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Taking the Mystery out of Bookselling—An interview with Cynthia Nye
Gwen Shuster-Haynes introduced the guest speaker for the May 10th meeting, Cynthia Nye, owner of High Crimes Mystery Bookshop.
A customer at the Rue Morgue, Cynthia purchased the shop from Tom and Enid Schantz on April Fool's Day 2000 and re-named it High Crimes Mystery Bookshop. She's worked hard to keep the record of the longest continually operating mystery bookshop in America running strong and after 7 years Cynthia believes she's getting the hang of it. She is especially proud of the wonderful roster of authors that visit her store every year.
In a question and answer format, Cynthia shared her thoughts and experiences with Gwen and the rest of the group.
G: Why a book store? More specifically why a mystery book store?
C: I always wanted something to do with books. I was raised by voracious readers-my mother's escape from 7 children was her mysteries and my father read the entire encyclopedia on a regular basis. I saw a notice in the newsletter that Rue Morgue was up for sale, and stopped by to chat about it. Four hours later well, the rest is history.
G: What's been the biggest surprise about owning a bookstore?
C: Bookselling is illogical in so many ways-I was totally unprepared. All the business and finance classes in college did nothing to prepare me. Also, I realized bookselling and bartending are very similar-knowing your customer and initiating a dialog with the customer is important. For instance, at an independent bookstore the booksellers take the time to really get to know the customer and can then tailor suggestions to that person's tastes; that kind of personal attention doesn't happen in the big box stores.
G: How do you get such a diverse list of authors into the store?
C: Tom and Enid did a great job of getting their store on the map for the big publishers. Authors came to them. I'm fortunate that they trust me and come to my store. Signings are an endorsement of the book. They suggest to the customer a level of trust between the bookseller and the author. With hundreds of authors and over 5000 titles, getting authors in for signings is not difficult.
G: How do you keep track of so many books and authors?
C: Over time, I've become somewhat of an idiot savant. All joking aside, I take what I do very seriously. I'm a professional and it is all a part of the job.
G: Do Mystery Awards impress you or influence you?
C: Not so much. I pay attention to the Dagger and Hammett awards but usually don't follow many of the others. I look at who gets nominated, not who wins.
G: What else influences you?
C: Independent bookstores are free to carry whatever appeals to the owners, staff and customers. I order from catalogs and pay special attention to suggestions from the book reps. Trust your reps; they are invaluable. Sales reps know what is out there, they know you, and through you, they know your customers. Sales reps and catalogs are your most powerful tools.
G: What are some of your best sellers?
C: Nevada Barr and Margaret Coel are very popular in the local market.
G: Are you able to read for pleasure?
C: I only read for pleasure. If I don't like a book, I won't be able to sell it. If I didn't read, how could I do what I do well? I want to like a book if I pick it up and take it home to read. Even if it is slow going, sometimes a book will grab you at the end. When I read a book that I love-it is so much fun!
G: Any hints for an author who wants to get a book into your store?
C:
w Have a publisher; don't self-publish.
w Make it like a date-court the bookseller, make it easy, work it!
w Call for an appointment or just stop by, but be prepared. If you stop by, I may not be free to talk to you, but I will take your information and be glad to make an appointment.
w Have a promotional packet with a cover letter and contact information as well as a copy of your book.
w Keep the conversation short, not confrontational or forced. Don't be aggressive and don't have your friends call.
w Don't start an e-mail campaign. It is irritating and unprofessional.
w Be patient. It might be several weeks-call to check if I've had a chance to look at it-keep your name in my head.
w Give no reason to say "No".
G: Any final thoughts?
C: "
w Writing the book is hard work, but it doesn't end there. It is a long and tedious process to reach the bookseller. Have patience, don't give up!
w Keep in mind that more women buy books than men; if you put in violence, don't make it gross. Characters can be killed off, but don't kill the animals. If it has a pulse and fur, don't kill it!
w Don't self-publish. Writing a book is a very emotional process and is all-consuming. Even with big publishers, the author does 80% of the work; self-published authors do 100% including editing and promotions and marketing. With self-published books, there is no filter. If the point is to get published and end up with boxes of books in the garage, go ahead, self-publish. But if the point is to sell your book, go with a publishing company—even a small one. There are some fantastic small presses out there—use them.
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I like mystery stories,here is one of them.
