Since the dawn of the video game era, countless critics have warned that the genre would destroy reading. Video gamers actually built the career of novelist Eric Nylund–his writing took off after he wrote for Microsoft’s smash hit video game, Halo.

Since then, he’s written Halo books, stand-alone novels, video games, and maintains an interactive blog. Most recently, he finished the fantasy novel, Mortal Coils. In this exclusive interview, Nylund told publishers how to reach the elusive video game-playing readers. GalleyCat prowled the teeming, costumed crowd of true-believers at Comic Con this year, uncovering some vital intelligence about this flourishing corner of the publishing industry.

To see more video interviews with innovators, follow these links: a Quirk Books editor talked about zombies and Jane Austen; comics legend Danny Fingeroth talked about graphic novel sales in the recession; Ron Fortier unveiled his pulp fiction revival; and multi-tasking author Alex Irvine talked about the 21st Century writing lifestyle; and Chris Metzen analyzed World of Warcraft publishing.