Between running kids to preschool and making peanut butter sandwiches| Sarah Headrick and I found time to create a niche in the personalized children's book market one that gives the consumer an opportunity to create one of the most highly customizable books on the market today. Entitled "The First Adventures of Incredible You"| our award-winning| full-color| hardcover book contains over 20 places that may be personalized to include details about the people and places that are most special to the child.
Sarah Headrick and I met when our first babies were drooling on each others toys in the same suburban playgroup. It was at one of these playgroup sessions a few years later that the topic of conversation turned from discussing the frequency of our childrens poops to the number of gifts we were all having to buy for all of the new babies| first birthdays and baptisms in our lives. The moms in our playgroup all agreed that personalized items were among the favourite gifts that we had received as new moms.
It was after this discussion in the summer of 2006 that Sarah and I came up with the idea of creating a personalized storybook. Both of us had received personalized books as gifts for our children. We had both really liked the personalized books we had received but noticed that many of them simply inserted the child's name into a generic story or spelled out the child's name -- without any discussion of the people and places that were special to the child and the child's family. Both of us come from very close families and we thought it would be meaningful to create a keepsake book where personalized information about the people and places unique to that child could be inserted into the book.
The resulting rhyming text allows you to insert many different pieces of information about a child and his or her family| including the family's favorite sports team| music| vacation spot| park and nearby zoo. You are also given the opportunity to include the child's parents| grandparents| siblings and friends in the story. There is also a dedication page so that the child will always remember who gave them the special book.
In the short time since we launched "The First Adventures of Incredible You"| we have enjoyed enthusiastic press coverage and experienced a very successful first holiday season. The best part of the business| however| has been hearing about the joy this book brings to so many families and children around the world. The children who receive the book cannot believe that someone has actually written a book about their life which includes their favourite people and places throughout. The success we are having with the book also motivates us -- we were recently featured on Fox Business News after they chose our book as "the one gift to give" during the holiday season. We have also received strong interest in the book from some well known catalogs (including Pottery Barn Kids which just started carrying our book online) as well as online stores -- so we are feeling very hopeful about the future of Custom Made For Kids.
What we have learned in our short time in business is that if you follow your heart while also creating a unique product that fills a void in the marketplace success is attainable. It is very important to also find something that you believe in and that brings you joy so that those long hours away from your family are still really enjoyable ones!
For more information about the personalized storybooks at Custom Made For Kids| please visit www.CustomMadeForKids.com.
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