Hello, everyone. Sorry for the lack of activity here lately — I’ve been dealing with a nasty hand injury that’s made writing and video editing (not to mention playing for research) painful and difficult. In my downtime, though, I’ve been keeping myself productive by converting all the Anatomy of Games books to a format that can be sold on Amazon.com. I’m happy to say the process is finally complete. Hoorah!

It’s been an interesting learning experience, which unfortunately means a slightly inconsistent final product. I initially began by working with 6×9″ books to keep the price economical, but the last two books I’ve changed over are at the 8×10″ size. When it came time to convert The Anatomy of Metroid Vol. I, I had to completely overhaul the book for technical reasons and decided to experiment with the larger format. I also combined both Metroid books into a single volume.

The results turned out to be pretty fantastic, I have to say. The 8×10″ format looks better, and because it allows more content in a smaller page count, and ends up being about the same price as a 6×9″ book. More importantly, the price of 8×10″ Anatomy paperbacks through Amazon ends up being about half that of 10×8″ paperbacks via Blurb! Volumes that were $40 on Blurb turn out to be $20 on Amazon, making them far more reasonable — and that’s before Amazon does its random temporary price reductions. Needless to say, this is the format and medium I’ll be using for all future books, Anatomy and otherwise.

My only complaints with the CreateSpace/Amazon route are that (1) I can’t sell through Amazon.ca (even though I can sell in Europe and the UK) and (2) they don’t offer a hardcover option. So my Blurb store will continue to offer hardcover versions of books as well as most old GameSpite Quarterly volumes. I intend to convert the platform retrospective books (NES, Super NES, and PlayStation) to Amazon with expanded content for those systems’ 30th/25th/20th anniversaries, but that process will take a while, I suspect… and I can’t find the Super NES book’s original files in my archives for some bizarre reason, so that one may simply be lost to the ages. We shall see.

Anyway, for anyone who had been interested in the Anatomy books but understandably balked at Blurb’s exhorbitant costs, they’re now available at Amazon for much more sane prices. Or, more specifically:

• The Anatomy of Castlevania: The NES Trilogy (8×10″, list price $19 instead of $39)
• The Anatomy of The Legend of Zelda & Zelda II (6×9″, list price $19 instead of $42)
• The Anatomy of Metroid Deluxe Edition (8×10″, combines Anatomy of Metroid Vols. I & II; base price $25 instead of $85 for the two Blurb volumes combined)
• The Anatomy of Super Mario Bros. (6×9″, base price $21 instead of $43)
• The Anatomy of Mega Man & Mega Man 2 (6×9″, base price $22 instead of $42)

And of course Game Boy World 1989. Needless to say, I’m pretty happy about this development — the books take a fair amount of time to put together, and maybe now people will actually be able to afford them. (Certainly they’re a lot more affordable for me now, and lining my bookshelves with my own words is really the whole point of this.)

Also, p.s., if anyone does pick up any of these volumes, I hope you’ll be kind enough to review it on the bookstore and increase its visibility! Ideally a positive review, but the important thing is to be honest, of course. Thanks!