State of the Sanderson 2025

Brandon Sanderson

Introduction

It’s been twenty years since this all began with the publication of Elantris. I thought the first ten would be the oddest of my professional career, what with the Wheel of Time dominating many of those years. 

It’s fun to look back at the State of the Sanderson from 2015 and see myself reminisce upon turning forty. Well, another ten years have passed, and these were somehow just as strange as the first ten. Our leatherbound editions really took off (we went from trying an experiment with Elantris to publishing the Wheel of Time itself) as did our crowdfunding efforts (to say the least). We started Nexus, and if this year proves anything, it’s that we don’t need a major book launch to make people excited for the convention. Through all of that, Dragonsteel grew from a company of a handful of friends and family members to... well, a real company, with HR and everything.  

I still feel incredibly grateful to you all for sticking with me through all of this. I recognize that I don’t always get to the side projects that people want me to, but that’s the price I have to pay to keep being creative. (And to make sure I keep myself excited for writing Stormlight and Mistborn.)

Looking back twenty years is daunting. I’m halfway through the main plan for the Cosmere, and feel like it’s going great, yet fifty feels more old by far than forty did at the time when it hit me. I’ve now been writing the yearly State of the Sanderson blog posts for longer than my youngest son has been alive. That’s wild.  

One thing remains constant: I love telling these stories. Ten years ago, I was making jokes about people calling me too productive, and I haven’t had any inclination toward slowing down. If you missed it somehow, I announced Secret Project Six (The Fires of December) at Nexus, and read from it what I think might be the strongest opening for a book I’ve ever written.  

There’s always another secret... and there’s always another story.   

Onward to the State of the Sanderson! My yearly way of updating you, and giving a retrospective on my year. 

Brandon Sanderson

Part One: My Year

Here’s what I spent 2025 doing! Reconstructed using the spreadsheet I use to record my progress on books.

January-December: Work on Ghostbloods (with other stuff)

Yup, only one entry this time. This year was primarily spent on Ghostbloods. I needed to get the outlines into shape, and write the first book.

That said, I’m being a little cheeky writing this as one entry, instead of breaking it up as I usually do by month. I did a lot of other things—just none of them took that long individually. 

A chunk of February was spent doing edits on Moment Zero, the cornerstone story for Tailored Realities. I lost about two weeks (!) to being extremely sick in March, and to having my eardrum burst from a sinus infection. That’s as sick as I ever remember being, and I got barely anything done—which for me is saying a lot.  

In May, I flew to Hollywood and pitched the Cosmere to all the big studios and streamers. (A little more news about that below.)  

July was spent on revisions for various things, including The Fires of December—and reading Janci’s second book in the Riftwake series, offering my editorial advice and revision notes. In August I worked on a novella that I can’t talk about yet, but it’s not cosmere. Then I was back to Ghostbloods... until I needed to do final, final revisions on The Fires of December in October, all the while making slow, careful, steady progress on Ghostbloods, which I should finish soon.  

So it was a very busy year full of a lot of random things, but also with a lot of time making sure Ghostbloods turns out the way I want it to.  

Brandon Sanderson

Part Two: 2026, and Updates on Primary Projects

2026 Travel and Releases

Something new I want to add this year is a look, right up top, at what is coming this year. This is the “Too Long, Didn’t Read” summary for you.  

First, next year will bring a crowdfunding campaign in March for the Hoid Storybooks. See more below.

Second, our book this year is The Fires of December. Premium edition in the crowdfund in March, though it’s a full novel and not a picture book, and commercial edition coming in December at Nexus and in bookstores. 

Third, I am planning to go to the UK in May to attend a convention in London and speak at Oxford. More details below, but the really important point is to note that we are considering bringing the Worldhopper Ball to London with my trip. This is the same experience as Nexus this year—so it’s Mistborn Era One themed, with actors, music, photo-ops with characters, entertainment, and food/drink. It’s quite a production, and expensive to bring, so we’ve got an RSVP form set up for those interested. If we get enough people saying they’d attend (without commitment yet) we will start work on it.  We need to know pretty soon, so please fill this out if you’re considering going.  

So, if you don’t read anything else in this document, those are the three things I want you to be aware of!  Now, onto the BIG updates!  In depth, because this is me, after all.

Mistborn

I basically already covered this one. Ghostbloods is going really well, with the first book mostly done at this point. I’m excited by how it is shaping up! 2028 is a pretty firm release date for this; don’t expect it to move. 

