When I was a wee lad in elementary school, the administrator called my parents for a meeting. The administrator warned them about my reading habit. She said I was reading too much and not doing enough socializing. You know you’re doing something right when educators think ill of your activities. I remember my parents telling of their laughter when the administrator complained of this to them.

The number of books on my bookshelves are plenty. All my books are nonfiction, and most of the books I read are related in some way to marketing. Recently, I came across a link on GameDev.net to a free book on video game marketing titled Videogame Marketing & PR.

I sent an e-mail to the author Scott Steinberg to request my free copy. Turns out that Scott is the Managing Director at Embassy Multimedia Consultants, which recently set up shop in August 2006. While I’m promised a free copy of the book, I did check out the excerpts that were released here and here. Overall, I’d say the content looks good thus far, but I would really like to see the table of contents.

Another book, The Indie Developer’s Guide to Selling Games, was authored by Joseph Lieberman who was until recently the owner of Video Game Marketing, Smart! I learned about this book from his announcement on the International Game Developers Association discussion board. Unfortunately, there’s no offer of a free copy, so there’s not much to say.

Those are the only two books of which I’m aware that are dedicated to marketing video games.

Brian “Psychochild” Green of Meridian 59 fame was the editor of Business and Legal Primer for Game Development. Sony Online Entertainment’s community relations manager Craig “Grimwell” Dalrymple had an advance copy with him when I picked him up from the airport in December. I browsed the marketing and public relations sections, but honestly, I was not impressed. I’m sure the rest of the book is solid though, given that Matthew “CmdrSlack” Hector had a hand in writing the legal section!

If you’re interested in interactive entertainment marketing, I recommend picking up all three of these books. Even if you disagree with the content, there is wisdom in knowing how other people think and what other people read.