In October 2010, Brandon Sanderson revealed that his tentative plan was to release the second book in the series in 2012, approximately two years after the release of the first book, due to writing the final book of The Wheel of Time, followed by the third book about a year later. 7 on The New York Times Best Seller list. In its first week of release, The Way of Kings was No. įrom June to August 2010, Tor Books published sample chapters from The Way of Kings on its official website, along with an introduction by Sanderson.
The original version of the book is available on the author's official website. Six chapters of this early version were included in the anthology Altered Perceptions (2014). The book was substantially rewritten between then and its 2010 publication. The first draft of the manuscript was among over a dozen books written before his debut publication Elantris (2005).
Sanderson referred to the prospective series as The Oathshards Series in 2004. Sanderson completed the first draft of The Way of Kings in 2003, though the original manuscript differed significantly from the published text.