Cytoverse

Another great year for progress on the Cytoverse, with Janci officially naming our Skyward follow-up series Riftwake, with the first book (Blightfall) out next September.  I’ve read the second one, and have the outline for the third and final one in hand!  These are turning out great, and I think you Skyward fans are going to love them. 

Hoid’s Travails

With The Fires of December announced, we have a new Cosmere series!  Kind of! What I’m calling “Hoid’s Travails” are stories told in Hoid’s voice, about his stops around the Cosmere on out-of-the way planets that don’t have as much directly to do with the large-scale movements of Shards, like you see in Mistborn and Stormlight. 

Tress of the Emerald Sea and Yumi and the Nightmare Painter are the two other books in the series, but they don’t have specific numbers, as I feel they can be read in any order.  (December takes place before the other two chronologically, though Hoid is telling it to people after he told the other two, if that makes sense.)  

This gives us two books next year.  Blightfall and The Fires of December (which will be our Nexus book next year).

If you want to read the opening chapters of December, find them HERE.  If you want to hear me read them to you, find that HERE.  Our premium, illustrated edition will be sold during the Hoid Storybook crowdfunding campaign in March.  My publishers (Tor in the US/Canada, Gollancz in the UK/Ireland/Australia, and Nova in Spain) will be releasing it in December for commercial editions.  (With other languages to follow.)

More about the crowdfunding campaign below.

Wheel of Time Leatherbounds

The Eye of the World leatherbound is incredible. It feels so weighty, tome-like, and special. I think it’s my favorite leatherbound we’ve done so far.

They are up for pre-order TODAY. They ship early next year, and will ship in batches as we get all of them in from the bindery, which is sending them in waves. (I incorrectly thought we had all of them already; we don’t, but they are coming quickly, and no delays are likely.) From the levels of demand, we are expecting to sell out of the first printing of this book. Probably not immediately, but sometime early next year. We will of course be doing a second printing, but if you want to get one without needing to wait for the second printing to arrive, then now is the time to preorder.  

If you’d like to get one for a certain loved one THIS year for a Christmas present, I’ve prepared something you can print and wrap up. Find it HERE.

Hoid's Storybook Collection

The Dog and the Dragon, The Girl Who Looked Up, and Wandersail are joined by the Chasmfriends in a unique collection of four picture books that I absolutely adore. I mean, look at this artwork by Howard Lyon. How can you not love this little guy?

It’s going to be a long wait for March, but if you want to sign up now and pre-pledge a little amount, we’ll add a blind bag pin to your order. See more details on the sign-up page. 

These are planned to be delivered by the holidays next year, in case you want to get an early start on gifts for 2026. 

Brandon Sanderson

Part Three: Updates on Secondary Projects

Elantris, Warbreaker, Rithmatist

Elantris keeps getting shuffled around, but I’m very close to where I’m going to write the sequel. I’ve been saying that for ten years, but I do think I’ll get to it before too much longer.  Warbreaker and Rithmatist remain on my plate, with books to be written eventually. I feel like I’ve been racing for ten years, and only now do I feel like I have a breather to really look at projects like this.  

Songs of the Dead

This book is out in the summer of 2026! It is fully my co-author Peter Orullian’s series now, but he’s going to be on my YouTube from time to time to talk about it, and I was deeply involved in the first book. (Though for time reasons, I won’t be working on the others in the series.) His passion, dedication, and writing has been so wonderful to see, and I hope you’ll all check out the book when it launches. 

White Sand

Moving this one to the back burner, as The Fires of December ended up going better than White Sand did last year. (Sorry.)  The prose version of White Sand should still happen, but I was juggling doing several projects last fall, and December just HAD to be written. It’s one of those books I couldn’t get out of my mind, and I decided I had to strike while the iron was hot. 

Super Awesome Danger

I got proofs from the team, and went over them! So it’s coming along, though the artwork is taking a while.  

Other Random Cosmere Projects

The Night Brigade, Dragonsteel, The Silence Divine, the Grand Apparatus, Mythos, the Aether World book series, Free Fall Seven Layer Burrito World, Caveman Heist, Unnamed Other Ashyn Book... My, my. This list keeps growing, doesn’t it?  That’s how it goes.  Most of these are just idle thoughts, and none are promised.  Many have been on there for over a decade, so I like to drop them into the list when I have something solid in mind, but I won’t be able to get to all (or even most) of them. 

