderson’s Kickstarter goal was $1 million.Sanderson’s big reveal came on March 1 with a YouTube video and Kickstarter fundraiser that offered fans the four secret novels and swag bags throughout 2023. “Knowing that is part of what drove me to write them, knowing that I would eventually be able to reveal it to them.” I love reveals,” Sanderson told the Deseret News. It was his way of hopefully bringing a silver lining to quarantined readers and setting up a big reveal in the process. It was so fun that Sanderson wrote a second novel. He found the experience rejuvenating because he could write whatever he wanted when he wanted, with no deadlines, pressure from publishers or expectations from fans. He told only his wife and let her read the pages as he wrote them.
The Utah-based bestselling sci-fi and fantasy author was going a little stir-crazy during isolation and needed to do something different and exciting. Brandon Sanderson’s first secret novel started out as a surprise gift for his wife Emily during the pandemic in 2020.