I shouldn't complain. Well, I'm not, really.The new phenomenon of joint author promotions is proliferating. It's a grass roots movement of authors swamped, as are readers, with the sheer volume of books descending on the market driven by the self-publishing revolution.

The irony of this situation is that it is now just as difficult, and often soul or creativity destroying, to become visible today as an author as it has always been if you were conventionally published by one of the big boys.

In terms of the quality of all these books, well that's difficult for me to say. It will probably be akin to the quality of manuscripts landing in the mailboxes of agents and publishers.

One sector which seems to be expanding is what I describe as erotica/romance/softporn. That might be unfair to some genuinely stimulating novels, and it's almost impossible to distinguish a genuine piece of romantic fiction from sexually repressed fantasies since most of the covers merge into one featuring men with six packs stripped to the waist.

In fact, covers like these are so commonplace now as to spark the remark in some quarters (I've heard) about male exploitation. Well, women are entitled to get their own back.

And those authors could probably also cite the covers of the latest promotion of which my Mike Delaney thriller Captured is a part.

See if you can find it below. The link to the promotion is Book Deals Today IT'S ON NOW, FOLKS