Zibby and a special guest host (her younger daughter!) welcome beloved middle grade author Jennifer Blecher to discuss her books CAMP FAMOUS and its sequel SUDDENLY FAMOUS. They talk about the magic of summer camp and creative ways to bring books to life beyond the page, brainstorming everything from filming DIY YouTube shorts to launching grassroots marketing at sleepaway camps. Jennifer also shares behind-the-scenes stories of her own camp days, how her daughters inspire her writing, her journey into self-publishing, and the joys and challenges of writing for kids.

Transcript:

Zibby: Welcome back to Jennifer Blecher, who is here this time for both Camp Famous and 

Daughter: Suddenly Famous. 

Zibby: Suddenly famous, and I have a very special guest host. My daughter is here with us today, my younger daughter. Welcome to both of you. 

Jennifer: Such an honor. It's so good to talk to both of you. 

Thanks for having me.

Zibby: Our pleasure. So Jen, we've known each other now for many years. We read out of place, which my older kids read, and now my second set of kids has fallen in love with your work again. So this is great for us. You just keep writing and and we'll keep reading. 

Jennifer: Try my best. That's what I'm here for. 

Zibby: But why don't you tell us a little bit about what your books are about for those who are joining, and then I will turn it over to my lovely daughter.

Jennifer: Great. Yes. So generally speaking, I write books for kids ages eight to 12, and I write about friendship fitting in and first crushes. So I write contemporary middle grade novels. What we're here to talk about today is Camp Famous, which is the story of Abby Herman, who. For years and years, was desperate to go to sleepover camp and her parents kept saying no.

And then one summer they caved and they said, good news, Abby, you're going to sleepover camp. But it wasn't until Abby got to the airport that they threw a new twist at her and told her she was going to a camp called Camp Famous. Which is where the most famous kids in the world go to get away from it all for a summer.

So Abby found out that she was going to camp with princesses and pop stars and scientists and all these other fabulous kids, and she has to find out. First of all how she got there, but most importantly, how far she's willing to go to fit in. And then suddenly Famous is the sequel to that story. So the continuation, 

Zibby: Very exciting.

Go ahead. 

Daughter: Okay, so the first question is, how do you come up with your ideas for books? 

Jennifer: That's a great question. So I think of my job as an author, particularly as an author for readers. Your age is. To get kids hooked on books, like I wanna throw a book at a kid, have them fall in love with a story, not be able to stop reading and to keep turning the pages.

So the way I do that is I start with a core emotion that I hope is recognizable to all my readers. So in Camp Famous, for example, that core emotion was feeling like you're desperate to fit in. You feel like you're not up to snuff and you don't know what to do about it. But then because my job is to keep you as a reader really engaged, I always wanna take that core emotion and then.

Blow it up with as much drama as I can possibly do within the realm of what I write, which is about the real world, about like contemporary world. So yeah, that's how I do it. So for Camp Famous, instead of her going to a regular sleepover camp, I wanted her to go to a sleepover camp with the all these kinds of outrageous sleep, wonderful, fabulous kids that she wouldn't come across in her day-to-day life at school.

So I always try my goal is to always make it really fun and exciting for the reader. 

Zibby: Can I jump in with a question? What was your sleepaway camp experience like? 

Jennifer: I was a sleepover camp fanatic. I was a sleepover camp Ruby. I went all the way through. I was a CIT, I was a counselor. I was in it big time and it actually started writing camp Famous during the Covid Pandemic when my kids' sleepover camps were canceled.

So sleepover camp was big on my mind when I was writing this story. 

Zibby: Okay, back to you. 

Daughter: Okay. Abby's character. Did you take inspiration off yourself or someone You know,

Jennifer: I think as terrible as this sounds, all of my characters are a little bit inspired by things that I've experienced personally. I think I love writing in the first person, which is the way Abby's story is written.

So it's when the character is telling the reader, I did this, I did that. And I feel like when I write from my own experiences, that allows me to go really deep with that first person character. So I definitely draw from my own experiences. I also have three daughters and I never write directly about them.

I have a very firm rule that I don't want them to read any of my stories when they're my age and think that I wrote directly about their life. But I do get inspired, or I do remember the way I felt at that age when I watched them go through things that they're dealing with in their own lives. 

