I got asked how the process of creating a game book happens, from the very beginning. That’s a great question. It really is one of the writing basics.

It’s also a really complicated question.

This is my best stab at a high-level, rough overview. This is based on being on every side of this process at some point over 20 years, and working for and with and as a lot of companies, but it’s not absolute by any means.

This is, at best, a sketch that covers a lot of different ways this happens, but there are companies that add steps, or skip steps, or do things in a totally different order.

It also varies a lot depending on the project. Here are some general steps, although who does what and when can change even within the same company.

1. Someone comes up with an idea for a product. This may be a publisher who has looked at sales and resources, or it might be a freelancer who wants to pitch something, or it might be a line developer who is supposed to do X products a year.
2. Someone matches the idea to a publishing schedule. That may mean you know you need exactly 44,000 words and sketches of 3 maps by January 4th, or it may mean “This can be a 700 word pdf, send it to me whenever you’re done and we’ll lay it out in a week or two.”
   Big publishers are very much more like that first example, while smaller ones are sometimes more flexible.
   If it’s a freelancer pitch, the freelancer and publisher work out terms. If it’s internal, you may need to hunt down someone to write it. Either way, the schedule and budget should be finalized at this point.
3. An outline is done, so ensure the project will be the right size, hit the right topics, and so on. Often cover art is ordered and art and editing is scheduled at this point.
4. Once the outline is approved by the people who are paying for the book, and the people writing it agree, the writing is done.
5. Then drafts are turned in. Depening on the company they may be developed, or just edited, or laid out and then edited. That process varies.
   If art wasn’t arranged for before, it needs to be now.
6. Layout and editing and development is finished. there may be marketing text that needs to be written, or printing that needs to be arranged for.
7. Book is released.
8. Profit! (Hopefully)

And that’s it!
(It is never, ever that simple.)

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