Hot on the heels of his New York Times #1 bestselling placement that knocked The Lost Symbol from its perch, Brandon Sanderson stopped by my place yesterday to sign several hundred copies of The Gathering Storm for Wheel of Time fans all over the world.
Even after passing through airports and sleeping in a different hotel bed every night for weeks, Brandon was still in great spirits when he arrived.
We talked for a few minutes about fun, geeky stuff like who is painting his The Way of Kings cover art, if he should buck up and buy the original painting of that cover, the Michael Whelan Dark Tower framed art I have on my walls, and the premise of the book I am currently rewriting.
It was then time for work. We knew we were crunched for time.
The first order of business was to get Brandon in touch with two podcast/video interviewers via Skype on my Mac. After a few minutes of getting things set up, Brandon was answering questions about his own reading habits (Terry Pratchett being foremost among them), who wrote the first fantasy book he read (Dragonsbane by Barbara Hambly), and how he was chosen to write The Gathering Storm (one fateful voice message on his phone):
After the interview was completed, he had a lot more work to finish before the night wrapped up! Here is last night, in pictures.
As I said, Brandon had hundreds of books to sign and personalize fore fans all over the world. I spent the morning setting them up before he arrived. The books were flapped to the title page and post-it notes were placed for those who wanted personalizations:
Brandon dove right into signing those books. We soon had a great system set up that allowed for efficiency:
Tor Books and Brandon's publicist gave some help in the form of Storm Leaders! The Storm Leaders are Wheel of Time fans who were willing and able to stop by my place, hang out with Brandon before his event, and help. They were a valuable asset and all stuffed the books with fliers and bookmarks, smiles on their faces the entire time:
After the books were signed and the Storm Leaders were sweaty, we all went out to dinner at one of my favorite Seattle restaurants. As you can see, almost everyone had a Thomas Kemper root beer. Yum:
Gail, the woman who drove Brandon Sanderson all over Seattle, signed for the bill on behalf of Tom Doherty!! Thank you, Tor Books, for the great dinner:
We all arrived at the University Bookstore about 1/2 early. The place was already packed with Wheel of Time and Brandon Sanderson fans:
After Brandon had signed some of the store stock and had given his directions to the Storm Leaders for the U Books event, he got right to the podium to read from The Gathering Storm and answer questions:
After Brandon told us how the Wheel of Time ends in the final book—just kidding!—he went right to signing:
And there was a The Gathering Storm cake! Second yum:
All in all, it was a fun day. Brandon was gracious throughout all of it, and super excited to talk about the Wheel of Time. The conversation during dinner evolved around it, and he got a kick out of listening to the Storm Leaders discuss future possibilities for the next two books. It was one of those days where everyone went to bed feeling good about themselves.
Tomorrow I will post video from Brandon's event!
Until then, hope you enjoy these pictures!
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