J. Douglas Arnold

While still in High school, J. Douglas began writing tips and reviews of games with his friend Zach Meston, and with the help of his mothers publishing company "Sandwich Islands Publishing" (SIP) he began producing a bi-monthly video games fan magazine called "Amiga Games Guide". Up until that point SIP had done newsletters and a travel guide called "The Mauian". With the success of his first book in 1991 for 'Compute! Books', "Compute's Nintendo Tricks and Tips" ISBN: 087455246X he began to develop his own series of gaming book in the same lines as Prima's "Secrets of the Games", and Bantam's "Game Mastery" series, while Bantam's series used titles such as 'Ultimate Nintendo Games', Arnold and SIP would use the opening title 'Awesome', and the series title "Gaming Mastery". His first book with SIP was "Awesome Sega Genesis Secrets" ISBN: 0962467642. While at first he wrote most of the books himself, he teamed up with others for later books, became director of the series for SIP, when he was not the actual author. The early books had illustrated covers but later ones simply had a colorized design and layout that Arnold would generally make himself.

After the initial gaming series, the gaming books went under various series titles, including "Player's Guide", "Survival Guide", and "Trainer's Guide" for Pokémon related books. Occasionally he would place 'Stereograms' within the books for readers to find, and list their locations at the end of the book. Although nearly all of these gaming books were unofficial and not licensed, there were some notable exceptions as his and long time co-author Zach Meston made guides for 'Working Designs' games. A few years later Meston would be working at this company himself. And the electronic talking toy "Furby".

Early in the year 2000, SIP was sued by Nintendo of America for publishing a translation of the Japanese instructions in their guide "Pokémon Gold and Silver: Japanese Translation Guide" ISBN: 1884364519. He produced several more game guides ending with "Pokémon: Trading Card Game, Player's Guide Volume 3: Team Rocket" in 2001, for a total of 10 years of producing gaming guides. After this he left the video game field and currently still works with his family on the annual "Best of Maui" travel guide, as President/Art Director.

{Sources:

• About the Author and Copyright Page's- Staff credits, in SIP gaming books.

• Best of Maui, travel guide with contributions by J. Douglas Arnold published annualy by SIP, http://www.bestofmauiguide.com

• IGN.com News http://gameboy.ign.com/articles/083/083517p1.html

• Zach Meston's official webblog http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.zachmeston.com }