I know this was brought up in some other post. I may just be too lazy to go looking for it, or I thought that this would be a nice bit o' information for everyone.
I've recently attained a great book that goes into a great amount of detail on creating and publishing games. It has interviews with game designers and publishers, discussing what they do, what they look for, etc. It also states the best order in which to progress from designing your game to getting it on the shelf. Also, the book contains some great samples of contracts and agreements if and when a company decides it likes your idea.
The book is "The Game Inventor's Guidebook" by Brian Tinsman
ISBN 0-87349-552-7
It retails at $14.99 U.S. and is soft cover, 167 pages, B&W
It covers Boardgames, Card Games, Role-playing Games, etc. I definitely recommend this book to everyone here.
On a side note to this. This book also contains some humurous info on games that have actually been proposed to game companies. For example, "It's based on technology that hasn't been developed yet, but all you have to do is send me some electrical engineers and I'll tell them how to invent it." HAHAHA
P.S. Sorry if that was somebody from this forum, but...wow!