Julia Hanna recently interviewed Kelly Clear and me about Vacuum County. It was via livestream, and each of us were live on our own channels. Here is the finished interview.
One of the insights from this interview: If you enjoy science fiction, there's a good chance you will like Vacuum County. For more insights, watch the entire interview. And here's a tip: the closed captioning on YouTube is really good. So if you are having trouble hearing any one of us while we talk or cannot understand something because were are interrupting each other, you can always turn on the cc and get a written version of what was said.
Kelly Clear: "[If you] enjoy sci-fi there's a good chance you will like Vacuum County."
I was talking with someone yesterday about the new Audible Edition ofVacuum County. Having read the great coverage that we got in the Licking News, this person wished me success in my new endeavor. "You can get a free copy of it on Audible," I pointed out.
"What is Audible?" that person asked.
And then I realized: Even someone who has read all the publicity, has seen the great video of the Making of Audible Vacuum County, and who wishes me all the greatest success in the world might not know what it is that I'm talking about. So I decided to try to explain it here.
While Audible started out independently, it is now a subsidiary of Amazon.
Here is a salient excerpt from the Wikipedia article:
Audible's content includes more than 200,000 audio programs from leading audiobook publishers, broadcasters, entertainers, magazine and newspaper publishers and business information providers.[30] Content includes books of all genres, as well as radio shows (classic and current), speeches, interviews, stand-up comedy, and audio versions of periodicals such as The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.
In addition to the regular price charged for audiobooks, Audible offers subscriptions with the following benefits:
Credits: For a monthly subscription fee, a customer receives one or two audio credits. Most titles can be purchased with one of these credits. Some titles (usually larger books or collections of more than one book) may cost two credits, while others (usually very short works) cost only a third of a credit. (Users may also purchase a year's subscription at a time, for a discount, receiving all credits at once, but only in some countries.) Platinum subscribers also receive a complimentary subscription to the digital audio version of The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal.
Subscriber Discount: A subscriber may choose to purchase additional books without credits for a 30% discount.
Additionally, some content—particularly political speeches, government hearings, content such as the 9/11 Report Speech, excerpts, and short stories from books—are available for free.
How to Get a Free Copy of Audible Vacuum County
There are two ways to get a free copy of Vacuum County, read by Kelly Clear on Audible.
How to Prove You Review Books
If you are an Audible Veteran, please show us that you have reviewed some of the books you have listened to. There are two places where people typically review Audible Books.
1) On Audible
On Audible, when you review a book, they ask you questions, and you answer them. Here is an example of a book I reviewed on Audible.
I don't know whether they don't trust people who listen to audiobooks to be able to write free style reviews, but on Audible, even if you are not the world's most prolific writer, they will prompt you with questions to cover the basic facts about the audiobook, including a separate critique of the content and of the reader.
2) On Amazon
On Amazon, you can write whatever you want, covering whatever aspects of the book that struck you. Here is an example of an Audible book that I reviewed on Amazon.
You might need to be signed in at Amazon to see that page. Amazon is very secretive, and not all my reviews show up on my reviewer page, nor can you get to my reviewer page from each of my reviews. The reason for this is not entirely clear.
Summary
Audible.com is a site owned by Amazon that specializes in Audiobooks. You can get a free copy of Audible Vacuum County there. If you have never joined Audible before, then you don't need to ask me and Kelly for anything. You can just choose Vacuum County as your first book and get it free. If you are already a member at Audible, show us that you write reviews, and we will send you a code you can use to get the book for free.
Any questions? Feel free to ask them in the comments.
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Biographical Vignettes
Here are some interesting Facts about Kelly Clear, who is the narrator of Vacuum County.
Do you remember your past, and if so, how do you remember it? Can you smell the cookies baking, or see the flies buzzing on the manure? Do you hear the voices of people who are long gone or feel your mother's touch as she fed you your oatmeal or soup before you were allowed to wield a spoon? Can you remember word for word an entire conversation that happened decades ago? And even if you don't actually remember, can you dig deeper into something that happened a long time ago and bring back dormant memories? Is it like re-watching an old episode of a favorite TV show, which you had forgotten all about, but now recall vividly?
My grandmother Klara, myself, and my grandfather Benzion Katz
Not all people have that kind of memory. Some can know things from the past, the same way we know historical facts, without having access to an image or a sound or a sequence of events that led to the conclusions that were drawn from the experience. Without access to the life event that led to a particular belief, it is not even possible to go back and reassess our conclusions.
