1. Author of Diary of a Wimpy Kid Book Series

Jeff Kinney is a talented American writer, producer, cartoonist, game designer and author of the bestselling Diary of a Wimpy Kid Book series. In 1998, Jeff started writing The Diary of a Wimpy Kid but the book did not have it published until 2007.

 2. Birth and Education

Born in 1971, Jeff Kinney spent his childhood years in Maryland’s Fort Washington area and studied at Bishop McNamara High School. He enjoyed reading as a child and often read books authored by Piers Anthony, Judy Blume, J.R.R. Tolkien and Beverly Cleary. In the early 90’s he joined University of Maryland where he got the idea of creating his popular comic strip, Igdoof as a student. The comic strip featured on The Diamondback, the campus newspaper.

 3. Cartoonist Career

Jeff Kinney’s decision to become a cartoonist was inspired by the success of his Igdoof comic strip. However, after college, Jeff did not succeed in getting the comic strip syndicated. He relocated to New England in 1995. Three years later, he began putting down his ideas and thoughts for the Diary of a Wimpy Kid with the hope of turning them into a book.

 4. Diary of a Wimpy Kid was published after 8 Years

Jeff continued to work on his initial book for 8 years. The book was first published online on daily installments on Funbrain.com in 2007. Today, the Diary of a Wimpy Kid online version has over 80 million visitors and it is generally read by over 70,000 kids each day.

 5. Ranked top on Global Chats

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules and Diary of a Wimpy Kid Do-it-Yourself Book were published in 2008. An expanded and revised version came later in 2011. In 2009 and 2010, Jeff wrote and published two books in the Diary of a Wimpy Kid book series each year. The series became popular and ranked number one on important charts with a global sale of over 42 million copies as of 2010.

 6. Screening of The Wimpy Kid Series

In March, 2010, the 20^th Century Fox screed the Diary of a Wimpy Kid. Jeff’s contribution in the movie was that of an executive producer. The movie was reviewed by critics and performed well on box office. A second movie based on the Jeff’s second book was released in March 2011 with the third movie released in April, 2012.

 7. Featured on Time Magazine

In addition to being a New York Times best seller, Jeff Kinney featured on the 100 Most Influential People on Time Magazine’s global list. In 2009, he scoped the Dorothy Canfield Fisher Book, Children Category Award. This award was voted by children and was proof of Jeff’s high popularity among children readers.

 8. Jeff Kinney never wanted to Write Children Literature

When growing up, Jeff Kinney’s dream was to be a newspaper cartoonist and not an author of children literature. However, he did not manage to have his comic strips syndicated. In 1998, he developed the idea of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid, which features a story of a middle-school weakling called Greg Heffley. Jeff spent 8 years writing the book before presenting it to a New York based publisher.

 9. Turning the Book into a Print Series

Jeff Kinney entered into a multi-book agreement with Harry N. Abrams, Inc in 2006 to make the Diary of a Wimpy Kid a print series. Upon its initial release in April, 2007, the book ranked number one as a New York Times bestseller. His second release, Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules in January, 2008 also became a number one bestseller.

 10. com

Jeff Kinney developed Poptropica.com in 2007 and works there fulltime as the editorial and creative director. He lives with his two sons and wife in Plainville, Southern Massachusetts.