Theoryland of the Wheel of Time

Traveling through Minneapolis/St Paul? I managed to visit and sign A Memory of Light at 3 of the 4 airport bookstores (Main concourse and C gates.)

nwash10

Always been curious about stealth signings. Do you say anything to bookstore employees or are you kind of sketchy about it?

Brandon Sanderson

Depends. I usually try to introduce myself, but if they are busy or don't look interested, I'll just sign and go.

Jamie Lloyd

Even though I don't live in the US, I love how you sign random copies of your books in airports. Shows you care! :)

Brandon Sanderson

I do this in the UK when I visit, but authors randomly stopping by happens less there, so I tend to get into more trouble. :)

Dayton airport has 6 Brandalized books in the bookstore on the way to the B gates. Bookseller was reading a magazine. Didn't even look up.

Mignon Fogarty

"Brandalized"? Nice!

Brandon Sanderson

I can't claim it. My fans invented it to describe my stealth signings.

Brandon Sanderson (14 January)

Ha! @GrammarGirl is awesome. Readers who coined "Brandalized," you have been given a shout-out.

Passing through Atlanta? Signed copies of A Memory of Light at the Buckhead books in the middle of the B terminal. (Look in new releases, not sf/f.)

Kevin J Anderson

I think the UNSIGNED copies are going to be a rare collectible item!

Brandon Sanderson

Ha. I've signed around 5k copies so far. So you aren't far off. Don't you still hold the one-day world record, though?

Kevin J Anderson

I think Dave Wolverton broke my record, and then Howard Stern. But I still have my Guinness World Record certificate.

Christopher Paolini

Hmm. Well I did do 9,400 in two days before the launch of Inheritance.

Kevin J Anderson

Next time have a Guinness official looking over your shoulder. I do NOT intend to break that record again.

Peter Orullian

Pretty sure Dave's got the record. Not sure on quantity.

Atlanta airport Simply Books in the A terminal center has signed books! (Same for the B terminal Buckhead books from yesterday.)

Jared Steward

That's cool. Have you ever gotten in trouble somewhere like that for signing your own books?

Brandon Sanderson

Once in a while, until I show the picture in the back. Never in a busy airport, though, where more authors visit.

Your fan interaction through Magic: The Gathering and airport book signings: planned, or more like luck?

It's a little of both. The signing in airport thing, I lucked into. I just started doing this, and then the Twitter response was so amazing. I'm like, "Well, I've got to get things to hide in these." People were buying tickets and going through and buying books, and then getting their tickets refunded to go in and get these books. And so, I'm like, "My goodness, I've gotta do stuff with this." And so now I hide little goodies in there—nothing amazing, though. But they're fun, they're just little things.

And I started doing the Great Hunt, which I did for the Wheel of Time, which if you aren't familiar, this is where I hide something in the books in the airport that has a code on it. We're going to do this for Steelheart, actually—my next book. There are going to be these cool things that we printed off just for Steelheart—I'm not going to tell you what they are, but they're awesome goodies. I'm going to hide them in books–not just in airports but around—and then they'll have a code on the back. And the code will take you to a password-protected part of my web site, where you get a free story. And the more codes that get inputted, the more content will unlock on that page. Then on your little code it'll say, "You can share this with your friends, don't post it online, but you can direct message people." So, just keep the fun going. And so anyone who finds this can then share it with all their friends, and they can go read the story. And when you find yours, you'll be able to post a message on the board the first time you put in the code, and then everyone else who puts in the code can just see the stuff. More of them will unlock, and it's going to be this fun thing that we can do together. And this is just completely accidental.

Magic: The Gathering actually came about because of Jim Butcher. Jim Butcher LARPs with his fans. And he was telling me once that this LARPing thing–it was wonderful because when you go to a signing, it's all so kind of formal, and people get like a couple seconds to talk to you. And everyone's like . . . awkward–you're awkward, they're awkward. He said, "I found that doing something that was just my nerd hobby allowed for a natural interaction." I thought, "That is awesome. I want to do something like that." And I've always been a Magic: The Gathering addict, and so I just started playing Magic at cons, but because of Butcher's advice. And it's been great because even people who don't play Magic know that during that time, you can come talk to me. And it's not going to be me across the table. It's going to be me shuffling my cards and geeking out because I drew a mythic or something like that.

On Twitter I see that you go to airports when you travel and do those book signings, but how did that start? I don't see a lot of other authors doing that.

I was traveling somewhere years ago and I got in this habit. I guess you go way back to when I was first published and Elantris came out, not a lot of bookstores were even carrying it, right? And if they did they'd have like one copy. And I felt that one of the things I could do—because you can't do a lot as a new writer—but one of the things I could do was get a box of paperbacks of Elantris that the publishers gave to me and drive to bookstores. And whenever I'd pass one I could go in and say, "Hey, who is your fantasy or science fiction reader on staff?" and they'd say, "Oh, it's this guy." And I'd say, "Can I sign a book for them?" I'd try to meet him or her and say, "If I give you this book will you read it?" They'd usually say yes. Now these were the days before the self-publishing explosion, and I think right now, they'd be more wary. But back then they weren't nearly as wary. That kind of thing didn't happen; people didn't do this thing often. So I went in and I handed them all books, and I'd try to leave a book in every bookstore I passed.

So I got in this habit of signing the shelf-stock and meeting the managers, and I started seeing airport bookstores. I was like, "Well, I'm flying somewhere. I'll just stop in and do the same thing." And it became this thing where I didn't ever want to pass a bookstore without leaving my signed books. Then one time I just left a tweet, "Hey, they're here," and Twitter exploded. People were like, "Oh my goodness!" And they all worked to go get that book and it was gone really fast. So I was like, "Oh, people care about this." Now I go ahead and do Tweets—it's become this thing. But I hide these cool things in the books and people try to anticipate where I'm going, try to get flights that pass through there so they can come in and get those things. It's really fun.