Today, I posted an old memory of an interaction with my grandfather many years ago.
Without an episodic memory, I could still have told you about how old I was when I started reading, or where I learned English, but I could not have described the vivid experience of knowing how to read and being told not to read out loud what was clearly written on the page. I could not have remembered the pointer, or my grandfather's voice.
Today I came across an article about how some people can't see pictures in their imagination. As a result, they might not enjoy reading fiction, and they might not be able to visualize objects at will. But I think this is not strictly an issue of visualizing. I think some people cannot re-experience any sensory memories in the sequence in which they happened. They can remember what an apple looks and tastes like well enough to recognize an apple the next time they see it, but they have no memories of specific apples, and how they felt and tasted, and who gave them those apples.
I know there are some people who enjoy nonfiction, because they feel it is factual and that they gain knowledge from it, but they get nothing whatever out of fiction. If the facts in the books are all made up, why even bother to memorize them, they think. But we don't set out to memorize fiction. The whole point is to experience it as raw events in the making. Then we are free to draw our own conclusions. We don't have to agree with the narrator, who may or may not be reliable
While it's true that nonfiction has an authoritative voice, it often presents us with fewer facts from which we may draw our own conclusions. Every news source is biased, and unless we learn to read between the lines, accounting for the idiosyncrasies of the unreliable narrator, then we are stuck with all our thinking done for us by somebody else.
I have never liked that. That's why I am not going to sit around watching the news, whether the source is CNN or Fox. I would much rather ferret out the truth for myself, by paying attention to the tell-tale facts that show up in my peripheral vision while I am experiencing life. And since I have great episodic memory, I can replay old episodes in my mind's eye years after they happened, until I can get a detail that escaped me before to come into focus.
The virtue of Vacuum Countyis that we can experience the story from multiple points of view. All of them are biased, but together they help us to build a consistent image of the truth that each narrator cannot help but also share. All people lie. But all people also tell the truth, if you know how to listen. Vacuum County is good training. Listen to Kelly Clear tell you the story, and close your eyes to see what images your mind conjures up.
It's December already! This year, my marketing focus has been mostly on Vacuum County. That's because the Audible Edition of Vacuum County will be released very soon.
Here is a short vignette of Kelly Clear, talking about his formative experiences with reading out loud.
I really hope you will give Audible Vacuum County a listen, even if you have already read the book. But while we wait for the release, you might consider one of my other books. You don't have to read them all. You could just choose one!
Those of you have been following this blog may remember that earlier in the year, I was very preoccupied with the death of the poet F.L. Light.
I wrote about Light, my expanding view of him over time, and how I found out about his death. Then I wrote about what had happened to his works online after his death.
Shortly after that, I started to talk about Kelly Clear and my collaboration with him over an Audible Edition of Vacuum County.
Kelly Clear, laughing
For anyone who might be interested in how these events are connected, and how I found such a great voice artist and musician to help me with this work, here is a video that explains everything. For me, it was serendipity, pure and simple.
If you would like to read Kelly Clear's review of Vacuum County, here it is. It's there with all the others. Right below it is the review by F L Light, entitled "Aggressive Hospitality."
I was thinking of F.L. Light and how much better his Audible books were faring than his print books, when help came from an unexpected quarter. Kelly Clear, a vocalist who has been singing some of the Debt Collector songs, sent me a very nice reading from Vacuum County. It just happened over this weekend, and voila! here is a short demo.
Vacuum County is my most critically acclaimed novel. However, it is not my best seller. Over the years I have made a few videos about it. There is, of course, this trailer that emphasizes the Phoenician connection.
There is also this short discussion about the Biblical inspiration for the book.
And here is the video in which I discuss how realizing that Cabeza de Vaca had to be Nabal's ancestor led me back to my book report on Hannibal of Carthage by Mary Dolan. .
And there is also the video in which I discuss the connection to the Branch Davidians in Mt. Carmel, Texas.
There is also one video filmed outdoors in the outer pen in which I am proofing Vacuum County and reading it out loud. but we are interrupted when Leo, who was just a puppy at the time, was whining for attention, and I had to get Bow to agree that I would go help Leo. We also still had chickens at the time. You can hear the rooster crow. But it does not make much of a reading.
I by far prefer Kelly Clear's readings to my own, and I look forward to working with him on a long term project on Audible to produce a full audio version of Vacuum County.