Zibby: How old are your daughters?

Jennifer: So right now they're ages 12, 15, and 17. But when I first started writing for this middle grade. Age group, you'll not be surprised that my oldest daughter was eight years old at the time. So I've had a good run, Zibby, I've had this good run of like kids exactly the right age as my readers in my own home.

Zibby: Does this mean you're gonna start writing for older readers? 

Jennifer: I don't know. I think, part of what, to go back to your daughter's question about what inspires me, I'm inspired by them, but I also have this terrible habit as a writer, which is gonna sound a little creepy, but may sound familiar.

To you in your own home where I'll come up with an idea for a book and I'll think it's fabulous and I'll spend like a lot of time thinking about it. I'll write a few chapters and then I'll very casually slide the pages to one of my daughters and just say, Hey, what do you think about this?

Can you take a look? And then I like lurk very awkwardly in the background while they're reading. And if they like a story, I am like. Golden. I'm, I feel so inspired. I feel so good to go. I feel like I can't wait to tackle the whole book, but if I slide them some pages and their eyes start to wander, or like their phone rings and they actually pick it up instead of continuing to read, I know I'm off course.

So I, I feel like I have somewhat of an advantage living with my own. Readers, and it's sad to think, I don't know, maybe I'll have to move up with them in time, but I love writing middle grade fiction. I do. It's my favorite. 

Daughter: Was the sequel easier or harder for you to write? 

Jennifer: Yeah, that's a great question.

The sequel was easier for me to write mostly because I was dying to write it. So I wrote, when I wrote Camp Famous, I always envisioned it as a series because it was, most of my books are much more reality based. Camp famous doesn't actually exist, even though I think like it might and we just all dunno about it because it's so top secret.

But as far as I know, Camp Famous does not actually exist, but I loved. This great group of kids that had such different experiences that I could all throw together in one space. And I don't know about you, but as I was writing it, I knew there was something up the entire time with Abby and Kai. I just knew it, like I felt it in my bones and I felt very compelled to write about what is there first hint of love for each of them, which is the sequel of Suddenly Famous. And also to be frank with you, my youngest daughter like wouldn't let me not write it. And she, I, that was one of those books where I had written a chapter or two and I showed it to her and then I put it aside for a little while and she kept on asking for the sequel.

She wore me down and I wrote it for her, and I'm very glad that I did, but it was a process. 

Daughter: Okay. Are you already planning the third book? 

Jennifer: Okay, so I personally feel as though the third book should be royally famous, will be when Abby goes to visit Bells at her palace. And because she's Abby, things go wrong.

And she has to work her way out of a very intense, also romantic situation that might happen to coincide with the wedding of Bell's older brother, which has been well publicized because he is the crown prince of the country where Bells lives. But I have not started writing it yet, if you think that's a good idea, I always do well with encouragement because I'm insecure like that, but that's what I'm thinking.

So I ha I have not started writing it, but that story is very much in my mind as something that I would like to pursue. 

Daughter: I think that's a very good idea, and I would really like to read it and is it like each book will be based on one of the girls in the cabin in cabin tranquility? 

Jennifer: I think so.

I think that they all, there was a world in which I was gonna write different books from each of the of her bunkmates perspectives. But I just love Abby's voice so much. I just hear it in my head. So if I'm going to keep going with this camp famous series, I think I'm gonna keep going with Abby's point of view.

And because these kids are famous, like honestly, they can send private planes to go pick Abby up wherever she is and bring them to her. So the world is my oyster with this series, and I don't know Abby's, I'm lucky that way, and Abby's lucky that way. So we'll see if there's more adventures in the future.

Daughter: So if the third were to come out, it would take like. Five, four, three-ish years. 

Jennifer: Yes, that is absolutely accurate. So I think, so I actually did suddenly famous on my own. So Camp Famous was published with my editor and a whole big team behind me, and they ended up seeing, they ended up thinking of Camp Famous Moore as a standalone book, whereas I really saw it as a series and because I am a little bit stubborn and I am even more motivated to keep putting more books on the shelves for readers like you who like these kind of contemporary, lightly romantic very sparkly books, I decided to do Suddenly famous on my own. And because you two are sitting there in front of me, I will tell you that my oldest daughter did the cover for me. She's a really talented artist, so she drew the cover, which I think is fantastic.

