Has the Apple TV deal delayed the book release schedule?

[AnthonyC4]

Sanderson mentioned wanting to do Era 3 and the Elantris sequels all together since apparently they need to be done for full context, which was exciting. However, we're nearing midway through 2026 and he's only finished his first draft of Era 3 Book 1, which hasn't even gone through it's first revision yet. To keep on track with his initial release schedule of releasing Book 1 in December of 2028, he needs to basically write four more finished and revised books in the span of a two and a half years. And from early 2025 to mid 2026, a year and a half thereabouts, he has only finished his first draft of just one book. Even before the whole Apple TV thing was confirmed, I felt uneasy about how Sanderson could feasibly finish the Cosmere as it was, even just focusing on the major books and series, what with him basically shelving the White Sand prose version after sitting on it for a few months back in early 2025. Is it just me, or does anybody else feel the same?

[Through the living Wahr He/Him]

The Elantris Sequels have been delayed, presumably because of the Adaptation. And yeah Brandon will probably never finish every Book he had Ideas for, as Sad as that is.

However I do think that Brandon will make sure that he finishes the Core Cosmere Books and I have ebough trust in him that he will actually do that. Meaning Mistborn Era 3&4; Stormlight Archive 6-10 and the Dragonsteel Triology will definitely be done and finished by Brandon. 

I also think that him doing the first Draft for the Mistborn Adaptation will not be something he will do for every Adaptation because he will probably realise that he does not have time for it.

And one more fact to keep in mind, even though he keeps us informed on some of his work, there are always Books he suddenly tells us about, that are more or less finished. With no prior indication in his Status Updates.

[Returned he/him]

Delays happen and we are generally told about them, as well as other updates on his writing progress. But he's also shown that he is pretty good at sticking to his release schedules, sometimes perhaps to the books' detriment. Delays to his book releases are kind of a mixed thing for me. I think that his aggressive schedule and efforts to follow it have demonstrably led to less polished releases, and those books would really have benefitted from more writing time. But when delays are from ever more projects it seems like more writing time and attention won't be the result.

In short, I'm not worried about the books being finished so much as I'm worried about them being given too little attention on their way to becoming finished. Every side project that comes up, especially big ones not totally under his control, do increase my worries about this.

[AnthonyC4]

In the 2019 State of Sanderson, he posted his list of 35 core Cosmere books, and stated he had finished eleven in the space of the past fifteen years. At that pace, the rest of the Cosmere sequence would be finished in 30 years. In the past six and a half years, he has finished 3 core cosmere books, we'll call it 3 and a half for the Era 1 Book 1 first draft. That's a rate of about 8 core books per 15 years. That alone adds another 10 years to the time frame for release. He'd be in his mid eighties by that point, and almost certainly not writing as fast as he used to be. He said he "woke up" and realized how little time he has to finish things, but I feel like he's fallen back asleep.

[Through the living Wahr He/Him]

Regarding the timeline, you forgett that he was massively sidetracked in those 15 years because he wrote the last three wheel of time books and there were also a lot of other books, so I think that if it comes down to finish the Core Cosmere, he will sideline secondary projects if he needs to, to finish the Core Cosmere, which would mean a lot faster progress for the core books.

Edited May 17 by Through the living Wahr

[SheepAreFluffy]

I may be misinterpreting here, but from the way he spoke on his most recent weekly update on YouTube, it sounds like he thinks he'll be able to get the Ghostbloods books out by the dates he originally intended but contrary to what he'd previously said, he won't be writing them all before any of them are published and won't be building up a buffer like he wanted to. Which is a bit of a downer, honestly. I liked the idea of him being able to spend more time on these books and fully work out the continuity of the trilogy before any of it became set in stone metal.

On 5/17/2026 at 5:50 PM, Returned said:

In short, I'm not worried about the books being finished so much as I'm worried about them being given too little attention on their way to becoming finished. Every side project that comes up, especially big ones not totally under his control, do increase my worries about this.

This is exactly my feeling as well. An oft-quote aphorism in the video game world applies equally as well to books: a delayed book is eventually good, but a rushed book is forever bad.

[king of nowhere]

I am concerned.

But,given the choice to never have dragonsteel and mistborn 4 see the light, but to have good adaptations, and having full cosmere, but crappy or mediocre adaptations or no adaptations, i'd take the first. 

We already have dozens of cosmere books. We don't have any good cosmere tv show, and in fact we have very few good fantasy shows at all