The games industry is a competitive place, with many independent developers each trying to produce, and make money from, games.

It’s possible that a relatively inexperienced developer could think of and produce what could be great online or iPhone game. But without knowledge about how to market and distribute it correctly, the game this would be classic could disappear without a trace.

Fortunately, there are professionals who are experts in this area, and one of them is games industry consultant, Gamesbrief founder, and author of ‘How to Publish a Game’ Nicholas Lovell. The former investment banker spent a decade helping media companies – including those in the business of games – adapt their strategies right through the dot com boom of the late 1990’s.

Train2Game recently met with Nicholas Lovell, and discussed many aspects of the games industry. He begun by telling us how since leaving the world of investment banking, he’s struck out on his own and helped various developers with the distribution of games:

“In 2003 I set up a small corporate finance boutique, who helped games companies raise money and with strategy”, he told Train2Game. “We worked with companies like Blitz and Kuju, EIDOS, we worked with Codemasters, so we worked with a number of different games design companies.”

“I then decided I actually wanted to get my hands dirtier, and joined a gaming portal called Game Shadow to run that business, to turn it from a subscription based business to a free to play business growing revenues by a factor of ten,”

“Did that for two years and for the last three years I’ve been helping companies make money from games.”

“So at one level I’ve worked with investors trying to understand the industry from the very small up to the people where a $500 million investment is too small. I’ve worked with publishers like Square Enix and Atari and Channel 4 to help think about their game strategy, and I’ve worked with developers to launch new projects.

“Pretty much all of those developers have been who’ve been trying to move from console or mobile to this new world of Facebook or free to play social, online titles.”

Away from consulting, Lovell writes about the business of the games on his blog, Gamesbrief. However, it isn’t only a blog that the consultant writes. Nicholas Lovell has also written a book called How to Publish a Game.”

He told Train2Game about what’s in the book; how it can help developers publish games and about the promotional offer running until Tuesday 7^th December:

“It’s about what are the different business models, what are the four key skills you need to get a game to market – sales, distribution, finance and marketing. It’s about different ways of using free as a marketing technique, and it’s all structured around giving you a framework about how to publish a game rather than a playbook.”

“Until December 7^th – at midnight- the book is half price. It’s not the worlds cheapest book… it’s aimed at prosumers, the people who expect to make money from that game, so the standard price is £100 and it’s currently going for £49.50.”

“You can get the first the first two chapters for free, and there’s also valuable stuff on GamesBrief, so check out Gamesbrief, if there’s stuff you like, then you’re more likely to want to buy the book.”

Nicholas Lovell discussed many subjects about the games industry in a wide ranging interview which will appear on the Train2Game blog in the near future. Be sure to stay tuned for that, but in the meantime, you can get an overview of some of the subjects discussed – including how freemium games make up 34 of the top 100 grossing iPhone apps – on Gamesbrief.

If you do want to buy ‘How to Publish a Game’ while the half price offer is on, you can do so here.

As usual, you can leave your thoughts here on the Train2Game blog, or on the Train2Game forum.