Five long months into the pandemic, Aiden Branss found himself wide awake in the middle of the night, pondering the battered state of the world and drinking coffee.
The 16-year-old grabbed his laptop and started writing. And after Branss’s midnight oil burned, he was left with the beginning of his first novel.
What began as a high-energy offshoot of Branss’s isolation has since blossomed into a small literary enterprise. He inspired six of his friends to write their own books, and in 2022, Branss founded a company to publish his friends’ books. To date, Aiden Branss Books has sold thousands of books and offers Branss, now 20, up to $500 a month.
“I believe in these stories and these authors, and I want to grow the company,” said Branss, who is pursuing an associate’s degree at Harper College in Palatine while running the company. “I want to have an office one day. Maybe I’d like to open a store.
Branss’ self-published debut novel, “2020!” From A Teenagers POV,” reads like a cross between a text message and a diary. Branss, who was a sophomore at Palatine High School when the pandemic closed schools across the United States, called the book a heavily fictionalized account of his 2020 experience.
“It was unfiltered and crude, and you could even say crude to a certain extent, but I just tried to keep it real with the way teenagers reacted at the time,” he said.
Allie Gillies, an author who has self-published three books and mother of children who attended Palatine High School at the same time as Branss, said she initially knew Branss through meetings of Township High School District 211, based in Palatine. Gillies, 52, said she became Branss’ mentor after “2020!” From A Teenagers POV” was released in early 2021.
“I read it and I said, ‘Aiden, you’re amazing. But we need to fix the grammar a little bit. And he was like, ‘Oh, I didn’t know,'” Gillies said. But it was such a wonderful conversation to have with a young person.”
Gillies and several friends advocated for Branss’ first novel to be stored in the Palatine Public Library District, she said. Gillies is happy to lend Branss a helping hand by sharing books published by Branss Books, because she believes the books themselves and the personal backgrounds of the authors have the power to uplift readers, she added .
Alexia Sosin, a friend of Branss since high school, said she always considered herself a writer. Often, when Sosin, now 20, finished her homework early, she would get bored and start writing to occupy her time.
“It’s my version of therapy,” Sosin said.
Once she saw one of her peers publish a book, Sosin realized there was no reason she couldn’t do the same.
Sosin set his first opus, “Forbidden Lover,” in 19th-century England. It’s about a teenage girl “whose authoritarian father forces her to marry a man against her will.”
After her book came out, Sosin became more confident, she said. She still stutters from time to time, but less than before, especially when talking about something she is so passionate about, her writing.
Turning a draft story into a physical book is a delicate process, one that Branss has been perfecting for nearly four years.
Today, pages are still laid out using a free version of Microsoft Word. Once the pages are finished, Branss Books usually brings in an intern, who doesn’t live locally, to help with proofreading.
The cover design is more of a wild card. Branss often designs them himself using Adobe Photoshop. Sometimes Branss’ artistic older brother helps. Some authors commissioned artists to develop theirs.
When a customer buys a book on the company’s website, part of the money goes toward printing that book and another part goes toward shipping. The printing company Branss Books uses sometimes has to send them all over the world.
A disproportionate number of Branss Books customers live in Australia and Japan, Branss said.
“I don’t even think about Australia, but we sold a good amount of books there,” Branss said, adding that he didn’t know why there were so many fans in Australia.
One of the largest business expenses is advertising. Branss recently ran an ad on streaming platforms, and in March, Branss coughed up money for a digital ad that aired in Times Square. He said it cost $110 and a video of the ad was on the company’s website.
“I just wake up and then I see my family texting me and I see a text from Aiden, and I’m in Times Square, and I’m like, ‘What did you do bro?’ said Ureed Zaidi, another author at the company, after Branss mentioned he made impulsive business decisions during a group interview with the Tribune.
Zaidi, who also attended Palatine High School with Branss, said the idea to write a book came to him in the middle of the night while he was on the phone with a friend. For the second time, coffee proved to be a worthy muse.
“I was talking to Aiden about my life story and he said, ‘You should just write a book about it,’” Zaidi said. “And I stayed up all night, drinking a lot of coffee (and) I started writing.”
Zaidi, 20, said becoming an author was one of the best things that ever happened to him because it was something he did with his friends. Zaidi introduced his first book, “The Short Kid From Pakistan,” as “a story of survival, love and the triumph of the human spirit.”
Currently, nine titles by six authors are for sale on the Branss Books website. Some new books will be published soon. Several major retailers such as Barnes & Noble and Walmart sell the company’s books online, and a few of their out-of-state brick-and-mortar stores stock them, Branss said.
“We hope to grow, and I hope they can trust us more and I can walk into a nearby store and see one of my books,” he said.
Branss said his company was really trying to sell three things. First of all, it’s the books. The second is that reading is important. Finally, Branss wants to send the message that those who want to start their own business should go for it.
“They shouldn’t hesitate,” Branss said. “You’ll never know if you don’t take the risk.”
