Hello everyone and welcome to There’s No Place Like Summer Camp. This is the episode where the books have been released. Oh yeah. So coming into our tent and I’ll spill the beans.

Hello everyone. Yeah, the intro still rockin. That’s in place I saw the company’s out guys. Wow. Cheers. Cheers to you guys. This one’s for you. Oh God, I am definitely going to go a couple of ways. Jesus Christ.

The Book is Out!

There’s No Place Like Summer Camp is out. I don’t even know what to say. I don’t know what to say. It’s been in the works for six years. There’s no  structure to this one. It’s been six years in the making to get to the point of a book release. And here we are. There’s No Place Like Summer Camp is available on Amazon. It’s available, potentially wherever you want to buy your books. I don’t want to say it’s available on eBook paperback, hardback. Six years, man six years in the making to get to here. My initial plan was back in I think 2018.

We’re at what I think this is the 82nd podcast episode. And my initial plan was to release There’s No Place Like Summer Camp in 2018. I remember my first book, The first book of There’s No Place Like Summer Camp wasn’t even called the same name. I don’t know if you know this, but this is going to this podcast could go on for however long. And it’s gonna go on all sorts of tangents. So I hope you’re prepared for that. And I hope you’ve got a nice beverage of choice next year. Mine today is Coke Zero. And you would see that if this was a YouTube video, but we’ll get onto that more a bit later. I’m just going to pretend it’s like an alcoholic beverage. Because that’s the cool thing everyone does. But I’m no drinker. Not anymore. I’m approaching 30. Come on.

Initial Copies of the summer camp story

Yeah, my initial release was in 2018. I think I’m sure I released a version of the book. I think it was 2016 or 2017. And I thought it was pretty much ready. Now if you go and get There’s No Place Like Summer Camp. You’ll be able to see all this bonus information by going to theresnoplacelikesummercamp.com/bonus. And you’ll be able to download all this bonus content. And in that bonus content, you’ll be able to see the previous covers that I had, as well as a readout that I did at our author meetup. You can see the journey that the books come on. Now it’s cool. It’s cool to say I’m a fucking author. I’ve published a book, There’s No Place Like Summer Camp. What I was trying to say is there’s no place like summer camp, it wasn’t always that name. It used to be called a secret diary of American summer camp. I don’t even think that’s the correct name.

But it’s gone through its name iterations and then I settled on There’s No Place Like Summer Camp because I think it hits the nail on the head. And I don’t know if you’ve known this but I know Natasha, for instance, didn’t know this herself. It took her a while to figure out oh, that’s why it’s called that. So obviously I’m sure there’s gonna be people in this podcast now listening and going HOLY SHIT I didn’t even realize or There’s gonna be loads of people you listening saying obviously. I knew that. So cut to the point. There’s no place like home. Yeah, It comes from Wizard of Oz. Now a lot of you listening are probably going to be in the 18, to 25 age bracket.

Why is it called There’s No Place Like Summer Camp?

Now, I’m not that much older than 25, he says, but I know the Wizard of Oz. So if you don’t know the Wizard of Oz, and you’re between 18 and 25, please come watch the Wizard of Oz, the original one. So that’s where there’s no place like home comes from. And the reason I called it, There’s No Place Like Summer Camp is because it’s sort of like a second home. Now, that’s poetry. And I think it sums up exactly how I feel about summer camp, is I keep reminiscing, I keep talking about it, loads of other people do the same thing. And that’s the reason that I settled on, There’s No Place Like Summer Camp, it’s, you know, it’s a bit of a phrase, that sums up exactly what I want this book to be. And I’m proud to say that it’s available now.

