Why start a site so soon?

Stormblessed.com opened to the public on July 4, 2010.  As Brandon Sanderson said in a blog post 8 days later, “A fansite for a book that isn’t even out yet is a bit baffling to me.”  The Way of Kings was released internationally on August 31, 2010 and immediately burst onto the New York Times bestseller list (#7), the Amazon top 100 (for hardcover and Kindle), and #1 on Audible.

Usually, a fansite starting up before a book release would be pretty crazy and impractical.  But this time was different.