The Reds Salute Hank #MaliceDomestic

DEBORAH CROMBIE: As you've probably heard, our fabulous Hank was the Guest of Honor at Malice Domestic this year! We Reds were asked to write a piece for the program book, and we thought you might enjoy the results--along with some fun photos!

LUCY BURDETTE: I first met Hank Phillippi Ryan when I was working on a New England Sisters in Crime calendar in 2003. Several of us traveled across New England with a photographer to take small group shots of our members. One of these was at Hank’s home. She was warm and welcoming and immediately impressive, taking charge of the photo shoot, and insisting we redo it until it was perfectly professional. She was a founding member of the Jungle Red Writers blog (now going on 15?? years and still writing!) She is the biggest engine behind our success, always insisting that we put our best foot forward, welcome all readers and writers, and produce excellent content every.single.day. She is a brilliant brainstormer, an indefatigable supporter of other writers, and the hardest worker in the business. She is known and loved across the country for her twisty suspense novels, her wise advice, and her warm friendship. I knew at that first meeting that I was in the presence of a whirlwind.

HALLIE EPHRON: I met Hank way back when she was working on her first crime novel (PRIME TIME), but here in New England she was already legendary as an investigative TV reporter with shelves full of Emmy Awards. “Help me Hank” was a phrase that thrilled her readers and terrified the targets of her investigations. I was in awe of her glamor and polish, her savvy and her smarts. Her debut novel, PRIME TIME, featuring (what else?) an investigative TV reporter, won the Agatha Award for Best First Novel adding a Teapot (Agatha Award for Best First novel for PRIME TIME) to her shelf of awards. Soon our roles were reversed and she was helping me come up with the perfect title for a story or wrangle a misbehaving character or amp suspense (her forte). To repeat a theme: GENEROSITY! That should be her middle name. I’d be surprised if there’s even a single author at Malice who hasn’t been, like me, been boosted by Hank.

JENN MCKINLAY: There is no greater supporter of other writers in the publishing world than Hank Phillippi Ryan. She is generous with her time, her wisdom, and her enthusiasm, all of which she has in abundance. Truly, between her award-winning investigative journalism and bestselling thriller writing - she is a force of nature! When I joined the Jungle Reds seven years ago, Hank welcomed me with open arms (as did all the Reds) and it’s been a joy having that friendship grow into a real sisterhood. 

(Hank's GOH interview with the lovely Robin Agnew.)

RHYS BOWEN:  Hank and I bonded late one night after an award ceremony where we were both nominated and both didn’t win. I have to say we clicked immediately.  Until then I had been rather in awe of this impeccably polished person with the incredibly high heeled shoes. But once you get to know Hank you discover a warm, generous, funny, witty person who will be your biggest cheerleader. I count her as one of my dearest friends, and certainly the person I could turn to if I needed help, advice or cheering up.

Her support for other authors is legend. That she would give up so much time every week to host upcoming authors on various platforms is beyond commendable. What’s more when she goes out of her way to make her guests look good. I am thrilled that she is being honored at Malice.

DEBORAH CROMBIE: I'd never met Hank Phillippi Ryan when I was invited to join the Jungle Red Writers blog more than a decade ago, and I have to admit I was a little intimidated by this very accomplished and always elegant woman. What I've since discovered is that Hank is THE most generous and supportive person in the mystery community, and that, yes, she really is that nice. Her energy and enthusiasm seem boundless, but even amid her busy schedule she always has time to offer a word of encouragement or advice. I count myself as very fortunate to be her friend, and I can't think of anyone more deserving to be honored at Malice Domestic. Brava, Hank!

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: If Hank were a character in one of her delicious cat-and-mouse suspense novels, you'd be very suspicious of her. Who is this woman asking penetrating questions as if you're the most interesting person she's ever met? Why is she always doing selfless things for others? How is it her hair is always perfect? She must be the villain, right? That's the shocking twist - beneath her striking looks and groaning shelf of awards, she's still the same gosh-darn nice girl from the Hoosier State. Sharp, funny, utterly loyal and with a deep well of love for everyone and everything in the genre she's made her own. She'll take you to lunch, offer you the ballet flats in her purse, feature you on one of her many book promotion platforms, and if you asked how to repay her, she'd be utterly befuddled. Guest of Honor is great, but if Malice Domestic ever decides on a Queen, Hank Ryan has the title sewn up.

Congratulations to our Hank! Any Hank stories that you would care to share?