It’s come on quite a journey. And I don’t know, I don’t know what my goals are for this. I don’t know what the goals are, I don’t know what I’m expecting from it. I just knew that I wanted to produce the best content I could, and it will take as long as it would need to take before it would launch. I didn’t want to release something that was going to flop on its initial launch. That’s something that I’ve been very careful about. Because back in 2016, sort of times when I thought the book was ready, and I did those author talks where I’d still stand up in front of a group of authors. You’ll hear on the bonus content, the feedback I was getting, wasn’t great. You can tell why if you listen to my readout. It was very wanting those early copies. I think in total, I’ve probably made over 20 different versions of this book. Over the course of the six years, 20 completely different versions of There’s No Place Like Summer Camp, where they either have like, you know, totally different layouts, totally different name different characters, totally different. Events, totally different sort of photos were in there at one point in the very early stages. But now I can say that I’m so happy with it. And I have to give a quick mention to the people that helped me get to this point because it’s not just a one-man band.

A shoutout to my editors, designers and people around me

I got a lot of help from my editor, Joanna Craven, who’s mentioned in the book, as well as the others. Muhammad Ali, was great. He was so fantastic at helping set up a book that looked professional, and he helped with the formatting and that sort of thing. There’s Rebecca Ira who was great at helping me create a stunning front cover and helps me with just getting the across the line all three of those people are fantastic. To say that the books out now is is it’s ridiculous.

So yeah, it’s available on Amazon eBook, paperback hardback, it should be available no matter where you’re listening. So if you are listening, say from the US, and you’re interested in summer camp, you should be able to go on to amazon.com and buy the book. If you’re in the UK, of course, all three copies will be available there. There are some problems with like different language countries like Mexico, where you speak Portuguese for some reason. If you want to order the book, you’re gonna have to order from like, I don’t know, amazon.com or something. I don’t know how it works over there. But if you’re listening from abroad, just bear that in mind. I know I have my fans in Germany, I sent out that special signed in addition to my friend Alex, who’s been on the podcast before for an interview where we just talked about summer camp, and it was great to see his support throughout the years. So he got a special signed copy. I think the German audience do have their storefront as well. So you’ll be able to pick up the copy.

But it was just in some random countries. I think it was Mexico and Netherlands that there were the two where I just couldn’t, I couldn’t upload the book because it was in English. And even with the heads up like heads up this books in English by the way. Amazon still wouldn’t let it happen. But anyway, I’m getting on a tangent. There are more retailers in the world than just Amazon. Which leads me on to this Say how chuffed I am with having it. The possibility of having the book in Waterstones or WHSmiths or your local book shop, it can be in so many different places. It’s not an Amazon exclusive, I’m thrilled to say because you do get some, you know, self-published works that are a bit questionable. But in this case, I’ve gone all out, I’ve not, I’ve not let any stone go on turned. And for instance, I’m still recording a fucking audiobook. It’s a lot of work, I think I’m about five hours into it and I’ve only scratched about 25% of the book.

Audiobook incoming

So that’s fun and that might be coming out “soon”. I say soon with air quotes there. But I hope to have that out at some point, just to get it as available as possible. Because I know some of you guys, you might not read books, books are pretty uncool, at least in the stereotype way of thinking is you know who reads a book. “oh, the last time I read a book was, I don’t know the Hungry Caterpillar when I was four years old”. I know that this sort of audience, a lot of you think that way. And it’s a bit of a shame because books can open up a world of possibilities. But I know, audiobooks, podcasts are filling in that gap. So I am working on an audiobook. And you’ve always got this podcast here to help you out as well just to get your summer camp fix. So There’s No Place Like Summer Camp, it’s available. It’s not only in Amazon, hopefully, if I ever do see it in Waterstones or any retailer, but I’m also going to have to buy a pen and just sign it. So if you do ever see it in a store, hit me up on Instagram, hit me up on Twitter. That will be so cool to see because I’ve done it properly. I’ve done it through all the official channels. It’s very much a real possibility that it could be, you know, a Waterstones best seller.

Goals for the book now its released

Now, my goals for the book, they’re not as extravagant as that, I just wanted to say that I’ve released a book, and it’s on a passion project of mine. That’s, you know, been such a fantastic time of my life where I volunteered at summer camp that I think it should be some experience that’s shared with the world. I hope it inspires young people to go and explore and take a risk. Because I think nowadays, it’s very, very easy to just sit on your ass and watch Netflix. Now, that’s not the sort of person I am. And it’s never really been the sort of person I am. Instead, I’ll be the