A man of his words

Diary of a Wimpy Kid’s Jeff Kinney knows his audience

Jeff Kinney remembers when his goal was to write a book, one big book, for grown-ups.

“I thought I’d write about a year in the life of a typical kid,” says the children’s author known to millions for his Diary of a Wimpy Kid series.

“I’d write one book that was between 700 and 1,000 pages long and I’d look at every aspect of childhood within that time frame. Furthermore, I was writing for the humour section of the bookstore, not the middle grade section.”

In the last decade, Diary of a Wimpy Kid has made him one of the world’s most popular writers. The first 11 novels have sold more than 180 million copies and the series has been the basis for four movies, with the latest, Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul, scheduled for May 19. Abrams Books said the 12th book, coming Nov. 7, will be called Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Getaway.

The misadventures of middle schooler Greg Heffley, a skinny boy with a round head and precious few strands of hair, have stood out in two ways in publishing — they appeal equally to girls and boys, and they have consistently sold more than one million hardcover copies.

Kinney, 46, speaking by phone near the bookstore that he and his wife, Julie, own in Plainville, Mass., recalls how Heffley had been on his mind for years before he finally got a book deal. He liked the idea of a kid defined not by heroics, but by “flaws and imperfections.”

Heffley was introduced to many in 2004 through a funbrain.com web series that Kinney published for free that attracted millions of visitors.

Two years later, Kinney attended the first New York Comic-Con. He stopped by the Abrams booth, and spoke to Abrams editorial director Charles Kochman, who recalls Kinney asking him if he would look at his work.

“At these shows you’re constantly getting pitched stuff, and most of it is forgettable,” says Kochman, who still edits Kinney. “As he handed it to me, he said, ‘I have this web comic called Diary of a Wimpy Kid,’ and the image he showed me was the image we used for Book One. I remember thinking, ‘I wish something like this had been around when I was a kid.’ ”

The series debuted in April 2007 and was on The New York Times’ bestseller list by May.

“Once the book came out, I started getting emails from teachers thanking me ... ‘You got my reluctant reader to read,’ ” Kinney says. “I had never heard that phrase before. And I found out that it was a big deal, that ‘reluctant readers’ was code for boys. The letters I got from kids would simply say they thought the books were funny.”

“I’ve learned that I’m a children’s writer,” he says. “I didn’t know it when I was starting off, but I know it now.”