"Showrooming" and the Independent Bookseller’s Dilemma

SUSAN ELIA MACNEAL: Today I'm proud to be hosting  bookseller Robin Agnew of the terrific independent bookstore, Aunt Agatha's Mystery Bookshop, in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Aunt Agatha's is a charming shop, chock full of  great mysteries, hand-picked favorites for display, and a warm and knowledgeable staff eager to match readers with that absolutely perfect book. Alas, the new-ish customer practice of "showrooming" has caused this small business owner to take pause and have an existential conversation with her inner curmudgeon. Welcome, Robin!

show·room·ing

noun, informal:  the practice of visiting a store 

or stores in order to examine a product before 

buying it online at a lower price.

ROBIN AGNEW: I often work in the store on Saturdays, usually our busiest day of the week, when our college town welcomes lots of out of town visitors and shoppers, especially in the summer when the weather is nice and it’s pleasant to walk around downtown.  

Often visitors to the store will snap some photos.  Some of them like the ambiance of our store which is, to put it mildly, packed to the rafters with books and book-ish smells. Some even take a photo in front of the store by our logo. I like that and find it charming.

More recently, however, I’ve found that many people use cameras for a different reason – to take a picture of a book they plan to then go online and buy for, I’m assuming, less money.  Now, I can certainly accept that people will go online and buy things.  I do it myself,  That’s anyone’s prerogative.

What I find difficult to accept is the fact that we have taken a great deal of trouble to populate our store with the widest possible variety of mystery and crime novels, displaying them thematically, labeling and describing our favorites, etc.  It’s often these books that are photographed. These aren’t books that could be found browsing on online - they are particular recommendations made by us with our particular sensibility.

I recently had a nice family – older parents, late 20s or early 30s daughter – who came in, browsed, and the parents picked up and bought a book.  Their daughter merely picked up books I had carefully selected to display and photographed them, all the while chatting pleasantly.

She was assuming I could certainly understand her need to save 4 or 5 dollars.  Being in a downtown, I see all kinds of people, from the genuinely destitute to the clearly wealthy. I’ve often given a discount or merely given books to people who obviously don’t have the money for something to read. I don’t even mind giving away a novel to an obvious drug addict – maybe that novel will give them a bit of solace, I hope so.

But why middle-class people feel entitled to go ahead and seek the “best deal,” the “biggest discount,” while at the same time demanding your service and attention I find difficult to fathom. I recently posted a whine about this on facebook and got a staggering number of responses, many from authors and booksellers. My dilemma: to put up a sign, or not to put up a sign?  Is it too curmudgeonly?  My husband thinks so.

I got answers ranging from charging a photography fee (appealing, but certainly difficult if not impossible to collect) to suggestions for signs saying “No photos,” “These books never run out of power,” “Buy local,” “Want to remind you that buying a book from us instead of online guarantees good karma” (this from a former bookseller, now a writer), “Photographs $5 payable in advance,” “Our books are shy.  That is why we wrap them in brown paper before leaving the establishment,”  to “No Drinking, Smoking, Electronic Purchasing, or Swearing.”

And from a couple booksellers I respect:  “Signs, probably not, comments specifically to the individual, yes…The challenge is to make your point politely.”   And from a longtime friend and colleague, “Independents should embrace being curmudgeonly – folks already think we are just because we work in bookstores.  Mostly, I think that the answer to this issue is simply to keep doing what we do, which is engaging customers one on one when they walk into our stores.”

I have created a sign that says “Your cell phone is not a shopping tool.”  And I know there are other reasons to photograph – to see if you already have the book, to add it to your list and come back to it later – but mostly this kind of showrooming is on the rise and while I haven’t yet put up my sign, it remains to be seen how far my embrace of codger-hood will go. I feel it coming on.

SUSAN ELIA MACNEAL: When I saw Robin's original Facebook post, I tried to make her feel better by saying I used electronic media the other way around — basically, what I do is download hundreds and hundreds of free sample chapters, read them at odd times (on the subway, waiting at a doctor's office), mark down which one's I really like, then go find them at our local bookstore or the library. 

Lovely Reds and readers, what's your opinion of "showrooming"? Have you ever seen anyone do it at a bookstore? If you were a bookstore owner, how would you handle it?

Tell us in the comments!

