How can you get the Brandon Sanderson starter pack? — Everything to know about the TikTok Sanderson Starter Set

If there's one thing Brandon Sanderson does even better than write books really fast, it's market those books to the masses. He's gathered a fanbase that most authors can only dream of, and a huge part of how he's managed it has been a willingness to communicate directly with fans and always try new things.

To wit, today Sanderson announced during his usual weekly YouTube update that his new Sanderson Starter Set is now available! What is the Sanderson Starter Set, you ask? It's a set of three books, each with a new cover artwork and back-of-book text, which serve as entry points into the author's vast catalog. Those would be The Emperor's Soul, Tress of the Emerald Sea, and Mistborn: The Final Empire.

But these books aren't available in any of the usual places yet. If you want the Sanderson Starter Set, you have to head to TikTok, where it's currently available exclusively. If you're old like me, you may not have even realized you can buy things on TikTok. Fret not; here are the details.

Where can I buy the Sanderson Starter Set?

As Sanderson says in his video, the Sanderson Starter Set is currently only available on TikTok. If you're not TikTok savvy, you don't need to worry; it's actually pretty simple to get the Starter Set. First, go to Sanderson's TikTok page, @authorbrandonsanderson. From there, click on the little bag icon on his page to open the Dragonsteel shop. You should see the "Sanderson Starter Set - TikTok Exclusive 3-Book Collection" available as of today for $39.99. Go through the motions for buying it, and voila! Your Starter Set should be on the way.

Alternatively, you can get there through this embed shared by the official Dragonsteel books X account:

One other additional detail to note about the Sanderson Starter Set is that, as of this writing, it is only available in the United States. "We hope to be able to expand availability in the future, but for now we cannot ship this book bundle internationally," Dragonsteel said in an X comment.

Sanderson explains in his weekly update that he and his team at Dragonsteel books "pushed hard to get these out for the holidays," anticipating that some of his readers may want to gift the sets to family members. As much as the author has a diehard following of very loyal fans, these sets are really geared toward newcomers. Even the back-of-book copy has been changed; rather than a traditional blurb, these new editions have a personal note from Sanderson talking about what each book is and why you might choose to start reading his works with it. It's a fun, out-of-the-box choice which perfectly encapsulates the marketing that has kept Sanderson a force in the genre for so long.

Don't have TikTok? Don't worry too much. "We will make them available eventually for people who don't have TikTok or things like that, don't stress," Sanderson said. "But again, this is targeted at people who've heard of me but never tried me before."

Sanderson also talked a bit about the cover artwork for Mistborn specifically, which is gorgeous. These books utilize layered papercraft rather than a traditional illustration; you can see the original papercraft art for Mistborn in the video, and it is very striking, with a three dimensional depth that's hard to achieve in other mediums.

"Maybe eventually we'll try to get all three Mistborn in this style," Sanderson added. "I know a lot of you in the comments before were saying how much you love this style, and I mean, you can see how much I love how this turned out."

To mark the Starter Set release, Sanderson will be doing a non-spoiler livestream video on TikTok at 7:00 p.m. MST on Thursday, November 20. You can order your Sanderson Starter Set today on TikTok.