So I do probably have the ability to push them out a little bit faster. If I keep having more conversations like this that are wonderful and motivate me to do.

Zibby: When you say you did it on your own, did you self-publish it? 

Jennifer: Self-published it. 

Zibby: No way. 

Jennifer: Yep. I self-published it. I did. Yeah. 

Zibby: Wow. I'm surprised because normally once you write a follow-up book, like you gave, you didn't even need in advance.

You could have just handed it in. They're foolish not to publish. 

Jennifer: I tried really hard. Yeah. Middle grade is tough right now, and they saw it as a they saw it as a standalone, and I saw it's a series, so I, 

Zibby: Good for you. 

Jennifer: I wrote the whole book. I, my daughter loved it. Her friends loved it. I couldn't let it go.

And I basically, I really did. I asked myself two questions. I said do I think there needs to be more books like this in the world or fewer? And I think very clearly there needs to be more. And then I asked did I think I had the ability to put this book out and have it shine the way I want it to and have it be received the way my other books have been received.

And when the answer to both of those questions were yes, I was like, I'm doing it. So here we are. And I'm so excited that you didn't know that because I hope that it read just as, as beautifully as my other books. 'cause I did put a lot of work into it. 

Zibby: Actually Sadie and I wrote a book together.

We're almost done with it. We did a graphic novel. 

Daughter: Not really. 

Zibby: What do you mean not really? 

Daughter: We're not very far into it. 

Zibby: We're far enough? 

Daughter: No. 

Zibby: We can just wrap it up at this point. 

Daughter: 70 pages. 

Zibby: We've written 70 pages of a graphic novel. Doesn't have to be that long. 

Daughter: Ah, it should be. 

Zibby: We've been sending it out.

We've been rejected kind of a bunch of times, which is sad. So we've can, I've been thinking about us just self-publishing it, but I didn't have a role model, but now we do. How is it going? What should we know? 

Jennifer: Yeah, it's going, so the finished product is I'm so proud of the finished product, the print quality and the cover.

The reviews have been fantastic. My readers are absolutely loving it. Sales have been good. Distribution is hard. It's hard when you self-publish to get your books into independent bookstores like yours, Zibby. And that's something that has been sad for me because I have developed really great relationships with a lot of independent bookstores, and I wanna keep those going.

But it's challenging from a distribution side. But if things continue the way they're going with suddenly famous, I'm just going to keep going. This is a conversation that I don't wanna bore your daughter with, but middle grade's tricky. I don't know if this is what you guys are finding, but there aren't, people are cutting back with middle grade, which is the publishing term for the age group that I write for.

And the other thing is, I, there are so many gatekeepers from middle grade. There are, to get from the story you write. To get your book into the hands of the people that you're writing for, to get your hands in the book, into the hands of your readers. You often have to get through sort of teachers, librarians, professional book reviewers, editors, and a lot of those people are decades older than the readers that you as a writer are writing for.

And I think sometimes all of that gatekeeping stands in the way of getting more books out there or at least books that kids really enjoy. I think the majority of the time the gatekeepers get it right, but sometimes they don't. And I think if you're a writer who like loves your story, like if you guys love this graphic novel and you believe in it.

Put it out there. That's been my takeaway from all of this. 

Zibby: And then, we can follow up with you after for specific questions, but did you do it through Amazon or how did you do it? 

Jennifer: Yeah, I did it through Amazon Print on Demand. It's tricky to figure out all the formatting, but once you get it.

It becomes easier in the future. And the print quality is excellent. I don't, I'm sure you guys can see from holding the book. 

Daughter: So this is a very out there, but I feel like maybe a couple years Camp Famous would be a very good like movie. 

Jennifer: Same. 

Oh yeah. 

Oh, sorry to interrupt you. I think Camp Famous will be such a fun movie because who doesn't love a summer movie?

And you could set it at a sleepover camp. They're like, there's so many different kids that are all put together in this one outdoor super great environment. And then obviously, because we've already decided there can be spinoff series of suddenly famous and royally famous. Tragically famous and however far. 