Finished series

Legion, Alcatraz, and the Reckoners remain finished, with only Reckoners maybe someday getting a sequel.

Crowdfunding

I’m going to send this to some relevant parties for more details, but the short version you already know. Hoid's Storybook Collection in March. Words of Radiance/Isles of the Emberdark is fulfilled! We should also be doing something new and cool with Brotherwise, which you’ll want to read about below, now that the Stormlight section of the RPG is fulfilled. (And for sale in Barnes and Noble, as well as on our respective websites!)

Brandon Sanderson

Part Four: Film, Television, Video Games

I wrote up a guide last year you can use as a key to understand the various steps I’ll reference below. We’ll link that RIGHT HERE, but it’s a little long. The short version is that I imagined ten “steps” to getting a film/TV property made, and while they don’t always go in order, and some can be skipped, it’s a rough guide that we can use to keep you updated on things.  

So read this next part, and if you’re confused, you can read my longer explanation of the steps—or can maybe guess where we are from the fact that there are ten steps, and so properties being on the lower ones means we’re pretty far off...  Which we are on everything, unfortunately.

That isn’t to say we haven’t made progress. It’s just when something falls apart (which often happens in this realm) you end up starting over from scratch. However, each time that has happened in the past, what we’ve built up next has been with people who have a little more power in Hollywood. In that way, each failure so far has propelled us forward until here, at this point, I’m taking meetings with heads of studios instead of low-level producers.

I think when it happens, it will be that much better for all the delays.

Snapshot

This is now officially dead. 

This is the one we were closest on last year (at step seven) but it hit a hiccup in June/July, and though the showrunners tried to do a Hail Mary to get it picked up somewhere new, it didn’t work. I got the text today that the rights are being released back to me.

It’s one of my stronger short pieces, and at least this means we can shop it again for the first time in many years. You can read the story itself in Tailored Realities. (Did I mention this collection is out now?)  

Step Zero. (Sigh.)

Skyward

This had some good motion! Last year, we were hunting showrunners, and we picked them. Last year we were on Step Four, and we technically still are, but we have showrunners, and together we’re writing the pilot. So it’s a pretty-far-along Step Four, which can often be one of the longest to complete.

Once we have a pilot, we’d need to sell it to a streamer or network, as this is for television, and although I’m working with a studio, the studio itself is not a distributor (i.e., it doesn’t have its own streaming service or network in the US).  So, to manage expectations, it will probably be another year at least before we would be able to announce anything official. 

Step Four.

Tress of the Emerald Sea

Last year I said we were likely going to get an offer on this, and we did—but it wasn’t for an animated feature as I’d hoped.  It was for a television series, also animated. As the proposed budgets didn’t look like they would be where I wanted, I decided to pass. 

This is the problem, by the way, with animation. A lot of fans want me to do animated versions of my books, and I’m willing—but often, in Hollywood, the money just isn’t there to make these the way I’d like. It DOES happen; Arcane is fantastic.  Unfortunately, this offer wasn’t there, and I decided I’d rather keep ahold of the property as opposed to doing something I felt had a low chance of coming out as I wanted it to.

Step Zero, unfortunately.

Mistborn/Stormlight

As I mentioned, in May I did major pitch sessions with some high-level people in Hollywood, and we received several offers. We’ve had some very promising developments since then, but that’s all I can say at the present.

I am hopeful that next year, I’ll be able to share some more information. Expect that when any Hollywood deal is completed I’ll likely need to pause writing on Ghostbloods for some time to devote my full attention to anticipated film and television projects (as I have every expectation of being very involved in any adaptations of my works going forward). 

(Very early) Step Four.

Video Games

I’ve started to get some real interest on the video game front, and I feel I’m finally getting  established enough that we can make a Mistborn game happen. To that end, I’ve started talking to some AAA developers.  

This is at Step One only, but it’s an encouraging One. These rights were tied up with the film rights for the last... oh, six~seven years, so I didn’t get to test the market on them until recently.  

I’m trying to do things differently this time in an effort to retain control of my video game rights.  I already have interest from some major players in the Video Game industry (who I like a lot). So if you are a decision maker at a AAA studio, or a major independent, and you’ve always wanted to make a Mistborn or Stormlight game... well, you would want to contact my reps now.  

If you want to throw your hat in the ring, the person to talk to is Matt Sugarman at Weintraub Tobin in LA.

