Fortnite Star Streamer Ninja Signs Book Series Deal With Random House

The game world's best-known live-streamer, Tyler "Ninja" Blevins, is celebrating his recent 28th birthday the old-fashioned way, signing a book deal.

The deal announced Wednesday afternoon covers three books to be released beginning in August through two Random House subsidiaries, Clarkson Potter and Ten Speed Press.

In August, Clarkson Potter will release two books: Ninja Get Good, a how-to guide to becoming a better gamer, and Ninja Notebook, described as "featuring stickers, prompts, and gaming tips."

In December, Ten Speed will release a graphic novel, Ninja: The Most Dangerous Game. The graphic novel is the first in a planned series to be created by comics writer Justin Jordan and artist Felipe Magaña, based on, as the release puts it, "Ninja’s unmatched wit and skill."

The book deal was the latest spinoff project put together by Loaded, Blevins' management company.

“With every brand deal we make, we want to ensure that our clients are effectively communicating to their fanbases, both online and off,” said Loaded founder and CEO Brandon Freytag. “We are excited to bring these books to Ninja fans and gaming enthusiasts, offering them the opportunity to learn from one of the best gaming how-to books written, as well as transform into a fantastical gaming universe.”

Book deals for young digital stars are hardly a new thing anymore, as influencers and their handlers seek to expand their reach beyond the digital realm. The results almost routinely seem to generate bestsellers, regardless of the callow age of many of those putting their hard-won wisdom to the page.

YouTube long-timers such as Hannah Hart have even written multiple bestsellers, typically memoirs or titles extending their online persona (though it's worth noting Hart herself has degrees in English literature and Japanese from the University of California-Berkeley).

Blevins and Loaded, meanwhile, have been busily extending his reach far beyond Twitch's live streams (where he is credited with 469 million views) and his gigantic presence on other social-media platforms such as YouTube (where he has 22.1 million subscribers), Twitter (4.4 million followers), Instagram (13.9 million followers), and Facebook (491,000 followers)

Last December, Blevins debuted a compilation album of "music to game by," featuring tracks by notable electronic dance-music performers such as Diplo, Tycho and 3LAU. The album, called Ninjawerks Vol. 1, was a collaboration between Capitol Records' dance label Astralwerks, Blevins and Loaded.

Blevins also has scored some big paydays recently from other sources. The Wall Street Journal reported that Electronic Arts paid him and several other big live-streamers as much as $50,000 per hour to play Apex Legends online right after its February release. Blevins reportedly received as much as $1 million for extensively playing the game, which went on to attract 50 million downloads within weeks of release.

Besides EA and Capitol Records, other Blevins brand partners include Samsung and Red Bull, which counts him among its roster of sponsored esports athletes and streamers.

Blevins is a former professional esports player who rose to prominence online with so-called Battle Royale games, which pit a player against everyone else in the match. After some tournament success with early Battle Royale titles H1Z1 and Players Unknown Battle Grounds, his streaming career really took off playing Fortnite, which now claims 250 million players worldwide and has become as much a social-media platform for teens as a game.

And Blevins, who lives in suburban Chicago, works a lot. His regular streaming schedule on Twitch runs from 9:30 am to 6 pm Central time every day, according to his Twitch page.

Blevins told me last winter during a Los Angeles visit to promote the Ninjawerks release that he regularly live streams as much as 90 hours per week. The nine-day West Coast swing for the record release and two gamer awards shows was going to limit the time he had for streaming to just 20 hours that week, and would be costing him money at least in the short term.

Ohio-based Loaded is a management firm focused on video-game stars. It recently merged with two other game-industry companies – NoScope and Catalyst esports – to create Popdog. The organization, according to the release, works "to develop products and provide key services designed to help optimize esports and gaming live streaming for brands, publishers, talent, teams, tournaments, and other stakeholders."