We wanna take this.

So yeah. 

Zibby: Maybe newly famous. Newly famous. Maybe somebody becomes famous. No, it doesn't work. No. Okay. Forget. But 

Daughter: would be tragically famous would be, would that be like Hazel's because of her mom posting stuff about her? 

Jennifer: It's either Hazel because of her mom, or on the flip side, it's Shera who accidentally does something really terrible with her slime business. That's, I don't know. 

Zibby: Are you selling the slime that goes with the slime business?

Jennifer: I would. If someone can help me make that for sure. That's, I like that outside the box thinking. 

Daughter: So we are, we know actually a movie producer and a team, we can maybe bring it up.

Jennifer: I honestly, I love writing and I love telling these stories, and I need all the help I can get. So I will, I'm gonna, we can talk like plots after this and then we can also talk representation. 

Zibby: You'll get your first producer credit if you make this happen. 

Jennifer: Yeah. You'll get a, you'll get a, you're, you would be ama you'll get a cameo on the show, I feel like if you like to act.

Daughter: I, I do. Who knows. 

Jennifer: But no, it's been it's, I know z be like, I know we've talked for over the years a lot and I just. I love this middle grade space. I wanna do what I can to keep it going and to keep giving readers who, like the way I write more books to read. 'cause I, as a parent, I appreciate that when my kids find an author they like, or a series they like and they can just keep diving back into it.

Yeah, that's what I'm here to do. 

Zibby: I love it. 

Daughter: I have one. One last question. Yes. When you were Abby's age, did you also have a journal or notebook that you wrote in? 

Jennifer: I did. I had a journal that I wrote in. I still have it, and a lot of times when I go on school visits, I. People will ask me what recommendation I have for anyone who wants to write or become a writer.

And I used to have kind of a stock answer, but now I've changed my mind. And I think my answer is that anybody who loves books or wants to become a writer should have a private place to write. And I know we don't wanna give this away, but like it didn't work out quite that way for Abby. But in an ideal world, everyone who wants to be a writer should have some kind of secret private place. They write, whether it's a journal or whether it's a document on their computer that they save as and they title like Math homeworks, but no one ever gets interested enough to read it. Yeah, I think that's really important for people your age and then people the same ages as your mom and I.

Daughter: Those were all my questions for now. 

Zibby: Amazing. 

Daughter: Do you have any questions? 

Zibby: Do I have any questions? Those were those. Those were really good. I'm totally fascinated with this. How have. Sales been. And how has marketing been now that you've taken it all on your own versus having the support of a publisher? 

Jennifer: So sales have been really steady, which is great.

They were great in the beginning 'cause everybody I knew bought the book and I was very excited. And then I got very nervous. But they're continuing on slow and steady, which I know is all word of mouth because I haven't gotten a single trade review because it's self-published sales have also been really good at the independent bookstores where I have personal relationships because I'm able to go to those booksellers, show them the book, explain the story, and then they have been really great about putting it on the shelves.

Marketing is not my strength. I struggle with it because I find part of what we were talking about with the gatekeepers, like I would love to be able to talk to people like your daughter all day long, but it's hard when you're trying to reach a 10-year-old or an 11-year-old, it's hard to reach them, right?

If you're writing Y, A or young adult, or adult fiction. You can get on TikTok or you can get on Instagram and you can talk directly to your readers. So middle grade is different. So whenever I can talk directly to readers, I feel like the marketing goes well, but I am struggling to figure out.

How to really strike that balance of reaching enough people or enough, enough kids, enough young girls. 

Zibby: Do you have any ideas about how authors who are targeting younger kids can reach them?

Daughter: Re a lot of people that are like my age are on like, not like Instagram or TikTok, but like more so YouTube.

Jennifer: I know YouTube shorts. Yeah, I know I that's where we need the movie to come into play because if we could just get a professional producer to help me film some YouTube shorts, I feel like we'd be golden. But I don't know how to do it. And I spend so much time telling my kids to get off of YouTube that then when I'm like, Hey guys, can someone help me figure out this YouTube short stuff?

I feel really hypocritical, but I might have to just get over that. Do you use CapCut? Do you know what CapCut is?

