Minecraft children’s books launching in September

UK children’s books publisher Egmont is set to release a series of books based on Mojang’s world building sensation Minecraft.

After snapping up the publishing rights last year, Egmont has now revealed that it will be publishing the first four official Minecraft books in September.

The new handbooks will be entitled, The Beginner’s Handbook, The Redstone Handbook, The Combat Handbook and The Construction Handbook.

There will also be a Minecraft Annual, a Minecraft Poster book and a new ‘All About Minecraft’ Magazine.

The publishing deal covers all territories outside of the US.

“We knew whatever we created needed to be fun, informative and centre on the Minecraft community," said Egmont licensing division MD Sarah Bates.

"The fans are extremely important to us and we want our publishing to both feed their thirst for gaming knowledge through an engaging reading experience, whilst also offer exclusive content from the developers which they can’t get online.

“As well as working closely with Mojang developers on the publishing we are also in discussion with a number of superfans about them contributing to our titles and next month we will be launching a competition for fans to win the chance for their design to feature as a page in our Minecraft Poster Book. Interest from retailers has been extremely strong and we can’t wait to bring these books to market.” 

As well as the Minecraft publishing deal Egmont has previously signed a deal with Angry Birds developer Rovio to create children’s books related to the franchise.

Whilst Mojang has experienced huge success with Minecraft as a game, the studio has also previously expanded outside of the games market with merchandise including clothing and Minecraft LEGO.