Kinney works on a cartoon in the living room at home, with sons Grant, 2, and Will, 5, at his side.

PLAINVILLE, Mass. Let’s make one thing perfectly clear: Jeff Kinney is not a wimp.

Okay, he admits he might have had his moments. But he says he’s nothing like Greg Heffley, the main character in Kinney’s books, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, a series of cartoon-based novels chronicling middle school life.

And Kinney insists he is not necessarily writing from personal experience — except maybe for that time that he wrapped himself in toilet paper in the bathroom, like Greg does in one of the books. Well, maybe there are a couple of other things — nothing he’ll admit to in the newspaper, though.

What Kinney has done is make “wimpiness” cool, as seen in his two — count ’em, two — “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” books currently topping the New York Times’ bestseller list for children’s chapter books.

His books are so popular that Kinney just agreed to a movie deal for the “Wimpy Kid,” and his series was recently nominated for a Nickelodeon Kids Choice Award — along with the Harry Potter books.

The first book has sold more than a million copies, and it’s been reprinted in more than 20 foreign languages — including German, where the title, loosely translated, reads: “Greg’s Diary: I’m Surrounded by Idiots.”

People can check out the Wimpy Kid free on one of his company’s Web sites, Funbrain.com, where it receives an average of 70,000 visitors each day. That’s where Kinney first introduced the Wimpy Kid, back in the spring of 2004.

Kinney was an online game developer and designer for Family Education Network, which runs a series of Web sites for children, parents and teachers. That was where he first published episodes from “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” as a way to get kids to stick with the Web site after the end of the school year.

The site was so popular that Kinney sold the series to Amulet Books, a division of Harry N. Abrams, which published the first of five “Wimpy Kid” books last spring, and it was an immediate hit.

“It was unlike anything we’d ever seen, so we thought it should do well,” said Charles Kochman, a senior editor there, who’s worked with Kinney from the start. “But nobody expected a year later it would be optioned for a movie, or would be on the New York Times list, or anything like that.”

Kinney certainly never expected it, either. He was just grateful to finally see his work in print.

Kinney had always dreamed of being a newspaper cartoonist, having drawn his first cartoon back in first grade, when growing up in southern Maryland.

But he couldn’t get anyone to buy his ideas, not even after he’d published a comic strip called Igdoof in the campus newspaper at the University of Maryland for more than two years. No one off campus was interested in a cartoon about a maladjusted college student and his roommate.

So after graduating in 1993 with a degree in computer science, Kinney “collected rejection slips,” as he put it, for about three years while he worked as a layout editor at the Newburyport Daily News, on the north shore of Boston, and later as an online game designer and developer with the Family Education Network.

But he never gave up on his dream.

About 10 years ago, he started keeping a journal filled with doodles and musings about everything from daily life to vacations with friends. Over time, he filled about 10 of them. That’s how he came up with the idea for a creating a cartoon novel, based on a diary that would capture the life of a kid in middle school.

He figured it would be fun for grownups to come up with “a nostalgic kind of book,” a mix of fact and fiction about growing up.

He bought a 77-page sketch book and started jotting down doodles, drawings and ideas, mostly based on recollections of his own middle school experience. He vowed not to start writing the book until he’d filled every last page of the little black sketch book — a process that took about four years — finishing in the spring of 2002.

He then made copies of every page of the sketch book so he could cut out the ideas and drawings into little bits of paper and arrange them in story form on poster boards.

He spent the next two years figuring out his story line and refining the artwork and writing. By the spring of 2004, he had enough material to create “a big fat book — 1,000 pages long” or maybe even a series of books.

But he needed someone willing to publish it.

Meanwhile, Kinney and his boss, Jess Brallier, publisher and general manager of the Family Education Network, were brainstorming ideas for ways to keep kids coming back to the Funbrain site after school let out that summer.

When Kinney pitched the idea of posting his “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” to draw them in, Brallier was skeptical.

But he was pleasantly surprised by what he read.

“I remember sitting in my kitchen and laughing out loud,” Brallier recalled. “I called him back at 11 o’clock that night, saying let’s publish this online.”

Brallier, who has a 16-year-old daughter, says he’d been pushing to get comic strips and books on his Web site, to encourage kids to read. He views the Web as the new frontier, in the effort to get kids to read more. “If you want kids to read, you have to go where they are, and that’s online,” Brallier said. “… There’s a computer in every kid’s house. There’s not a bookstore in every kid’s house… I just think it’s a smart way to get kids to read.”

It doesn’t yet work with every kind of book, he said, any more than the first motion picture movies were able to replicate everything performed on stage, or that television could replace what was offered on radio.

But Kinney’s book project was perfect for use a Web-based novel, he said.

It had a character everyone could relate to — Greg Heffley, a pre-teen with an older brother, Rodrick, and a younger brother, Manny, and a best friend named Rowley. Greg is keeping this “journal” — “This is a JOURNAL, not a diary,” Greg stresses on the opening page — and he goes on to explain that he’s only doing it because his mom made him.

There were lots of drawings, to attract and keep the kids’ attention, Brallier noted. It read like a comic book, and the “diary” format lent itself to interaction between the reader and the Web site.

The Web version was an imme-

diate hit, Brallier said. There now are about 1,300 pages posted online — representing a mix of material from the first three books in the Wimpky Kid series.

It’s read by about 70,000 people a day, from around the world. Kinney said he’d post entries at 3 a.m. and, within minutes, receiving e-mails from places like China, Pakistan or Greece, about “Greg’s” latest diary entry.

Kinney knew, from the great response to the Web-based version, that he had the makings of a popular cartoon-based novel. But he needed a publisher.

