Order Your Copy Now!
Posted by Midnight Ryder in Main on March 9th, 2009
Signed Copies of The Story of Gamer Zone are now available for order
So what is The Story of Gamer Zone? Ages ago, a LAN Gaming center was opened at Harry & Broadway in Wichita, Kansas. For two years Gamer Zone was a gamer gathering point.
This is the story of Gamer Zone’s rise and eventual fall. It’s told from my perspective – the guy who took the most hours behind the counter, the guy who took responsability, and eventually the guy who took the fall. It covers all the successes and failures we, as a team had. It also covers the aftermath of such a failure.
There’s more than one way to look at the book – it’s either a historical account of a business, or it’s a learning tool. Take your pick. It’s geeky in some places, but the focus is on the business aspects, not the video games that were involved.
Originally, it was being written as a blog on what happened, and how to avoid making those mistakes. About 18,000 words into The Story of Gamer Zone’s blog version, I realized I had long since surpassed the original goal of a blog and was moving into the territory of writing a book.
And so it is now – The Story of Gamer Zone has a print version. The print version had major cleanups compaired to the much lower quality blog version. At the moment, the blog version is still on here and the first two chapters are available for free reading (which includes all the bad grammar, spelling errors, horrible editing… well, you get the idea. It was a blog.) You can purchase the book version from Amazon, OR, you can read all of the chapters online (handy if you have a smart phone – take your book with you anywhere.) The online version is currently still the blog, however I’ll be replacing the blog version with the text from the print version sometime soon – so for $5 you’ll be able to read the entire thing as it appeared in print!
(Released March 15, 2009) The Story Of Gamer Zone: Exploring A Business Failure
Posted by Midnight Ryder in News Releases on March 15th, 2009
Davis Ray Sickmon, Jr.
daviss@midnightryder.com
(316) 633-4639
The Story Of Gamer Zone
Exploring A Business Failure
Every entrepreneur experiences a business failure at some point, though most make a point to hide those failures or only speak of them in passing. Wichitan Davis Ray Sickmon, Jr., takes a completely different tactic, exploring a business failure of his own in his new book, “The Story of Gamer Zone.”
“The Story of Gamer Zone – A Business From Birth to Death” (243 pages, $14.95) is an account of Gamer Zone, a business owned by Davis for two years in Wichita, Kan. It covers everything from its inception to its eventual death, and the aftermath experienced by the author.
The book is unique in its perspective. Most books on the rise and fall of a business are written by a third party, usually from third-hand accounts and interviews which give opportunities for large portions of the facts to be hidden away by those embarrassed by their mistakes. ”The Story of Gamer
Zone” was written by the owner, who is intent on providing the whole truth as a warning to business owners on what behaviors and actions to avoid to increase the likelihood of success.
Davis will be having his first book signing at the Clifton Square Arts & Music Festival from noon to 8 p.m., on March 20th, 2009. For more information on the Clifton Square Arts & Music Festival visit the Fountain Street Productions website at www.FountainStreetProductions.com.
Davis Ray Sickmon, Jr., is a three-time speaker at Indie Games Con in Eugene, Ore., on business development in the video game industry, and one-time owner of an extremely unsuccessful business in Wichita, Kan. He currently resides in Wichita, Kan., and is currently working on his next two book projects. Davis also keeps a podcast and blog of his current projects at www.MidnightRyder.org.
ISBN 1441446745
For individual copies of the book, please visit Amazon.com
To place bulk orders for the book, contact:
Davis Ray Sickmon, Jr.
(316) 633-4629
daviss@midnightryder.com
URL: www.TheStoryOfGamerZone.com
To arrange a book signing or interview, contact Davis Ray Sickmon, Jr., at (316) 633-4639 or daviss@midnightryder.com
Book Signing for The Story of Gamer Zone
Posted by Midnight Ryder in Main on March 9th, 2009
I’ll be doing a book signing at the Clifton Square Arts & Music Festival in Wichita, Kansas on March 21st from noon until 8PM (not accounting for breaks I take to swill some beer). This the only signing I have planned for the book, and there will be no tours – unless someone throws lots of money at me to do it (something that is very unlikely to occur.)
The Festival is a sort of fun backdrop for doing this – 18 bands playing in four different venues there, a ton of artists (including another writer from Wichita, Kansas, Aston West signing copies of Heroes Die Young), and a buttload of fun. It’s free to the public (unless you want into the beer garden – that’s $5).
So drop on by and pick up a copy of the book and have it signed – click to find how to get to Clifton Square. Or if you can’t make it, feel free to order yourself a copy of the book on Amazon! 
