Brandon Sanderson’s somewhat experimental book Warbreaker was released yesterday. It is experimental because Sanderson decided to continuously publish the story chapter by chapter and revision by revision on his blog, giving readers an insight into the writing process. From the earliest rough draft to the final version, all is available for download on his blog, even now that the hardcover book has gone to bookstores. Whether this experimental process is a success (i.e. people actually paying for it) remains to be seen.
Personally I started reading an early version of Warbreaker a long time ago, and while I enjoyed the story I just couldn’t get used to reading long books from the screen. So I will probably pick up Warbreaker when I get the chance. From the reviews it seems to be a pretty good book.
Warbreaker is the story of two sisters, who happen to be princesses, the God King one of them has to marry, the lesser god who doesn’t like his job, and the immortal who’s still trying to undo the mistakes he made hundreds of years ago.
Their world is one in which those who die in glory return as gods to live confined to a pantheon in Hallandren’s capital city and where a power known as BioChromatic magic is based on an essence known asbreath that can only be collected one unit at a time from individual people.
By using breath and drawing upon the color in everyday objects, all manner of miracles and mischief can be accomplished. It will take considerable quantities of each to resolve all the challenges facing Vivenna and Siri, princesses of Idris; Susebron the God King; Lightsong, reluctant god of bravery, and mysterious Vasher, the Warbreaker.
Dan Dos Santos has an interesting video of how he paints the cover for the book, and it’s hard not to be amazed at the talent. I should have paid more attention during art class in school. Video embedded below.
Not the first with this idea.
Writer in the US – Lawrence Watt-Evan, basically wrote a book, chapter by chapter. His fan base “donated” money (once a figure was reached) and they recieved the new chapters.
I think it was a way for the fans to pay the author to write book(s) about lands they loved, but no publisher was interested in paying for a complete book.
http://www.watt-evans.com/realmsoflight9.html
and this is the explanation
http://www.watt-evans.com/realmsoflight0.html
I hope this helps.
Ah, I did not claim Sanderson was first with the idea, just merely experimenting. The two ideas is also very different. Watt-Evan get paid by his reader for each chapter while Sanderson just release all writing for free and then publish the book, without any readers having to pay anything for the complete book in e-format.
Shoot, beat me to it, but absolutely correct. Lawrence started with the Spriggan-Mirror as a way to continue his Ethshar series, which readers loved but his publishers didn’t feel was selling well enough. He details his first experiment here
http://www.ethshar.com/thesprigganmirror.html
Fair enough Regis, I stand corrected. I know you didn’t mention money, I just assumed that some form of payment would cross hands at some point, as with Lawrence.
They do say the devil is in the detail.