Thursday, December 22, 2005

Gerard Jones: Ginny Good audiobook is done

Back in August we noted that Gerard Jones was at work on converting his masterwork Ginny Good into an audio format. Well, now it's done. Here is Gerard's press release in full, so that you have all the details. When you've read it, I have a few comments.

Okay, after working ten or twelve hours a day, seven days a week, for a little over six months—not to mention the money it cost to hire an audio engineer...or the twenty years it took to write the book in the first place...or the eight years it took to get it published, edited and distributed—I finally finished both versions of The Audio Book of Ginny Good and got them stuck onto CDs. Phew. The voice only version is eleven hours long; the multimedia version is fifteen hours long. I'm giving them both away for free. If you want to see the index and/or download the big version, click this:

http://everyonewhosanyone.com/ggsyn.html

If you want to see how to get CDs of both or either version OR a signed copy of the real book, click this:


http://everyonewhosanyone.com/money.html

Once you get the CD or CDs, you're welcome to copy 'em and give 'em away to anyone you want, or copy 'em and sell 'em if you want, that's fine with me. I don't care if anyone buys my stuff I just want 'em to hear it or read it.

If you want to see three years of stuff I've been excited to say about the mind-numbingly inane, money-grubbing loser twits who run the book and movie businesses, click this:

http://everyonewhosanyone.com/other3.html

And of course, as always, you're more than welcome to poke around among all the other free stuff on this site to your heart's content. Click some links. Let 'em take you where they take you. Oh, oh, and here's a Christmas Story. Have yourself a merry little Christmas!

http://everyonewhosanyone.com/audio/GGch25m.mp3

Gerard Jones

http://everyonewhosanyone.com/
everyone@everyonewhosanyone.com


OK, now before you start clicking the links, just a few words. First, the audio files take a little while to load, even on broadband. And if you ain't got broadband that could be a long wait. Start with the Introduction, which is short. Then you can either settle down to listen the whole thing, from Chapter one on, or just dip into some more at random.

I have to say that I think the whole thing is quite wonderful. It's a tremendous achievement. And I especially admire the choice of music, which is so evocative of the period.

There are, of course, morals for all of us here. All of us, that is, who care about writing. Whatever your feelings about Gerard, whether you love him or hate him, he is surely an example of what can be done, if you have the mind to.

You can write a book. It may not be a great one. The laws of probability say that it is very unlikely to be great. But if you stick with it long enough you will eventually get to the point where it strikes you as OK, if not perfect.

And then you can, if you choose to, put it before the public somehow or other. God knows there are a million ways now. And then, if you still have the appetite, you can do it in a different format.

Oh, and if you are sensible, you won't expect it to make you a fortune; or cover your costs. So you might just as well go one step further: become part of the gift economy, and give it away for free.

If that isn't a source of inspiration then I don't frankly know what to do for you. And it's a new year coming up. You could make a resolution. Or something.

4 comments:

Dr Ian Hocking said...

Hi Grumpy

Just a quick note to say that my own audiobook/podcast is continuing in a evil-hand-rubbingly way over at my blog: http://www.ianhocking.com/dejavu/audiobook.html

I'm six podcasts into a predicted thirty-episode series (about 20 mins each).

If anyone else wants to do this, you might want to use a creative commons copyright licence (since the usual copyright licence is a bit unwieldly). I also have tips on my blog (click my name) about how a podcast can be put together equipment- and software-wise.

Merry Xmas
Ian

Anonymous said...

Woo Hoo. Gerard did it again.
And Dr. Ian Hocking is doing it.
Reminds me of back in the stone age when we didn't have podcasts.
I brought out my first novel, The Black Icon through a printer friend, the first review consisiting of guys reading it, out of boredom, on the assembly line. Soon the whole print shop was reading the thing, and they had journalist friends, and that's how it all started.
It took 26 years before a local library put its imprimatur on the Black Icon and I guess I could call myself published. But what we do in those 26 years of obscurity! The palliatives are everywhere, the drink, the drugs, the beautiful women--everything but hardcover authorship.
So my hat is off to you people who didn't choose self-indulgence or self destruction, but stuck with the project to the end.
Stunning achievement, Gerard Jones, and it looks like Dr. Ian
Hocking is on his way too (I do identify with a hero being chased by a shodowy "CIA" personage. One of my subsequent novels starts that way, but it looks like Ian Hocking had the discipline to turn the book into a thriller and not a personal narrative).
Good on you, gentlemen.
Ivan

Anonymous said...

Gerard Jones' 1960's memoir traces brilliantly the history of pro wrestling and hydrotherapy (and the subtle but undeniable connection between the two), from its inception in the early '60s to the present time.

The traditional red rubber bag works well for some, a more modern inception of that classic design for others- this seems to be the subtext of Gerard's rich narrative.

One must not understate, however, the extent to which Ginny Good hints at the dark world behind such early WWF greats such as Hulk Hogan. These giants of show business and their mid career discoveries of the magic of lavage are a fascinating, postmodern phenomenon handled deftly by Jones.

Indeed, i would dare say no other writer since Hemingway has shown such a manly ability to penetrate the dark world of the World Wrestling Federation and colonic hydrotherapy, and touch upon each of them with a homoeroticism that i myself found rather stirring!


Chris Farrow
imagineblue11@yahoo.com

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