The May 2006 MWA-Colorado Chapter meeting featured a talk by Dr. Johanna Gallers, a psychiatrist and trained FBI profiler. She has taught at Metropolitan State College, Mesa State College, California State University, Northridge and several other colleges and universities in Colorado and Los Angeles; and received her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the California School of Professional Psychology in Los Angeles in 1984. In private practice for 22 years in New York City and Los Angeles, she founded and directed a counseling center in Los Angeles that specialized in treating survivors of sexual and physical abuse. Additionally, she served as a consultant on a congressionally mandated study of the effects of combat exposure on Vietnam veterans, as well as a training coordinator and consultant to a number of organizations specializing in the treatment of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in various victim populations. In 1991, Dr. Gallers completed specialized training in Criminal Profiling and Crime Scene Analysis provided by the FBI.
Gallers opened her presentation by saying that the psychopaths among us are born, not made. While serial killers tell a consistent story: violent home life, abuse as a child, bad parenting, etc., there must be a genetic predisposition inborn in a person's brain before a serial killer will emerge.
"Whether or not someone becomes a serial killer or a non-violent psychopath, that's where environment comes in," she said. "There are psychopaths among us who never turn violent. Those are the ones who grew up in healthy homes with good parents. But they're still psychopaths. It's in their brains."
Decades of study has shown that this genetic anomaly alters the way emotions are processed in the brain, she said. In normal people, inside the Limbic system of our brains, the amygdela processes negative words and images. However, the amygdela does not work in the brains of psychopaths. This birth defect leaves its victims to process such stimuli in the visual cortex, and the emotion that should accompany the perception of violence is just not there, and cannot be developed. It's like they're watching a two-dimensional movie throughout their lives, because there is no depth to any of their experiences.
Gallers used the example of language. There's denotative language, which is limited to definition of words; and there's connotative language, which allows us to bring an emotional context to the words we use. Psychopaths cannot respond connotatively or even understand the reference.
"A psychopath will say the words 'I love you' because he knows that's what a woman wants to hear, and it will lead to a positive result," Gallers said. "But he will not be able to feel the words. He will not really understand why those words are so important. That doesn't matter to him, as long as they get him what he wants. Words are manipulative tools."
The vast majority of psychopaths are male (90 percent), and the few female psychopaths have different brain-wave patterns than males, so whatever it is that triggers this genetic trait is limited to men, Gallers said. There are other physical and psychological traits they all have in common.
They all have a very low resting heart rate.
As children, there is a consistent pattern for every one of them: fire setting, late-age bed wetting and cruelty to animals.
They all meet the clinical definition of malignant, narcissistic extroverts.
This definition is quite specific. Malignant narcissists internalize a self-hatred that leads them to compensate by creating a grandiose fantasy life. They fantasize that they're perfect. And they burn with resentment when they're reminded that they're not.
"We all know narcissists, people who need to be the center of attention. They might be boring but they're not psychopaths," Gallers said. "But malignant narcissists need to exact revenge for the wrongs they perceive. As children they will begin to fantasize about taking hostages or hurting others.
There is usually a psycho-sexual component in their fantasies from a fairly early age."
Of course, with this kind of diagnostic precision, the question of what to do with the knowledge becomes problematic.
"Today we can pick these kids out very early on," Gallers said. "Teachers know who they are. Therapists know who they are. The problem is, there's no cure for it, and parents generally do not want to hear that their child is a psychopath."
Making the issue particularly thorny is the fact that therapy is useless in such cases. There is no drug that will make the amygdela "switch on." Therapy in fact will exacerbate the problem, because a psychopath will learn just that much better how to manipulate words in therapy.
"They'll be brought in for treatment to deal with obsessive-compulsive behavior," Gallers said."Well, they're not necessarily stupid. They will learn what to say and how to say it to get the appropriate response from a therapist - that is, that they're OK and they can stop coming. Once they've succeeded at conning the therapist, their fantasies can continue and in fact will become more grandiose."
"Their obsessions are often sexual in nature as well," she said. "And it's very often violently sexual. The stimulation needs to be over the top in order to have an effect, since there's no emotion behind it." As fantasies progress, and the psychopath falls deeper into the spell of his own narcissistic need for gratification, there's more of a risk that violence will ensue. Only a very strong sense of discipline can make a difference.
