3 ms·

The point is that he doesn't need the money. He's one of the most successful authors in the world and the delivery is just writing four books. I just don't unde

by Kiro 4y ago

The point is that he doesn't need the money. He's one of the most successful authors in the world and the delivery is just writing four books. I just don't understand why he made a Kickstarter to begin with. The previous record holder (Pebble) made sense because of R&D and hardware. The scam part is everyone always putting new Kickstarters under extreme scrutiny regarding the money they're trying to raise and if they really need it. Meanwhile this project has no upfront costs, nothing, that defends asking people to pledge money to it.

fabian2k 4y ago
As far as I understand the books are essentially self-published in this case, so there is certainly some investment needed to make all of this happen.
- Kiro 4y ago
  Kickstarter should be for financing things you can't get out on the market without the investment. You're basically saying "I need X money for Y to happen" and instead of a regular investor you rely on the hopes of future customers. Like a pre-order but without the obligation to deliver because of the moonshot. In Sanderson's case it's just a pre-order where you milk your fans for some extra bucks. He doesn't need this money to make these four books happen.
  - wlesieutre 4y ago
    The other advantage of a pre-order is you know roughly how many copies to print. If you're publishing your own book you may not be able to predict that, and if you estimate wrong you're out a bunch of your own money. Large publishers have some expertise in guessing that, and probably still plan to eat some costs for the times when they get it wrong. But on a smaller scale, "Oops I have piles of extra copies of every single book I printed" would be a big problem for someone self publishing a couple of books. If your fans trust you to follow through on a kickstarter, there's not really a downside.
  - amluto 4y ago
    Again, the ebooks were a minor part of the total. If you write a book, sell $5 million of physical copies and associated swag, I guarantee you either need to outsource the whole operation to a competent publisher or you need money to make it happen. Brandon Sanderson appears to be running most of this operation in house, and he would have pulled it off entirely on schedule if it weren’t for a massive storm introducing a (short!) delay.
  - matsemann 4y ago
    > Kickstarter should be... According to you. If you don't like it, your gripe is with KS, not Sanderson. And it's pretty common for things to launch their v2, v3 etc on KS even if strictly not needed. It's a hype channel, not an investment channel. > In Sanderson's case it's just a pre-order where you milk your fans for some extra bucks. Why so loaded language? It's not milking, it's fan service. People specifically want these extra things. Hence the success of the KS.....
    - Kiro 4y ago
      It's not about whether I like it or not. It's about people being hypocritical and giving him a pass while criticizing others for doing the same thing. For some reason Sanderson is untouchable.
      - matsemann 4y ago
        Who are being hypocritical? Are you sure it's not different people having different opinions?
      - CrazyStat 4y ago
        It's not hypocritical at all to support some kickstarters and not others, irrespective of how much money they raise. Sanderson has an established history of delivering books, and people trust him to deliver the promised books. Some random guy without an established reputation is going to encounter much more skepticism. Reputations matter. It's a fact of being human.
  - idontpost 4y ago
    [dead]
fmorel 4y ago
No upfront costs? They have to get the books recorded and printed without overproducing and losing money while also not getting a worse deal with a smaller print + miss out on sales. Same thing for merchandise. All of it needs to be warehoused until it's ready for delivery. Plus probably other things I'm unaware of. A major publisher already has all this infrastructure to take a gamble on new books while paying with current sales. Dragonsteel is still very small.
amluto 4y ago
The bulk of the kickstarter campaign was selling actual objects. These objects need to be produced, they have lead times, they have scaling issues both ways (there are economies of scale, but scaling up also involved a bunch of hiring — one can’t just snap one’s fingers). And Brandon Sanderson apparently wanted to sell however many people wanted to buy at a a preset price. So what exactly is wrong with using kickstarter for this? It’s essentially a platform for placing orders for things that won’t be delivered for a while, which is exactly what happened here. (Note that Brandon Sanderson and Dragonsteel have spent or committed a lot of the money already despite having delivered nothing yet. Those employees aren’t working for just equity without money or benefits!)

by Kiro 4y ago

fabian2k 4y ago

As far as I understand the books are essentially self-published in this case, so there is certainly some investment needed to make all of this happen.

Kiro 4y ago
Kickstarter should be for financing things you can't get out on the market without the investment. You're basically saying "I need X money for Y to happen" and instead of a regular investor you rely on the hopes of future customers. Like a pre-order but without the obligation to deliver because of the moonshot. In Sanderson's case it's just a pre-order where you milk your fans for some extra bucks. He doesn't need this money to make these four books happen.
- wlesieutre 4y ago
  The other advantage of a pre-order is you know roughly how many copies to print. If you're publishing your own book you may not be able to predict that, and if you estimate wrong you're out a bunch of your own money. Large publishers have some expertise in guessing that, and probably still plan to eat some costs for the times when they get it wrong. But on a smaller scale, "Oops I have piles of extra copies of every single book I printed" would be a big problem for someone self publishing a couple of books. If your fans trust you to follow through on a kickstarter, there's not really a downside.
- amluto 4y ago
  Again, the ebooks were a minor part of the total. If you write a book, sell $5 million of physical copies and associated swag, I guarantee you either need to outsource the whole operation to a competent publisher or you need money to make it happen. Brandon Sanderson appears to be running most of this operation in house, and he would have pulled it off entirely on schedule if it weren’t for a massive storm introducing a (short!) delay.
- matsemann 4y ago
  > Kickstarter should be... According to you. If you don't like it, your gripe is with KS, not Sanderson. And it's pretty common for things to launch their v2, v3 etc on KS even if strictly not needed. It's a hype channel, not an investment channel. > In Sanderson's case it's just a pre-order where you milk your fans for some extra bucks. Why so loaded language? It's not milking, it's fan service. People specifically want these extra things. Hence the success of the KS.....
  - Kiro 4y ago
    It's not about whether I like it or not. It's about people being hypocritical and giving him a pass while criticizing others for doing the same thing. For some reason Sanderson is untouchable.
    - matsemann 4y ago
      Who are being hypocritical? Are you sure it's not different people having different opinions?
    - CrazyStat 4y ago
      It's not hypocritical at all to support some kickstarters and not others, irrespective of how much money they raise. Sanderson has an established history of delivering books, and people trust him to deliver the promised books. Some random guy without an established reputation is going to encounter much more skepticism. Reputations matter. It's a fact of being human.
- idontpost 4y ago
  [dead]

fmorel 4y ago

No upfront costs? They have to get the books recorded and printed without overproducing and losing money while also not getting a worse deal with a smaller print + miss out on sales. Same thing for merchandise. All of it needs to be warehoused until it's ready for delivery. Plus probably other things I'm unaware of. A major publisher already has all this infrastructure to take a gamble on new books while paying with current sales. Dragonsteel is still very small.

amluto 4y ago

The bulk of the kickstarter campaign was selling actual objects. These objects need to be produced, they have lead times, they have scaling issues both ways (there are economies of scale, but scaling up also involved a bunch of hiring — one can’t just snap one’s fingers). And Brandon Sanderson apparently wanted to sell however many people wanted to buy at a a preset price. So what exactly is wrong with using kickstarter for this? It’s essentially a platform for placing orders for things that won’t be delivered for a while, which is exactly what happened here. (Note that Brandon Sanderson and Dragonsteel have spent or committed a lot of the money already despite having delivered nothing yet. Those employees aren’t working for just equity without money or benefits!)