Aunt Agatha’s

213 South Fourth Avenue
Ann Arbor, Michigan 48104
734.769.1114

Hours of Business

Monday - Thursday 11-7
Friday & Saturday 11-8
Sunday 12-5

store@auntagathas.com

Aunt Agatha's Robin Agnew — and a Day in the Life of the Kerrytown BookFest

SUSAN ELIA MACNEAL: Today I'm delighted to introduce Robin Agnew and Jamie Agnew of Aunt Agatha's New and Used Mysteries, Detection, & True Crime, an absolutely wonderful bookshop (not to mention the 2014 Raven Award winner) in Ann Arbor, Michigan. I was privileged to meet Robin and Jamie at the KerryTown Book Festival this past fall, an annual gathering of book aficionados, which Robin plans and runs in her role as president.

As an author speaking on a panel and signing with fellow authors and meeting readers, everything at the KerryTown Book Fest was absolutely perfect. Only Robin and Jamie know what really goes on behind the scenes to make such a large and complex (not to mention fun!) event run so smoothly, and I thought it would be interesting to peek behind the scenes with Robin — take it away!

ROBIN AGNEW: Along with running Aunt Agatha’s, I have been involved in running and planning Ann Arbor’s annual Kerrytown BookFest, since 2004.  Through the years of the bookfest I have served as “author wrangler” (my original job), secretary, operations chair, vice president, and I have now served as president for the past couple of years.  

As we are a small, hands on board, and we share duties including obtaining permits from the city, renting equipment, finding a hotel with available rooms during busy football weekends, PR, fundraising, grant writing, finding volunteers, signing up 100 or so vendors each year, poster commission and distribution, programming, set up, tear down, and making sure all parties involved are pleased.  Authors, exhibitors, bookfest visitors - we want everyone to have a great day.

Luckily, a capable board means that while I am part of the discussion of all these things I am not part of the nuts and bolts for all of them.  My central focus is on author programming.  Each year I start with a “seed” – an author I’ve spoken with or met, often at a book signing at the store or at a conference – and from there, the planning begins to grow organically.

Last year my “seed” author was Simone St. James.  I had moderated a panel with her at Bouchercon and was delighted by her.   We actually had two seeds last year, as the year before we had hoped to book Chris Raschka, a two time Caldecott medalist with ties to Ann Arbor, and he was unavailable.  In 2014 he was available so our marquis panel became a panel with 3 Caldecott medalists - Chris, Brian Floca, who won in 2014; and Erin Stead and her husband, Philip.  Erin won in 2011.  

Moderating is tricky, as tricky, I’ve discovered, as the rest of the panel.  For this one I turned to Debbie Diesen, author of the “Pout Pout Fish” books, and asked her.  She’s presented at many of our bookfests in our Children’s area, she’s adorable, and she said yes right away.

And what of Simone’s panel?  I asked her at Bouchercon and she agreed, and then it took a couple more months to hear back as she figured out her schedule.  Meanwhile, I went to the board and said I *really* wanted Susan Elia MacNeal.

Who else?  I asked Tasha Alexander, who lives in Chicago, is beloved by readers, and who has been to he bookfest and the store many times.   She said yes.  And then I read The Ashford Affair by Lauren Willig and loved it so much I asked her.  She said yes in an eyeblink and was possibly the lowest maintenance author of the entire day.  

Who to moderate?  I wanted Anna Lee Huber, who lives close-ish, but knew she had a baby on the way.  To my surprise she also agreed and one of the joys of bookfest last year was that many of these women, while fans of each other’s, hadn’t met.  

OK, easy panel out of the way.  What next?  I often do a  

“guy” and a “girl” panel as far as mysteries go (sexist but true) and  the basis for the guy panel was Michael Harvey.  He’d been to the store  and I was so entranced by him I asked him on the spot.  He agreed and I built the panel around him, which eventually included Edgar winner Theresa Schwegel; newbie and local author Elizabeth Heiter, and frequent bookfest speaker and buddy, Loren D. Estleman.  I asked an old friend and mystery fan to moderate and he was on board immediately.  He couldn’t believe all those writers were going to be in the same place, and I have to say, that’s my programming goal in general. So mystery panels set.  

What else?  We often use the Michigan Notable Book Winners list as a template and one of the first people off the list all of us wanted was Matt Phelan, whose book, Bluffton. was a Notable winner.  We built a graphic novel panel around him, eventually including Jim Ottaviani, Dave Coverly of Speedbump fame (Dave and Jim are both local and had been with us before). At the last minute I substituted in Matt Faulkner when another author had to cancel.  As it happened, I had heard Matt on NPR talking about his book Gaijin: American Prisoner of War, and had dreamed of booking him.