Especially in cases where the child is in an abusive home, perhaps exposed to violence or sexual activity as a young person, there's almost nothing that can be done to keep such a child from turning into a killer, Gallers said.
"So what do you do? There's no cure. The only appropriate thing to do is put them in military school and teach them discipline and how to take orders so they don't turn violent randomly. They become assassins, snipers, killers who are trained to only kill on command."
As to the issue of being extroverts, Gallers said that applies to the psychopath's need to have external stimuli. The internal life of a psychopath is stunted by their inability to feel true emotion and to feel empathy. So while they might be loners, they are actually extroverted in that they base their feelings of self-worth on what others think - or on what they believe others think.
"With some few exceptions, these are not articulate, socially adept people," Gallers said. "They need to express their grandiose fantasies somehow. Violence allows them domination. It allows them to express revenge for slights. It allows them to be in control."
Control, in fact, is very important to the self-image of the malignant narcissist.
"Psychopathic killers are very organized. They bring their weapons with them, they've planned everything out, and they don't leave bodily fluids or other evidence behind. This makes it extremely difficult to catch them," Gallers said. "It takes meticulous police work, and even then luck plays a part. Disorganized killers usually are caught right away. They are impulse-driven. They leave forensic evidence that's easy to track and they leave other clues behind. Organized psychopath serial killers are a different story all together."
One small relief in considering the careers of serial killers, Gallers said, is that while they are never cured, they eventually do stop. "They outgrow it," she said.
As an example, she pointed to the BTK killer in Kansas. "He was not going to be caught," she said. "It had been more than a decade since he'd killed, and he wasn't interested in killing again. He was done killing. But his narcissism got him caught. He wanted to tell the world he was a successful serial killer. He made the conscious decision to allow himself to be caught, knowing he would spend the rest of his life in prison, because he had to be recognized as this notorious, successful killer."
Gallers peppered her talk with references to many well-known serial killers, including Ted Bundy and the Green River Killer. Her training has brought her in contact with many serial killers and with the investigators who profile, track and catch them.
"When we're faced with a serial killer's handiwork, there's really not a lot we can do but to study the victims and figure out everything and anything they might have in common," she said. "We start with a thorough crime scene analysis, and then a victim analysis."
The choice of victim will tell investigators quite a lot about the killer. For instance, the Green River Killer chose prostitutes, women who were easy prey. This was a murderer who was looking for people who would not be missed quickly. On the other hand, a killer like Ted Bundy looked for victims to make a statement. He chose college-educated, attractive, desirable women who lived fairly protected lives. He did so because they took skill to hunt and kill. He admitted as much to the FBI officers who interviewed him before he was executed.
In America, with a few exceptions, our serial killers are white men, she said. White men in this culture feel a sense of entitlement and empowerment, and the psychopath serial killers in this population feel that they are, for whatever reason, kept from this position of power. They are angry and feel entitled to take lives in order to show the world that they are powerful. The psychopaths who do not turn into killers in this population become the unethical CEO who plunders his company's assets or the con men who find power via other means.
Besides the choice of victim and the specific crime scene analysis, profilers and other investigators hunting a serial killer consider the signature behavior exhibited in each murder. This is different from the Modus Operandi, the M.O., which can and does change as the killer learns and the situations alter. But what never changes, Gallers said, is the signature behavior: the ritual around the killing that allows the violent psychopath to live out his personal fantasy.
"There are two kinds of profiling," she said. "There's Inductive profiling, which is the generalized categories we've been talking about - like white male, between 25-35 years old, bad youth. There are many inductive profiles in FBI files.
"Then there's Deductive profiling, and each one of those profiles is unique and developed strictly by the evidence. The investigators drop all preconceived notions and consider the scene, the M.O., the victim analysis, everything specific to the crimes at hand, in order to make the profile of an individual killer."
What with all the talk of serial killers, rapists, pedophiles, and other deviant behavior, the mystery writers listening to Gallers were a sobered bunch as she wound up her presentation and answered numerous questions.
Gallers tried to reassure us.
"The thing to keep in mind is that there are really very few serial killers. There are very few people who kill," she said. "And most people who kill will kill only once and never again, because they killed for a specific reason. The taboo against killing is very much alive and well and operating. Perhaps only one percent of the entire population is made up of psychopaths. We hear more about serial killers because we're better now at catching them, and the media is very good at publicizing them."
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