Brandon Sanderson

Part Five: News from My Company

I’m going to hand you off again for some brief updates from Emily, then the different departments at Dragonsteel. Then, after that, some updates from foreign publishers. I’ll be back in Part Seven to wrap things up! 

Dan Wells

Hi, everybody! This has been quite a year for Narrative, as you can tell by Brandon’s list of books he’s been working on. For clarity, the projects he lists in his section are books that he writes and I consult on; the projects I list in my section are books that I write and he consults on. And this year that’s been a lot, though I can only tell you about one of them, and hint vaguely at the rest: 

1. This year we released the double book of Elsecaller and King Lopen the First of Alethkar. Most of the 2025 work on this was done by Editorial and Creative, as the writing was all finished in 2024, but it’s the only book I can name so I’m naming it. Since many people at Nexus asked, I’ll say this: the version of Elsecaller that appears in the double is word-for-word the version that appeared in the Story Deck cards. We would love to expand it into a novella, on par with Edgedancer and Dawnshard, but such a project is not currently on the schedule.
2. Narrative has three other books in the works at present, with the following maddening hints: two of them are Cosmere, none of them are Threnody, one of them is huge, two of them are already in revision, all three of them are awesome, and one of them is so new and innovative we haven’t even figured out how to sell it yet. And that’s all I can say for now :)

I’ll leave you with a fun peek behind the scenes. While the Narrative department consists solely of me and Brandon (and my intern, who’s last day is TODAY), we also have what Brandon calls the Council of Wizards, which adds to the group Isaac, Peter, and Karen. We bring in the Council of Wizards when a problem arises in a book and we’re not sure how to solve it–for example, if a book is mostly written but it turns out that the original outlined ending isn’t going to work. We convene the Council of Wizards, and the five of us chew through the problem and offer ideas about how to solve it, what things could change, and what things are working well and we don’t want to lose them. The Council convened three times this year, and it’s always a fun and productive time.

Brandon Sanderson

Part Seven: Projected Schedule

Okay, this is the place where I update the schedule. These are never very set in stone, as things bounce around a lot in publishing. However, I’ll try to indicate which are more firm and which are not.  

• March 2026: Hoid's Storybook Collection/The Fires of December crowdfund. (Fulfillment expected end of 2026.)
• Summer 2026: Songs of the Dead (not a Dragonsteel book, but still worth your time).
• Early Fall 2026: Brotherwise Stormlight Board Game crowdfund.
• Fall 2026: Blightfall, Book One of Riftwake. (New Cytoverse series.) 
• Winter/Nexus 2026: The Fires of December commercial edition. 
• Summer 2027:  Book Two of Riftwake. 
• December 2028: Ghostbloods 1
• December 2029: Ghostbloods 2
• December 2030: Ghostbloods 3

Biggest changes from last year are pushing the new Cytoverse novels to start in 2026 instead of 2025, and me being uncertain where Elantris fits right now. I’d love to do the books in between Ghostbloods novels, but with so much Hollywood work this year (and coming up next year) I’m hesitant about committing to getting those ready at the speed I thought likely last year. We’ll see. I also am already starting to feel the call to return to Stormlight, so Horneater (and maybe early work on Book Six) are likely in the next few years.

Brandon Sanderson

Conclusion

As always, I’m staying busy, as you can see! A few years ago, I was a little concerned about too many co-authored things coming out in a row, and that did hit here. (Would be nice if either Songs of the Dead or Blightfall could have been 2025.  Strange, how these things bunch up.)

I’m a little less worried than I was, however, after looking at how long these things take. There are no rush jobs on these books; Isaac’s series is still in the works, and he’s been grinding at it for over five years now. Dan’s books are equally long-term, and Peter Orullian’s took maybe... seven years to finally come out? We’re making certain to spend a great deal of time on each one, and I haven’t added new co-authors in all those years, so I think we’re in a good spot. For now, Cytoverse, and eventually a few carefully crafted Cosmere stories. (Like the two Stormlight ones we did for Story Deck, which I suspect Dan will have mentioned in his section.)

It feels odd to perpetually be in the, “There will be a film or series soon, guys!” waiting room. I feel like I’ve been there for well over a decade now, with each opportunity looking really good until suddenly... nothing. We’ll keep working on it though, and I promise not to let it distract me too much from my own books.  

To that end, I’ve got to get back to the books! See you all next year, where hopefully you’ll all have been able to read and enjoy The Fires of December.