I am pleased to participate in the Book Tour hosted by Orangeberry Book Tours for N.S. Wikarski's The Granite Key.
About Nancy:
About Nancy:
Nancy Wikarski is a fugitive from academia. After earning her Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, she became a computer consultant and then turned to mystery and historical fiction writing. Her short stories have appeared in Futures Magazine and DIME Anthology, while her book reviews have been featured in Murder: Past Tense and Deadly Pleasures. She has written the Gilded Age Chicago History Mysteries series set in 1890s Chicago. Titles include The Fall Of White City (2002) and Shrouded In Thought (2005). The series has received People's Choice Award nominations for best first novel and best historical. She is a member of Mystery Writers of America and has served as vice president of Sisters In Crime - Twin Cities and on the programming board of the Chicago chapter. She is currently writing the seven book Arkana Archaeology Thriller Mystery series. Her work on the Arkana volumes has prompted Kindle Nation to call her one of its favorite authors.
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Welcome to Darlene's Book Nook, Nancy!
Nancy has written a guest post, so I will now turn the floor over to her.
Pet Peeves Of The Publishing IndustryBy N.S. Wikarski
Everybody knows that one of the chief benefits of hitting yourself over the head with a hammer is that it feels so good when you stop.
The hammer analogy aptly describes my experience with traditional publishing (aka legacy publishing). My first two books were published conventionally and I suffered through all the usual steps of producing a trade paperback. Editor, proof reader, formatter, cover artist, printer, distributor, publicist, book signings, fan conventions. I learned an enormous amount about the book business but, unfortunately, all the effort expended didn’t translate into much net income.
Then came Kindle ebooks and Createspace print on demand paperbacks. At first, I was hesitant to go the digital route but an author friend pointed out that since I still controlled the rights to my work, I might as well make a few pennies by selling electronic copies of what I’d written. Fortunately, my previous work experience included a few decades as a computer consultant so I was quite comfortable with formatting my own manuscripts. Given how many years I’d spent designing graphic user interfaces, I was equally comfortable with designing my own covers.
The distance from writing a novel to seeing it sold online was shortened by a couple of years. The markets that I could reach via Kindle and Createspace were global, not local. I could promote my work via cyberspace tours rather than packing a suitcase to head to yet another low turnout book signing.
Considering the months and months of work it took to create, warehouse, distribute, and market the legacy print copies, I was staggered to discover that my net royalty for each ebook or print on demand copy was exactly the same as what I was netting for the legacy print version of the same book. Best of all, in two years as a digital author, I’ve sold twice as many copies of my work as I was able to sell in nine years as a print author.
In my opinion, digital books are every writer’s dream come true. So why isn’t everybody doing this? I’ve had this conversation with several of my writer friends who are hesitant to take the plunge. For some it comes down to technical timidity. They’re afraid to format their own books much less tackle the daunting task of designing the covers. I have pointed out that they can hire knowledgeable people to help with these chores but they shrug their shoulders. They have no head for business. It’s not for them.
Other writers are extremely uncomfortable without the blessing of an agent and editor from a big six publishing house. It doesn’t occur to them that in order to receive that blessing, they are parting with their own intellectual property and the lion’s share of the income it could generate. These writers have forgotten that without the content they supply, the entire structure of legacy publishing would crumble like a house of cards. I believe the marketplace, not an agent or editor in New York, should decide the value of a writer’s work. Amazon has removed the middleman from the equation. As far as I’m concerned, Vive La Difference!
Thanks so much for joining us today, Nancy!
One lucky winner will win a digital copy of Nancy's Archaeology Thriller, The Granite Key!
PUBLISHER: N.S. Wikarski
PUBLICATION DATE: January 28, 2012
FORMAT: Kindle Edition, 241 pages
GENRE: Archaeology Thriller
ASIN: B004NIFTI8
ASIN: B004NIFTI8
“Think ‘Medium meets The Lost Symbol’ and it only begins to describe the pleasures of The Granite Key – 5 Stars.” (Kindle Nation)
A Wake-Up Call
In a nightmare, nineteen year old Cassie Forsythe sees her sister attacked by a man in a cowboy hat who demands something called “the key.” Her nightmare mutates into reality before the night is over. Cassie is called to identify her sister’s body–murdered exactly as her dream foretold. Cassie dismisses her vision as a fluke and fights to get on with her life. Disconnected and aimless now that her only family is gone, she drifts until the evening when she catches the man in the cowboy hat ransacking her sister’s apartment. He bolts with an odd-looking stone cylinder–the granite key. From that moment, Cassie’s normal world evaporates.
A Secret Society
She learns that her sister led a double life–retrieving artifacts for a secret organization called the Arkana. The Arkana’s leader, an elder named Faye, explains that her group performs a controversial kind of archaeology. They scour the globe for evidence of ancient pre-patriarchal civilizations in hopes of salvaging the lost history of the world. Their network of troves safeguards artifacts from highly sophisticated goddess-worshipping cultures on every continent. Cassie’s sister had the psychic ability to touch an artifact and relive its past. Cassie has now inherited this gift. Faye wants the girl to take over her sister’s role in the organization. Cassie doubts her powers but agrees. Now an insider, she is transported to the Arkana’s mysterious underground vault in the countryside outside Chicago where the group tackles the mystery of her sister’s murder.
A Dangerous Cult
The Arkana learns that the man in the cowboy hat is a hired mercenary named Leroy Hunt and that he is working for a fundamentalist religious cult known as the Blessed Nephilim. He takes his orders directly from the cult’s domineering prophet–Abraham Metcalf. The granite key which Leroy stole is inscribed with hieroglyphics revealing the location of a mythological artifact reputed to have mystical powers–the Sage Stone. Although skeptical of its legendary capabilities, the Arkana is still afraid to allow the relic to fall into the cult’s hands. Abraham’s fanatical belief in the power of the Sage Stone could be the catalyst to start a war of religious genocide.
Unlocking The Key
Before she died, Cassie’s sister took photos of the strange markings on the granite key. The Arkana decodes the hieroglyphics which point to the ancient ruins of Minoan Crete as the hiding place of the Sage Stone. Faye hastily assembles a retrieval team including Cassie, her newly-appointed bodyguard Erik, and a British researcher named Griffin. The band of treasure hunters is mismatched and wildly dysfunctional from the start. Griffin has never gone on a field mission, Erik treats his inexperienced colleagues with contempt, and Cassie second-guesses her psychic hunches. She battles to prove herself to Erik at every turn. Their internal clashes rival the bigger crisis of what to do when they come face to face with their enemies.
A Matter Of Life Or Death
Even as they rake through megalithic tombs and Minoan palaces for clues, Abraham dispatches his son Daniel and hired gun Leroy Hunt to recover the Sage Stone. The Nephilim operatives won’t hesitate to kill anyone standing in their way. Will Cassie and her teammates avert global disaster or find themselves casualties of Abraham’s mania to exterminate the world of unbelievers? The Granite Key holds the answer.
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