How popular are videogame tie-in novels? The reason I ask is because of Orion's announcement this morning that it has signed up Andy McNab to write a tie-in novel to the forthcoming videogame Battlefield 3 - The Russian.

It turns out the answer is extremely popular. Penguin has published three books tying into the excellent Assassin's Creed series of games. Between them, they have notched up sales of 278,000. And this is with the third novel, Crusade, only out for a matter of weeks.

So a smart move by Orion and even smarter bringing in McNab, a consultant on the DICE game, to co-write the novel. McNab is bound to bring in his fans, eager for another burst of Nick Stone-esque excitement. Orion will be excited about Battlefield's own fanbase. The previous game in the series Battlefield Bad Company 2 sold 2.3m copies within two weeks of release in March 2010, a comparatively fallow time for the videogame market.

I have to admit I will be one of that fanbase. I never quite was able to shake off my videogame habit and Battlefield 3 is a game that I, and quite a lot of my friends, are incredibly excited about getting to play. The potential for cross-promotion is huge and Orion could be looking at a sleeper fiction hit this October.