Moderator? Knowing he was a comic book geek,  I asked local NPR talent Michael Jewett. Luckily I know his wife, a former bookseller and a mystery fan - she made him agree, and he was fabulous.

The rest of the festival - ten panels, a children’s area, and a book arts specific area - are programmed in a similar way, using the expertise and connections of my fellow programmers; Lynn Riehl, an events coordinator at a large independent bookstore in town (Nicola’s) and my buddy. PR maven Bill Castanier, who has connections all over the state.

Each of us get wild hairs, are approached by authors we know with ARCs, run into people at parties or conferences, and before we know it we’ve programmed the day.  I was happy to include newbie mystery author Sam Thomas as a moderator on an historical biography panel, for example.  Another example: having drinks with Tim O’Mara after the Edgars in May, he suggested being a “writer in residence” at the store for the day.  We transferred his idea to the bookfest and Tim was booked all day talking to would be writers.

The day of the festival (this coming year September 13, 2015) we welcome about 4,000 visitors with our panels being vigorously attended.  For me the day passes in a flash as I run around trying to make sure everything goes smoothly, along with selling books.  Thankfully we divide bookselling duties - several stores share out the panels.

Then I go home exhausted at the end of the day and somehow, start to think about the next year.  This coming year my “seed” is Denise Swanson.  Tune in and see who joins her!

SUSAN ELIA MACNEAL: Robin, thank you so much for giving us a look backstage! What else can you tell us about the 2015 KerryTown Book Fest? 

Readers, have you ever been to a book festival? Are you surprised by how much work goes on behind the scenes to pull such a complicated event off? Please let us know in the comments!

Aunt Agatha’s

213 South Fourth Avenue

Ann Arbor, Michigan 48104

734.769.1114

Hours of Business:

Monday - Thursday 11-7

Friday & Saturday 11-8

Sunday 12-5

store@auntagathas.com

ON KILLER BOOKS

"Who better to pick the best mystery books of the month than the people who run mystery bookstores?"

http://www.mysterybooksellers.com/

And this just in: today, they picked our Jan! Yesterday's Fatal was named a "Killer Book" for May by the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association. (We've thought YF was a killer book all along, but it's fantastic to have such huge recognition. Check the website above for the whole scoop.)

But first, Jan--take the floor, er, blog.

JAN:

I definitely have too much anxiety when a new book comes out. Sometimes it seems like even childbirth was easier, but that good news today (the day after the book offically came out)that sure helps alleviate the stress.

This means a lot to me since we all know that the only way a mystery author makes it is with the backing of the independent bookstore owners who take the time to read and recommend our books.

I have Robin Agnew, owner of Aunt Agatha's Bookstore in Ann Arbor, Michigan to thank for the nomination.

HANK, RO and HALLIE, interrupting:
Here's a photo of Robin (left) and Jan! Thank you, Robin, for choosing Jan.

Ok, back to you, Jan.

JAN:

My heroine, Hallie Ahern, is terribly flawed, which some people like and some people don't. Lucky for me, Robin liked it. She also pointed out something that was eluding me: Hallie was bumping up against a gender bias in mysteries.

Male protaganists were allowed to have all sorts of weaknesses, but female sleuths were supposed to be perfect superheroes. Yuck, I hate flawless superheroes, male or female. Anyway, if feels good to be appreciated. And I also have to thank my agent, Dan Mandel, for pushing me to travel to bookstores in different parts of the country.

HANK, RO and HALLIE, interrupting: Here's a photo of Dan! Yay, Dan.

OK, back to you, Jan.

JAN:

Mystery bookstore owners can't possibly read all the mysteries that are out there. They sometimes discover your work because you've taken the time to visit.

HANK, RO AND HALLIE, interrupting:

Here's a photo of another great independent book store with a wonderful proprietor Kate Mattes' "Kate's Mystery Bookstore" in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Hank's upper left getting ready to talk (as usual), and Hallie is in the front. That's also Roberta Isleib, Ruth McCarty and Cathy Cairns, all moguls in Sisters in Crime, and all happy for Jan!

JAN:

Anyway, I'm very grateful. And thrilled. And about to go on the road. Check my website for the latest events--and hope to see all of you.

HANK, RO and HALLIE, interrupting:

Congratulations! ( And to find out more, click on Jan's cover--right over there>>>

We now return you to our regular blog.