How I created the only children's book about the video game industry

In October 2022, my debut book The Amazing World of Video Game Development was released. It is a nonfiction picture book for kids that takes a reader behind the scenes of the video game industry and explains Who makes video games and How the video game development process works. 

Chapter 1 — Writing

One fine day I thought that for more than 20 years I have been professionally engaged only in the development of video games, so it was natural to want to create something different, radically different from video games.

I chose to write a book.

I have never written a book before. And to avoid most of the mistakes of aspiring writers, I decided to write a book about what I was good at — video game development.

First it was necessary to decide on the genre. Arcade? RPG? Shooter?

No, Nonfiction! It is an interesting and popular genre, designed for a wide audience. In addition, Nonfiction was supposed to solve one very important problem.

Let's look at an example. If you work in the video game industry, then your parents have a more or less clear idea of how the film-making process works, but they do not know at all and do not understand what you do in your job. All because people outside the video game industry still have vague ideas about how video games are made and who makes video games.

If most books about the film industry and film making are written for people who have nothing to do with film making, then most books about video game making are written for those who already work in the video game industry or for those who want to work in it.

Therefore, my book was not supposed to be a description of the history of video games, not biographies of a company or developer, but a book about the professions and rules by which video games are created.

What's next? Audience!

If for adult readers there are at least some books about video game development, then for children there are no such books at all. Namely, in childhood, interest in certain professions is laid.

So when I saw an empty niche, I decided to create the first children's nonfiction picture book about video game development.

Chapter 2 — Publishing

After my book was almost ready, I decided to find a book publisher.

I had no experience and contacts in the book industry, so I decided to write to all the publishers of children's nonfiction picture books.

And... in the book industry, publishers simply don't respond to your letters. I wrote to 40 book publishers and received only 4 responses. For example, last time I wrote to 40 game publishers, only 4 did not respond.

At one point, I almost had a literary agent who was supposed to take on all the work of communicating with publishers, but I decided to go through this way on my own.

The more I immersed myself in the book industry (communicated with publishers and authors, read articles and blogs), the more I got the impression that the book industry is very archaic, conservative, closed and unfriendly to newcomers. Meanwhile, in the video game industry it is exactly the opposite.

In the end, I chose Familius, a California-based book publisher, since working with this publisher most reminded me of working with a game publisher.

The mechanism for preparing the book for publication was launched at full capacity.

Chapter 3 — Summering

At the end of 2022, The Amazing World of Video Game Development was released.

The publisher made a very high-quality edition for the book: large format, hard cover, color illustrations, etc. Great result for the debut book!

The book can be found not only in such large stores as Amazon, Walmart, Target, Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, but also in more small local US bookstores, as well as in libraries.

The book travels to various international book fairs.

And as result, The Amazing World of Video Game Development received The Best STEM Book award from The National Science Teaching Association (NSTA) and The Children’s Book Council (CBC).

The Amazing World of Video Game Development at the Frankfurt Book Fair

And what in the end?

Now no one thinks about it, but the main thing is that in 10-15 years a new generation of developers will come to the video game industry, including those brought up by my book.

It was my main motivation for creating this book.