He got his chance in the spring of 2006, at the New York ComicCon — an annual convention featuring the latest in comics, novels, video games, toys, movies and television.

Kinney was there looking for new material for his employer’s Web sites. He ran into editor Kochman, whose book company had published a book called Mom’s Cancer that was based on an online comic strip. Kinney showed Kochman a 20-page draft of his book, explaining that it represented 1,300 pages of material online.

Kochman loved it. “There was just something about the title and the drawing that he had on the front of this thing — the drawing that’s on the cover of the first book – that I really responded to.”

Kochman took the book home that weekend and then pitched it to his bosses, who had the same reaction he did. This was a book that people would like to read.

He made Kinney an offer within days.

But while Kinney was promoting it as a book for grownups to take a walk down memory lane — sort of like the former hit television show The Wonder Years — the folks at Abrams thought it best to promote it as a children’s book. “Everybody was feeling we might have a bigger audience and be able to break it out if we did it as a kids’ series,” Kochman said.

Kinney was skeptical at first, but he went along with it.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid hit the bookstores in April 2007, and it was quickly a hit among all ages. Within weeks, it was on the New York Times bestseller list for children’s books.

Kinney was soon praised for helping to get kids to read, Kochman said, especially the “reluctant readers” — which he said is “a code name for boys.”

It’s been compared with other popular cartoon-based books, including Captain Underpants and Judy Moody, Kochman said. But it’s really unlike anything else on the market, especially given its novel-like storyline, he said.

Plus, the Wimpy Kid series resonates with all ages, from youngsters who are in grade school or middle school now to adults who can laugh at the memories, Kochman said. It’s also timeless, with no references to anything from popular culture. “He wants it to be something middle school kids 20 years from now can relate to,” he said.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid hit the top of the New York Times bestseller list by last August. Brallier remembers congratulating Kinney at the time, saying: “That’s great, Jeff.” He’d worked with other bestselling authors before, and he knew success could be fleeting.

But Kinney’s book held onto the top spot for nearly a year, until it was nudged out by — what else? — the second Diary of a Wimpy Kid book, Rodrick Rules. The second book claimed the number one position even before it was officially available for sale on Feb. 1, Kinney noted. Those two books have remained numbers one and two on the list since.

Kinney, in his wildest dreams, never imagined the Wimpy Kid would be such a success.

Kochman describes him as “awkwardly shy,” and Kinney smiles and shrugs off comments about his celebrity.

“It’s a very low grade of celebrity,” he says.

It’s not like he’s mobbed by people who recognize him when he’s out for pizza with his kids. Last year, he says, when he did book tours and signings, sometimes only one or two people would show up during a two-hour event.

Things are changing though. As many as 600 people lined up for signings during a 12-city tour in February, just after the new book was released.

The two Wimpy Kid books are not only the bestselling children’s chapter books according to the New York Times lists, they’re also among the top 20 selling books of all kinds in the country, according to the USA Today book list.Kinney is trying not to let any of this go to his head.

He stays grounded with help from his wife, Julie, and sons, Will, 5, and Grant, 2. When a visitor recently came to his house, Will was far more interested in promoting his own book, “Super Will,” featuring his drawing of himself on the cover, with a W in the middle of a star on his shirt.

Kinney also is very much in control of his future — and his fortunes, Kochman noted. “He’s incredibly smart and knowledgeable … He’s got his eye on the big picture.”

He could have “gone for the most money and the first offer” but instead wanted a contract that promised that Wimpy Kid would be a series of books, and he wanted to retain the movie rights, so he’d have control if it came to that as well.

Sure enough, last month he agreed to a movie deal for the first Wimpy Kid movie with Fox 2000 next year. It will be produced by Niña Jacobson, a Brown University graduate who’s best known for blockbuster hits The Sixth Sense, Chronicles of Narnia and Pirates of the Caribbean.

Kinney will serve as executive producer of the Wimpy Kid movie — another feather in his cap.

Julie Kinney recalls that when her husband first signed his book contract, she was happy for him, but warned that “authors don’t make money.” Not that she cared. She was content with their life in Plainville, about 20 miles northwest of Providence.

But their house, a historic cottage whose driveway is shared with a neighbor, is a tad small for a family of four. So now they’re in a position to move into something bigger — preferably with a larger office, but still in the area.

Kinney shows off the tiny basement office were he does most of his work. It’s sparse, with a desk and a Dell laptop, and a video rocker where he sits when he’s thinking. The video chair is great, he says, because he can rock but can’t fall asleep on it.

He doesn’t have much time for house hunting these days, though. He’s off to book signings, and to negotiate movie rights, and to check out spin-off products such as a “Wimpy Kid” journal and activity book to come out later this year.

Meanwhile, he recently com-

pleted the third “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” book due out in January.

He’s also got new material to churn out for two more books in the series.

“It’s very fun and exciting,” says Julie Kinney. But this hectic lifestyle doesn’t allow much time to deal with all the trappings of her husband’s newfound celebrity, including the 20,000 unanswered e-mails from around the world. He tries to keep up with at least some fan mail, especially from local school children who’ve been his most loyal fans.

That’s the hard part, Julie Kinney said. “You don’t want to say no.”

Jeff Kinney’s top priority remains his family, and spending at least two hours of uninterrupted time a day with them.

Meanwhile, he’s been offered that job he always thought he wanted: a syndicated newspaper cartoonist. But he says he loves what he’s doing and plans to stick with his job as design director for Family Education Network.

Besides, he’s still got lots of “wimpy” work ahead.

lkirk@projo.com