Contestant's Case to Win

KidPub Press helps kids ages 7 to 15 become published authors. We take a child's manuscript and professionally edit, design, and manufacture it into paperback books. We help the kids sell their books, and pay them royalties on each sale.

For many years, members of KidPub.com (a fun, safe place for kids to develop writing skills, online since 1995) have asked me how they could get their own book published. I honestly didn't have an answer, as it seemed that traditional publishers just weren't interested in kids, and vanity presses charged fees that were way out of reach of most children (and their parents!). Besides, what kind of book can a kid write? They're just kids!

But you know what? The more I thought about it, the more I came to realize that a large, under-served market was whacking me in the head, trying to get my attention. I started working on business models and realized that I could offer publishing services to a very young market, get the kids excited about writing, and actually make money doing it.

And so KidPub Press was formed in November of 2008. Things started out slowly, and the first few months we published just a few books. But then, something amazing happened. Word started getting out about what we were up to, and kids started to get very excited about writing books. We're on track to publish 50 books this year, and will double that number in 2010.

KidPub Press is a huge amount of fun for me and for our young authors. The kids get to learn about all facets of the book business, from editing, to layout, to printing and binding, and PR. Their books are sold on Amazon.com and at our own online bookstore, and we pay royalties on each sale, so we're also teaching the financial side of the business. Most kids earn enough in royalties to pay for their publishing fee (which we keep very low to make our programs accessible to everyone). They are stars at school and many hold book-signings for their classmates.

I think that KidPub Press is a great example of finding a niche that is under-served, and building a business around a simple idea. It scales well, and we've spent the first year fine-tuning the model. And we have a lot of proud young writers that are now evangelists for us!