How did you find out about Brandon Sanderson?

[Jhaeli]

This makes me wonder if I'm the only Canadian here.

Instead of a nice story about meeting him, I picked up Elantris at my local library (which was a second home for me growing up, so I notice every new fantasy that enters that building. Or did, before I moved away. But I digress!). I immediately fell in love with the book and began waving it in the face of all my friends and family. I've only had one convert so far - although that's about to change as I pounce on a WoT fan at work now. I found it about a year or so ago, well before Mistborn.

I've since read Mistborn and am eagerly awaiting the second book to come out as a paperback; I'm not paid enough to buy the hardcover and it wouldn't match my collection.

[The Jade Knight]

The gArinch graduated from McGill last year…

[TheLazyWolf]

I spy on him from space with my high powered telescope.

[Minx]

I work at a book store so I had seen his books before, I just had not read any yet. The other night I got called in to work on a day off and he just happened to stop in and sign some books. (he signed a Mistborn for me! yay!) He's a nice guy. I will never refuse to come in on a day off. 

[Azhev]

I saw Elantris a few years back, but as I was involved in some other books, I never picked it up.  Then I heard that he would be working on Memory of Light, so I thought I would read some of his things now.  Just finised Mistborn, and have Elantris and Well of Acension on reserve at the library.  Some good stuff.

[Faster Master St. Pastor]

Fell's wife was my Creative Writing teacher in eight grade, and she had Brandon, Fell, and HoM come in and talk to us. I was absent the day Fell came in. After listening to Brandon I figured I might as well give him a shot so I went to Media Play and started reading Elantris. I also lurked around here for a little before I actually joined. The first time I actually met him in person was at a book signing for Mistborn at the Barnes and Noble near my house.

[Spider01]

I am sorry to say that until it was announced that Brandon was going to write RJ's WoT Book 12 A Memory of Light and had never heard of him.  Since then I have gone to the local Barns & Nobel store to pickup Brandon's books and discovered that they don't have any of Brandon's books.
ARGH!!!!!

[stacer]

You could always ask them to order them in. Takes a couple days, but they love doing that.

[Peter Ahlstrom]

Spoken like a true member of the industry.

[stacer]

I'm just saying, so few people know they can order them, especially when ignorant booksellers, too lazy to realize how the big-corporate-chain structure works, tell people a book is out of print rather than go to the trouble of at the very least ordering a book.

It frustrates me to no end to not be able to find a book I want at the bookstore, especially a book I know for a fact to be in demand (whether it's part of a class list or because it's simply an insanely popular book that in earlier times would have been given the full year or two to find its audience). It's ridiculous that I can walk into a store now and not be able to find a book that came out in September (and that includes books I worked on).

But the only way we'll ever show the chains what books to remember to stock is from customer demand. If a customer just gives up and walks out (I mean really give up, walk out, and don't go to whatever local independent or online retailer they have at their disposal, but instead give up on the book altogether), then the chain never knows what business they were missing out on, you know?

[Peter Ahlstrom]

Exactly. I was just thinking of how many times I've given people the exact same advice.

But you're right, it's also annoying when someone says they were told something was out of print, and I look it up and say, "Well, our distributor HarperCollins has 50 copies in stock, so the bookstore can order from them..."

[stacer]

Of course the way to solve it is to patronize your local independent bookseller. They tend to notice people demanding certain books a whole lot more, because it's good for business to have a returning customer.

[Bookstore Guy]

<repeats what was mentioned in the above 5 posts>

[Kaldric]

Although I had heard his name a couple times before, I didn't really know much about him until the announcement earlier this month that he would be finishing the Wheel of Time.  So, after a few google searches, I found this site.  I'll be getting Elantris for Christmas so I can check out his writing.

[VegasDev]

I ran across Brandon's work at just the right time. I was tired of all the cookie-cutter fantasy works put out on the shelf; ones that if you changed the character names, you had probably already read the book.

I walked into a Borders and literally went through each book (in the fantasy section), looking at the cover, reading reviews, etc. trying to find one that was interesting and new. I grabbed Elantris several times and put it back on the shelf only to come back to it later. After a couple hours, I finally decided to buy it.

When I got home, I sat down in my chair preparing to read the first chapter, go to bed and try to force myself to finish the book over the next day(s). Unfortunately, I wasn't able to do so. I got hooked from chapter one and finished the book before going to bed. The entire book was a cliffhanger. You would get interested in what Roaden was doing, the chapter would end and then the next chapter would be about Sarene. You'd get interested in what she was doing and it would end on a cliffhanger only to have the next chapter be about Hrathen. It is truly a stand-alone novel.

I woke up the next morning and picked up a copy of Mistborn. I couldn't believe that it could be better than Elantris and that it was going to be a trilogy. I immediately went to Brandon's website and found the Warbreaker download. I was able to read the book as the chapters were written, give my input and actually feel involved in the process.

So, I had finished Elantris, Mistborn and Warbreaker, but there wasn't anything else out there other than the first couple chapters of Scribbler. This was a dark time for this reader. I actually had to work, pay attention to the family etc.

One day I noticed the Mistborn 2 was out, so I went down to Borders to buy a copy. When I was there, I saw a sign that Brandon was going to be doing a book signing the next day. I couldn't believe it. I rushed home and read the book trying to gather as many questions as possible for the next day. When I arrived at the signing, the only question I asked was 'When Scribbler was going to come out'. Stupid me. Anyway, while others were asking questions, I talked with David Farland's wife for about a half an hour to get the perspective from the spouse of an author.

This is the first author that I have gotten this excited over. I have done a bunch of fan art, only one of which I have posted at the moment and am in the process of putting some of the characters (Vin, Kelsier, Eland, Joel, Melody) into 3D space.

As of this post, I have purchased hardcover copies of Elantris, Mistborn 1 and Mistborn 2 for twelve of my friends and family. As soon as I heard the news about Brandon doing WoT 12, I let them know and they are ecstatic.

Long story short: Elantris probably had a 'Bargain Price' sticker on it which was peeling back a little, exposing the glue side which caught on my hand forcing me to look in it's general direction.