The Hope of Elantris

[Swiggly]

Its really very good Brandon, not long enough to make me jump up and down, but well worth my fifty nine cents.  Every single fifty nine pennies of it.  Nice to have if from the viewpoint of Ashe as well.   Nothing less than what I would expect of you, o favorite author o mine.  Wish it would come out in a teensy little book that I could put on my bookshelf, though.

[EUOL]

Swiggy,

Well, that's very nice to hear.  Thank you!  I honestly wasn't certain about it, but my agent liked it, and we decided to put it up as a measure of goodwill for the Amazon people, who have been very nice to us.  We don't expect it to earn serious money, but we thought some fans might be interested.

In answer to your comment, I'm actually planning something fun in this area.  I think I'm going to print a small number of 'Elantris Omnibus' books.  These will include the following (an * noting the things that aren't on my website.)

All of the annotations for Elantris
All of the deleted scenes
Both essays about the book from my website
The glossary and pronunciation guide
*The original Aon images I drew before Tor spiffed them up.
*The original maps that 42 did for me, along with my notes about them.
*Hope of Elantris
*Another short story in the Elantris world (?)

Together, that would be about 200 pages or so of printed material, and we'll probably sell them through my website at $15 trade paperback, $25 hardback, for any who happen to be interested.  Amazon has exclusive rights to Hope of Elantris for about six months, so the printed book wouldn't come out until then.  However, this is one of the projects I've begun puttering around with.

I'm not sure if people would want something like this, and it certainly wouldn't be something that would make a lot of money for me.  However, it occurs to me that having to reference all of these things on the web makes for hard reading and the like, and so people might want a printed version.

Thoughts?

[dawncawley]

I think having it all printed in one place might do better for you than you think. I personally would buy something like that.

[Parker]

Verrrrrry interesting idea.  Would you do it through Lulu or some place like that, or would you actually do a limited print run?

[Skar]

At those prices I'm guessing LULU

[Spriggan]

I didn't even know this was around...should add it to the website.

[EUOL]

LULU would probably be what I'd do.   If this one sells well, I'd do one for Mistborn and do an actual print run. 

Like I said above, I couldn't print this thing for six months anyway, Sprig.  I want to get T-Shirts and signed hardbacks up on the store first and get the kinks out of the system.  Plus, the omnibus will take some time to format and proofread. 

[Spriggan]

No, I'm talking about the amazon $.50 shortstory.

[EUOL]

Oh, right.  We did that deal several months ago, but it only went up last week.  I had kind of forgotten about it. 

[Swiggly]

I think that a lot of your fans would like that, Brandon. I mean, we all religiously read everything you put up on your site, so people who are on TWG would definitely buy it. Especially warbreaker, though I assume that won't be coming out for some time, considering its still in the rough stages.

Not just fifty cents, Sprig...Fifty nine. Thats a good penny for Brandon's coffers.

[Tage]

Geez, none of us even knew about the Amazon story. Good thing Brandon has fans.

[Peter Ahlstrom]

My thoughts exactly.

[Shrain]

Yeah, I hadn't a clue that there was a short story on Amazon. For 59 cents, eh?

Anyway, EUOL, an Elantris omnibus-type thing would be quite cool. Since none of that stuff was published by Tor, you shouldn't have to request legal permission. But wouldn't you want to at least mention it to Moshe and/or Joshua? Just to be safe, and maybe to get it to turn a profit?

[Eric James Stone]

Amazon only charged me 49 cents.

As of right now, "Hope of Elantris" is #2 on the Amazon Shorts Bestseller list.  I guess that means you can bill yourself as a "bestselling author."

Update: As of 4:25pm, you're

"#1 Bestselling Author Brandon Sanderson."

[Swiggly]

YAY! Go Brandon!