Daughter: I actually do use cap cut and I help mom make a lot of her edits on CapCut. 

Jennifer: Okay. So and that's worked for you guys to Okay. I might, I think I, yeah. 

Daughter: It's not as hard as it looks. It's, you have to press a lot of buttons and that kind of stuff, but once you get used to it, it's really cool.

Jennifer: Okay. 

Daughter: And there's AI features, so it's easy. 

Jennifer: I know. I wish we could cast camp famous right now and act it out, right? Like in Central Park or something, and then put it up on YouTube shorts. But.. 

Zibby: Why don't you do it? Why don't you adapt it? 

Jennifer: Oh,.. 

Zibby: I'm serious. Just try just try to take out all the descriptions and just keep the dialogue and see what happens.

And put your daughter, get her friends and just do it. 

Jennifer: Yeah. 

Zibby: I could definitely think about that. I You do one scene. Don't do the whole book. 

Jennifer: Yeah. 

Zibby: Do the first scene, see how it goes. Film it on an iPhone with like cinematic. 

Jennifer: Yeah. 

Zibby: And then at least you'd have the shorts.

Jennifer: Yeah. No, I guess I do have a whole crew of girls that I could draw from if they would indulge me or we could do some like really awesome. Oh man. Some like suddenly famous would be good on the screen too. 

Daughter: Yeah. 

Jennifer: But that scene, that scene at the, we can't talk about it, but like towards the end. 

Zibby: What do you think would happen if she went on YouTube and said, I'm casting for a YouTube special and an adaptation of this book.

Would anyone be interested? And then have random kids apply and have them do it with their friends? 

Daughter: Oh, they could do that. Or I think that would be a good idea. You can set up like a website. Or yeah, there's some websites and apps that you can use for casting, but also I feel like if you have, so there are a lot of videos on YouTube where it's like clips of a movie and that gets like at least it gets me really hooked and try to find the rest of the movie, or something like that.

So I would say you could make the shorts, but then eventually turn it into a movie. 

Zibby: Yeah. Yeah. But this would be good proof of concept. 

Jennifer: Yeah. 

Zibby: Why not? Could be fun. 

Jennifer: Honestly, that's how Suddenly Famous is here. 'cause I was like, why not do it? Like I'm not I want, I believe in this story, I believe in these characters.

I wanna get them out to more kids. And I just did it in book form and you guys are just thinking outside the box in terms of like theatrical form. And that's just something I haven't thought about yet. But that's a good idea. 

Zibby: Actually. Now that we're saying this out loud, we should do diary hovers this way.

Yeah. 

Daughter: Why? 'cause it's just it's meant to be a book. 

Zibby: Oh. She doesn't wanna adapt our book. 

Daughter: I think Camp Famous would be a really good movie. 

Jennifer: Thanks me too. 

Daughter: Because like they're like, I used to be like not a book person. I'm not really that much book person, but I really like this book series that you wrote.

But a lot of kids don't like love books, but get really hooked on like movies. 

Jennifer: Yep. 

Daughter: So I think it would be a really good idea. 

Zibby: Do you think there's a way for kids who love the book to spread the word to their friends? 'cause word of mouth is. Jen was saying is such a good idea. 

Jennifer: I know I've got all I've got a good crew of like I live in Boston.

I've got a lot of great Boston readers and they all talk and they spread the word, but I need to get outside of Boston. 

Daughter: So actually at my school we do like book talks every Wednesday and I actually did one on Camp Famous recently. 

Jennifer: Thank you. 

Daughter: Of course. 

Jennifer: I appreciate that. 

Zibby: So we've spread the word here.

Jennifer: Thank you guys. Thanks. New York City. Now we have Boston and New York City covered. There's just so many out there we need to tackle. Yeah. I'm happy. I know. I think that's why I think series are great because when you find, when you love, and then if the author keeps providing more and more, then you can just, it's just more books like it's more stories to read before you go to sleep at night. And I'm sure you've tried, I'm sure you try a lot of books and keeping an open mind. But some books hit differently with different readers, and if you love, I feel like at your age, if you love fantasy, you're golden. There's a lot of wonderful fantasy series.

It's a little bit harder, honestly, I think if you like contemporary fiction, especially if it's lighter contemporary fiction, which is what I like to read as an adult. 

