Ninja signs 3-book deal with Ebury Press

Ebury Press has confirmed it will publish three books penned by Fortnite stream star, Tyler “Ninja” Blevins. The first – entitled “Get Good, Ninja’s ultimate guide to gaming” – is set to release in August 2019 and will be “the ultimate guide to gaming that reveals Ninja’s secrets to his success”, including tips on topics such as “using the best equipment, practising with purpose, developing a streaming strategy, and pulling together the right team”.

A Ninja notebook “with stickers, prompts and gaming tips” will also be available in August, while Ninja: The Most Dangerous Game – the first in a series of original graphic novels –  will be published in December. The novel is “set in a fictional world created by notable comic writer Justin Jordan and comic artist Felipe Magaña” and “will offer a new way for Ninja fans of all ages to experience Ninja’s unmatched wits and skill”.

“As a team we’ve been pursuing Ninja for some time and we are thrilled that in Get Good he has produced a hugely entertaining but incredibly practical book about the art and science of gaming,” said Ebury’s editorial director, Emma Smith. “It is going to give players across the world exactly what they want – the inside track on how to be the next Ninja.”

Ninja earned almost $10 million last year. In an interview earlier this year, Blevins said he’d earned nearly $10 million in 2018, attributing 70 per cent of that revenue to Twitch and YouTube, and the other 30 per cent to revenue made via ads, subscriptions, and sponsorships deals with Samsung, Uber Eats and Red Bull.

To generate that income, Blevins streams around 12 hours a day and estimated that he’d played around 4000 hours of Fortnite throughout 2018. Equating his streams to running a “small coffee shop”, Blevins “sees himself as a small business owner”. “They’re gonna find another coffee shop if you’re not there … you have to be there all the time,” he said. He also acknowledged that he and his wife/manager Jess dwell on money lost when subscribers fall away, and said they hadn’t had a holiday since their honeymoon eight years ago… “and even that trip […] was still cut short for professional gaming”.

While he has no current plans to move away from Fortnite just yet, the streamer is nonetheless experimenting with other ways to generate income, including clothing ranges and music.