Not Just A Princess eyes Chinese market for story’s expansion

TALLAGHT entrepreneur Gavin Leonard is looking forward to pitching broadcasting companies in the USA, China, Europe, and the UK, to expand his children’s book enterprise in 2022.

Despite the initial disappointment of not winning the overall 2021 InterTradeIreland Seedcorn Investor Readiness competition, Leonard’s business Not Just a Princess did win the Dublin Regional category, netting €20,000, which will be used to develop an animated series.

Dad-of-one Gavin Leonard turned his successful blog into the first series of stories aimed at 3–8-year-olds.

He created the series to help introduce his young daughter, Jade, to different occupations, cultures, and opportunities.

Launching the start-up in 2017 with his wife Shannon, they have sold over 20,000 books worldwide.

Gavin and his team, which includes industry veteran Richard Keane, plan to develop a 52-episode Not Just a Princess animated television series, which will focus on encouraging children, and girls in particular, to look at the STEM subjects in a different light.

Gavin said: “We still can’t believe that this incredible project, which started in our living room, has grown into such a huge force.

“We created Not Just a Princess to help empower young children, including my own daughter, but the whole project has done so much more than that.

“We have sold thousands of books, raised money for charities that are close to my heart and this €20,000 funding investment will allow us to begin the process of taking these amazing characters off the pages and onto the screen. We want to say a huge thanks to InterTradeIreland and all of the other regional winners and competitors.

“You don’t often see families like us represented on-screen – a mixed family unit, half Asian, half Caucasian, so I am excited to bring that dynamic to the series,” he said.

“In Not Just a Princess we have the King who is a stay-at-home dad who encourages his daughter to try lots of things like practicing Chinese and learning Kung Fu, there are also extended family members who live at the castle with the family. We hope to expand more on that in the animated series.”