The Kaladin Kickstarter Miracle

For those of you who do not know, I am a HUGE fan of fantasy author Brandon Sanderson. I own majority of his books, most of them autographed.

I discovered Brandon Sanderson while reading The Wheel of Time series by the late Robert Jordan. Brandon was hand picked by the authors wife (and editor) Harriet McDougal to finish the last book in the series (that ended up being 3 books: The Gathering Storm, The Towers of Midnight, and A Memory of Light).

The Stormlight Archive is one of his main fantasy series. The first book, The Way of Kings, is just amazing and is one of my favorite books. (By the way, my top three currently are: Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card, The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson, and Still Life with Crows – the fourth book in the Pendergast series – by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child).

I felt like I deeply connected to one of the main characters: Kaladin. I identify with his feelings of failure and loss, and of inability to save those he cares about. His character at the same time continues to ‘protect those who can’t protect themselves’ with surprising results.

Last Month The Black Piper, with approval from Brandon Sanderson’s company Dragonsteel Entertainment, began a Kickstarter campaign for Kaladin: a Stormlight Archive Album + Art Book. They literally created motion picture quality soundtrack for the book The Way of Kings. The group had already spent three years making the first half the tracks for the album and where looking for $110,000 to create a 2 Disc soundtrack, and a companion Art Book by talented artists. The money would allow them to finish the album and record at the Abby Road studios in London and get someone to mix the album.

I talked to my wife about it. It took a couple weeks before I made my pledge for the $45 “the Lopen”. (a pledge level with a physical copy of the Soundtrack). After seeing the pledges slow down, it seemed to stagnate at around $60,000, I asked my wife if I could change my pledge. As my birthday present I was able to up my pledge to $120 “the Shallan” (a pledge level with a physical copy of the soundtrack AND the Art Book, plus $5 for an autographed copy). I posted all over Facebook about upping my pledge and asked for others to do the same.

I was excited but worried about pledge levels, I really wanted the album. I attended the first livestream, forgoing some sleep for work. It was wonderful and informative, despite the technical difficulties that plagued Sae Sae Norris one of the core of three creators of the project. I managed to win a digital version of the artwork by attending the livestream (sweet!) but the Kickstarter was still well short of it’s goal, hanging around $78,000 at the time I finally crashed and took a nap.

That night they announced a second live stream that coincided with the end of the Kickstarter. I wanted to watch but was so tired and needed to sleep before work. I didn’t sleep well because I was worrying about the Kickstarter not making enough for the project to be funded.

I went to work saddened thinking that the Project had fallen short of the $110,000 goal. Another thing I had hoped for was now gone. Just like Kaladin.

On my first break (at around midnight Pacific time) I looked at Facebook on my iPhone and there it was. Sae Sae had posted that they were FUNDED! They had made a huge push at the end and had made 102% of their goal! Wow! The amount of support from Sanderson Fans everywhere was truly amazing! It brought tears to my eyes and I got a little emotional (so what?, it was awesome!). It was like your basketball team coming from behind and hitting the three pointer, with nothing but net, to win the game. What could be more sweet? I just call it The Kaladin Kickstarter Miracle.

For more information about the end of the Kickstarter check out the following link: update #17 for Kaladin Kickstarter.