Zibby: We've had some wings of fire. 

Daughter: Recently. 

Zibby: Recently too.

Daughter: Just with my, like my younger brother. 

Zibby: Yeah, her younger brother is obsessed.

So we've all started reading a little bit to see what the big deal is. 

Jennifer: Wings of Fire is incredible. Percy Jackson is incredible. There's land of story, like there's so many great big fantasy series, but why can't we also do that for contemporary fiction, I think, right? If we've got this big, like Wings of Fire has an amazing cast of big dragons with loads of different personalities and huge epic adventures, that's something to aspire to as far as I'm concerned.

Like a series with lots of kids, lots of adventures, lots of big challenges. Like we can have that in the real world too. As far I. It's, that's been my experience. Who knows what life is gonna throw at you. 

Zibby: Maybe. Okay. I'll stop with ideas, but maybe 

Jennifer: I love them 'cause I don't think I'm not as good.

I love to write, like I could write all day. I struggle thinking outside the box with marketing. I get a little bit tied up and self-conscious and then I stop. 

Zibby: I feel like with the summer camp audience, partnering with the different camps. 

Jennifer: Yeah. 

Zibby: Partnering with camp advisors and maybe giving the book to 50 campers at a certain camp and telling them to do something creative with it and see what comes out of it. 

Jennifer: Yeah. 

Daughter: It's like you could do like a summer reading at like a sleepaway camp. That's a great idea. But it's like it's camp famous. 

Zibby: Yeah. Summer reading at Sleepaway Camp. And maybe you could, maybe there'd be some incentives or something.

Daughter: What.. 

Zibby: Incentives, like prizes or things that kids would get if they read it as their summer reading at the camp. Would that help you read if you weren't like.. 

Daughter: Yeah, probably. 

Zibby: I don't know. This is all very exciting and congratulations on figuring out how to totally entertain my daughter for hours, which I have about a two minute time where she tolerates me. No, I'm kidding. 

Jennifer: I hear you. It's different when it's not your mom. It's like automatically am easier time. So if I write really famous, if I send you a rough draft, will you give me some honest feedback? 

Daughter: Yes. 

Jennifer: Okay. 

Zibby: She would be very excited. 

Jennifer: Oh gosh, now I just have to do it.

See, but this is like good kind of pressure. But that's the problem with marketing is marketing also takes up a lot of time. So when you're trying to do it all yourself, when you're try, like that's, I think the biggest challenge of independently publishing that I'm finding right now is that when I'm trying to write, produce content, produce the book itself physically and do the marketing, it's pretty overwhelming.

Zibby: If you wouldn't mind just finishing the rough draft before she goes to sleepaway camp this summer that would be great. 

Jennifer: I'm just like, it's April 22nd. 

Zibby: You have you have a couple minutes. 

Jennifer: Okay. 

Zibby: No, we're, she's actually going in July. 

Jennifer: Oh, even better. 

Daughter: July 15th. 

Zibby: July 15th. We could give it to her as a gift and she could read it at camp.

Jennifer: Okay. It might have to be like, printed out on my printer at home, but we'll spiral. We'll spiral bind it and send it on its way and then you can pass it off to all your bunk mates. And then that's how we, that's how we roll. 

Zibby: Love it. Now everybody has a deadline. All right, perfect. 

Jennifer: Nothing better than a deadline.

Zibby: Oh my gosh. All right. Congratulations on Camp Famous, suddenly Famous, which is by her bed. So we forgot to bring it in and yes, congrats. We're so excited. And in your corner and here for all of it, right? 

Jennifer: Yeah, thanks. Okay, next up is like Central Park with a TV crew. You got it. And a whole slew of actors.

Zibby: Yes. 

Jennifer: Okay. 

Zibby: Good luck. 

Jennifer: Thanks so much guys. It was lovely talking to you. And thanks for the motivation because this is why I do it. So we'll keep going. 

Zibby: Thank you. 

Daughter: Thank you. 

Jennifer: Reading I'll keep writing books for you too. Keep reading them. 

Zibby: Bye. 

Jennifer: Bye guys. Nice talking to you. 

Daughter: Bye. 

Zibby: You too.