I got a pleasant surprise yesterday and so did 380 other people—the number of those who went away with a free copy of my book, Mirrored Sword Part One. They are some of the many friends and supporters of OnlineBookClub.org, a group that supplied me all day with truckloads of good vibes and kindnesses, an unusual experience with complete strangers in social media! That’s what they do. They are book lovers, in sync with an organisation that mediates between readers and authors.

I also sold 12 copies of my other book, PART TWO, and I’m sure that many of those gifted with PART ONE will end up buying the second in the series. It’s a great story. Then again, I am aware that no book can ever be everyone’s cup of tea, and this was very apparent yesterday when I found myself on two of Amazon’s TOP LISTS of free books. One was in the category Humour and the other was in Medieval Historical Romance. My book is a tragicomic epic. It has elements of humour and it has elements of romance but it also has much more besides, and oh how lonely and out of place it looked in the midst of all that pulp fiction! Here is a sample.

So, now I am wondering if it is worthwhile handing out so many free copies of my books, if the books end up landing on high profile lists where they clearly do not belong, and where they are unlikely to find satisfied buyers. Then again, I encountered so many nice people with nice things to say yesterday, I might try the experiment again.

You can grab one of my books at Amazon using the buttons below. Part One is still free for a few days and both Parts are priced as low as possible for most of April: just US $1.00 or £0.77 each.

Phwizz, whoosh, BAM, zip, titta titta titta, BANG, BANG,

KABOOM!

“Why the fireworks?” says a busybody.

“I’m celebrating,” Allan explains while lighting a Catherine Wheel.

“What are you celebrating?”

“The OnlineBookClub has started promoting my book BOTD.”

“You wrote a book titled BOTD?”

“No, Mirrored Sword Part One—it’s Book of the Day.”

“So why should I care?”

Swissa-swissa-swissa-swissa

“The book is FREE on Amazon—it’s part of the celebration.”

“Thats a pretty Catherine Wheel!”

“It’s won’t last long and neither will Book of the Day. Get it while you can.”

“What else?”

“Part Two is only US $1.00 and that won’t last long either.”

Phwizzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

“You’re right, the Catherine Wheel fizzled out all too soon.”

“Yes but the BOTD deal is still live, so get it at Amazon now. Just press on one of the buttons below and you’ll be there in a flash.”

What makes Mirrored Sword such a great story? I have no problem sharing my secret with you. I didn’t write it to make a lot of money. I wanted to write a great novel, a modern epic set in the exotic past, a tragicomic adventure/romance that will get readers hanging on tight in a rollercoaster ride with vivid characters, the dialogue witty and charming, the setting historically authentic. If the ride is slow in places, you know it’s building up to something big.

“Yeah, yeah, blah blah blah,” I hear you scoff.

You don’t believe me? Get Part One and give it a try. What have you got to lose? It’s free or almost. If you like the experience, get Part 2 as well, because it’s just as cheap, BUT REMEMBER: it is only for a limited period.

Click on the menu above to learn more, or click on the buttons below to shop now.

Selling books to the public is like feeding roses to a dinosaur. Individual people are smart, canny, sensitive creatures, endowed with an olfactory nerve that sniffs out bargains and treasures from miles away, but the public is a different critter. Massed together as a crowd, people feed as one, think, feel, move in the manner of a primeval beast of the forest, ponderous, slow to advance, governed by habit. The networks of synapses that flash signals along the individual’s spinal column and cerebral cortex in only microseconds, enabling homo sapiens to adapt to new circumstances in rational leaps of the imagination, so that you and I can evade the snapping jaws of a predator almost at the same instant as we skewer dinner for tonight (and your synapses have already worked out that I am exaggerating your abilities in the wild) – these rapid connections just don’t happen in the public’s nervous system. It lumbers along the paths it has always followed, generation after generation, never really varying ancestral routines, feeding where it always fed, seeing what it always saw, thinking what it always thought, or, if it does change, it is only in externals and only by imperceptible degrees, inch by inch, aeon by aeon.

Thus we always find ourselves reliving history.

“Stop the world!” you often say. “I want to get off.”

 Sorry but there is no getting off this ride, at least not while you can still contemplate the possibility. It is your fate to be dragged along in the public’s wake from the moment you are born to the moment you die, an insignificant molecular cell in a long, long, long tail, neither known, nor loved nor mourned by the enormous host you are part of. It is the tragedy of being you, and the comedy too.

“But what has all this got to do with books?” I hear you complain, because your synapses can’t help firing on all cylinders, you inquisitive little creature.

So I’ll tell you.

Books are the foliage that the dinosaur devours, the same leaves, the same stories, with just a few differences between, a slightly serrated edge here, the suggestion of an interesting colour there, a minutely raised vein on this side, something like a polished surface on the other – it is all one to the dinosaur. A rose might be a rose by any other name but it’s just greenery to him. Ten miles down the track, it’s poo.

“So, you are an author!” you say.

Does it show?

Deadly epidemics, rampant crime, wars and rumours of wars – sound familiar? That’s right, it’s the year 1471, and life struggles amid the ruins of better times, as political divisions and dynastic struggles leave the authorities corrupt and powerless. Yet these are also times of renewal.

Mirrored Sword is a story of the living past and it will keep you smiling through the rage and fury you might feel today, on the verge of a world that seems to be coming apart. It is, in a nutshell, a tragicomic story of lovers and other buffoons getting their lives together as they guess, blunder and barge their way towards something like victory, freedom and release, with pets, friends, servants and family coming along for the ride.

The story is told in two parts or as a complete whole, and you can mix and match eBooks and paperbacks to suit your tastes and budget. It includes a feast of talking points that you can share with those near and dear to you, or those in the way of becoming near and dear, as you work your way through the twists and turns of the plot, every I-knew-it opening onto an I-don’t-believe-it, and every What-a-man or What-a-woman crumbling into Stop-it-while-you-still can-You-Fool! Then there are all the How-dare-they moments, and I-daren’t-turn-another-page! Chances are you’ll read it again and again, and each time you’ll discover something you hadn’t realised before. It’s a BIG story.

And it is available now at Amazon Books. I’m the author, Allan Hands. You are welcome to poke about my blog for more info, or Shop Now.