Brandon Sanderson: Set Goals You Can Control

Brandon Sanderson might not be in the same league as Stephen King, George R. R. Martin, James Patterson and other multimillionaire authors in terms of wealth and popularity, but he is still nevertheless a successful author who has a net worth of USD six million as of 2023.

He is a good author to read about especially if you are interested in a full-time writing career. His advise to aspiring and already professional authors is very eye-opening, especially in having a realistic expectation of having a successful full-time writing career.

But who is Brandon Sanderson? His full name is Brandon Winn Sanderson and he was born on December 19, 1975. He is an American high fantasy and science fiction author.

He is best known for the Cosmere fictional universe, in which most of his fantasy novels, most notably the Mistborn series and The Stormlight Archive, are set.

Besides Cosmere, he has written several young adult and juvenile series which are The Reckoners, the Skyward series, and the Alcatraz series. He is also known for finishing Robert Jordan’s high fantasy series The Wheel of Time.

He has also created several graphic novel fantasy series which includes White Sand and Dark One. He created Sanderson's Laws of Magic and popularized the idea of "hard magic" and "soft magic" systems.

In 2008, he started a podcast with author Dan Wells and cartoonist Howard Tayler called Writing Excuses. The topics involve creating genre writing and webcomics.

In 2016, the American media company DMG Entertainment licensed the movie rights to his entire Cosmere universe, but the rights have since reverted back to Sanderson.

His March 2022 Kickstarter campaign became the most successful in history, finishing with 185,341 backers pledging $41,754,153.

The Details:

1. A Single Novel Made Him Want to be an Author

If you think that Brandon Sanderson is a reader just because he writes novels, think again. He publicly confesses that he is bored with reading books especially when he was still young. To him, most books are about a boy and his dog with the dog eventually rescuing the boy.

Also, his mother was against him being an author. She actually wanted him to become a doctor or a scientist instead. She was worried that Brandon won’t have enough drive to finish the books he was writing. She was also worried about his earning potential being an author.

But did didn’t deter Brandon who after reading a novel his teacher has given him, decided that his ambitions in life was to become a famous novelist and to “own a pet dragon.” The novel which inspired him was “Dragonsbane” which was written by author Barbara Hambly.

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2. He Believed the Lie About Hardwork and Success

He confessed that just like many people, he also fell to “survivorship bias” which is a human phenomenon where people trust the advice of successful people, especially their successful peers.

He believed what many successful authors teach that: “You can be successful at anything if you tried hard enough”. It doesn’t help that even popular media like to promote such saying to the detriment of their viewers and listeners.

He rushed into writing novels headlong even though he was still attending college studying a writing degree. His Andromeda student writing award further bolstered his hopes that he was going to be a famous novelist one day.

By 2002, he had a crisis of faith on himself ever becoming a successful novelist. By this time, he had already spent 10 years writing 12 novels and was writing his thirteenth, but despite his Andromeda award, his books were rejected by publishers.

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3. He Listened to So-Called Experts

He tried listening to publishers to his further detriment. According to his publishers, his sixth and seventh novels were not dark enough. They even told him that he should write dark stories the same way George R. R. Martin writes.

They also told him to chase the book market and write novels that the book market bought. He followed his publishers’ advise to his detriment. Despite copying other authors and writing what kind of novels sell in the book market, his novels still didn’t sell.

He is a perfect example of: “Even if you do everything right, you can still fail.” Brandon followed what he thought were the successful strategies to becoming a successful author. But, as he found out, even the experts can be wrong.

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4. He Reassessed His Goals

This was the time he reassessed his writing goals. His original goal was to become a famous author and this goal has not changed at all. But he also realized that besides this goal, what he wanted most was to write.

To him, when he’s writing, everything else in life fades as he “enters a phase of pure creativity” which he loves. He decided that even after he has written a hundred novels and he is still a commercial failure, he would still continue writing.

He decided that from now on, he would do things his way by writing the stories he wants to write and writing them the way he wants. He now also understands that writing itself is a very hard career to be in.

He realized that he can’t control the buying habits of book readers, but he can control his writing attitude which he began to improve for the better.

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5. Success Can Come Unexpectedly

It was not long after when he first changed his writing career goals that he sold his first novel, which was his sixth novel, the one which publishers first considered not dark enough and not commercial enough.

After this, his other past and new novels began selling, proving that time and luck can often play a major part in one’s writing success.

Brandon confessed that when he first heard the message that one of his books actually got sold, he didn’t believe it. By this time, he has already written 12 long novels and was writing his thirteenth but was already resigned to the reality that his novels won’t be bought.

As you can see, Brandon at this stage was only writing because he enjoyed it or was only going through the motions. His dreams of being a successful author was not on his mind anymore.

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6. The Element of Luck

He also confessed that the reason why he won his Andromeda student writing award was because of a mistake he made. He has wrongly stapled the chapters together.

As it turned out, his misplaced novel chapters were even better than his original novel. This was how much luck has played an important part in his writing career. He wouldn’t have won if the judges of the novel writing competition have read his novel with the chapters in original order.

He also likes to point out that of every 15 writing students of his, only two became professional writers making about part-time income from writing. He states that all his students were excellent writers but only a few become pro writers because of luck.

He also states that athletes win mostly based on luck. He states that an athlete can be the best last year but if a better athlete shows up the succeeding year, they lose. Making athlete’s wins dependent on the competition they have.

The lesson that we can learn here is that if ever you find yourself being successful in your career or whatever field you are in, don’t think that its all because of your talent and knowledge. Most of the time, you just got lucky. So don’t become cocky.

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Final Words

Brandon Sanderson is a good example of how changing your goal from becoming a successful author to just writing because you enjoy it is a textbook case of how doing what you love first can bring you eventual success.

As you can see, it took him more than a decade to become a successful author. He even followed the advice of his publishers and wrote novels that he didn’t really like, but found out that following the market is not a sure way to succeed.

Ultimately, luck played an important part in Brandon Sanderson’s career just like how luck affects the lives of everyone else. The trick is to do what you love and don’t think about success first, set goals that you can control. You might fail or succeed in your goals, but at least you are happy doing what you love.

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