 |
||||||||||||
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
||||||
|
  A Death on Demand Mystery |
|
||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
|
by Kate Stine When the first customer wandered into New York's Murder Ink on June 14, 1972 it was a historic event. Located on Manhattan's Upper West Side, this small store was the first bookshop ever entirely devoted to selling mysteries. Murder Ink's owner, Dilys Winn, was gambling her future solely on the lure of "whodunnit?"-- a gamble that must have seemed very risky at the time. Yet, on that fateful June day the essential ingredients for today's booming mystery marketplace were already present: an expert bookseller with an infectious love of mysteries and a well-stocked store. It would be hard to overestimate how just how effective a
recommendation by a knowledgeable and friendly bookseller can be.
Both Sue Grafton and Robert B. Parker started out as booksellers'
favorites, as have countless other writers; and the tradition
continues today. Kate's Mystery Books in Cambridge, for example,
offers a separate display area for award-winning mysteries as
well as "Picks of the Store." Bruce Taylor, owner of the San
Francisco Mystery Bookstore, has a table for recommended books in
the store--but he also keeps his current favorite right next to
the cash register for handselling.That's not to say that there haven't been effective-- and
entertaining-- innovations by other mystery booksellers. Tom and
Enid Schantz, now the owners of the Rue Morgue in Denver,
pioneered the mystery mail-order business in the early 1970s. Rue
Morgue's entertaining monthly catalog, "The Purloined Letter,"
keeps their customers abreast of the newest releases and accounts
for a large part of the stores' annual revenue. The proliferation
of newsletters, catalogs and websites points to the importance of
mail-order in the overall business plan of many mystery
bookstores.Mystery booksellers have had great success in both creating
and serving a market for collectable mysteries. Booksellers, by
educating customers about the genre, the writers and the
intricacies of book collecting, have fueled the market for both
modern and older collectable mysteries. The Mysterious Bookshop
in New York, in particular, is a well-known haven for collectors
of vintage crime.Many mystery bookstore owners leave the premises to teach
classes and give speeches thereby garnering publicity and new
customers for their shops. For example, Mary Alice Gorman of the
Mystery Lovers Bookshop in Oakmont, PA, runs a program for junior
high students on the "History of Mysteries" as well as a "Holy
Whodunit" presentation which is popular for Sunday adult
education programs.Barbara Peters of The Poisoned Pen in Scottsdale, Arizona,
sponsors the annual AZ Murder Goes... Conference, each year
picking a different topic. Mystery
bookstores have a long history of sponsoring fan conventions most
notably Bouchercon, the genre's most important international
gathering.Increasingly booksellers are creating events to lure
customers into their stores. Signings, of course, have long been
a staple of mystery bookselling and are particularly popular with
collectors. Partners & Crime offers classes for fledgling mystery
writers by drawing upon New York's plentiful supply of writers,
editors, agents and crime enforcement professionals. Other stores
offer lectures or musical performances that tie in with
particular books, start monthly reading groups, invite customers
to Sunday tea, or similar events.
These strategies and others have proven to be extremely
successful. From one little bookshop in 1972, today there are
well over 150 mystery bookstores around the world. Crime in Store
in London, Krimi Galerie in Austria, Sleuth of Baker Street in
Toronto, Die Wendeltreppe in Frankfurt, Gaslight Books in
Australia-- all of these stores and many more around the world
attest to the growing popularity of mystery fiction.Certainly mystery bookselling has come a long way in the past
25 years-- as has Dilys Winn herself, now the owner of Miss
Marble's Parlour in Key West. Still, the role of the mystery
bookseller in the life of a mystery fan remains essentially the
same--they are our partners in crime, aiding and abetting us in
our search for "whodunnit."Before establishing her editing and consulting business, Kate Stine worked for many years in mystery publishing most recently as Editor-in-chief of Otto Penzler Books. She also served as editor-in-chief of The Armchair Detective Magazine from 1992-1997. Both the magazine and her mystery reference book, The Armchair Detective Book of Lists, won Anthony Awards at the 1996 Bouchercon World Mystery Convention. |
|
||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
 |
 |
|||||||||||
MysteryNet.com: The Online Mystery Network. Copyright © 1999 Newfront Productions, Inc. and Avon Books |
||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||||||
 |
||||||||||||
