Ready Player One is not a book.
Ready Player One is a 2011 dystopian science-fiction novel , and the debut novel by Ernest Cline . In 2012 , the book received an Alex Award from the Young Adult Library Services Association division of the American Library Association and won the 2012 Prometheus Award . Cline sold the novel in June 2010 , in a bidding war to the Crown Publishing Group ( a division of Random House ) . The book was published on August 16 , 2011 .