Pass the word around. On February 5 & 6 my new 'pocket' thriller, 'One False Move' will be free on Amazon Kindle. Click on the image for the link.

So, what's the story? Ex US assassin, ex Hong Kong Police, ex esoteric monk, Irish-American Mike Delaney, is forced to offer his life in place of his kidnapped wheelchair-bound friend Bob Messenger and his daughter.                

Delaney has just two hours to locate and rescue them from the hands of a crazed escapee, a figure from his past, hell bent on turning the wheelchair into an electric chair and wreaking revenge on Mike Delaney.Exactly what the bad guy has in mind for Messenger, trapped in his wheelchair, will make sparks fly – literally. But I'm not going to give away the ending here. I admit, this is an unashamed promotional ploy in a download that includes excerpts from other thrillers including 'The Immortality Plot'; 'Knife Edge' and 'Bodyswitch'. as well as this new mini-thriller.      

It's the first time I have tried the programme called Kindle Select. I have read it is nowhere near as effective as it used to be. 'One False Move'  will join thousands of other titles in a freebie section of Amazon, complete with its own league table. You can make a title free for five days in every 90 days so I will probably try this giveaway again before March.

Some writers have reported significant spikes in downloads which may lead on to sales but I expect the effect to be short lived. Despite the revolution promised by the ebook revolution it can be as tough if not tougher to become visible as it was under the conventional (and still existing) publishing model.

The criticism is that there is no critical factor at play with self-published works. Anybody can put any old rubbish out there, so that the gems get buried under an avalanche of detritus;  books that would never get published in a million light years.

But, it has also changed the landscape and given readers vastly more choice.

I don't think real books (which I love) will ever be fully replaced unless it is under some Deep Mind artificial intelligence world where robots read books for us and sit around the solar campfire relating stories to us poor humans who have lost the ability to read and the judgement to decide what is good or bad.                             

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