Are Bookish Events a Scam Now?
- Courtney Leigh
- Feb 1
- 13 min read
We are in an era where there are more indie authors than ever and more events trying to capitalize on our need to promote.
If you’re an indie author and maybe even a reader who spends any time whatsoever on social media, you’ve probably noticed a huge influx of bookish events. Not just conventions, but fantasy balls in particular have become extremely common. I feel like I’m seeing new fantasy balls popping up every day from companies probably named something “night” or something “revelry” or “court of something.”
There was a time that I was actually incredibly excited to see so many of these events coming out because one, I’m a fantasy fan. I love dressing up. I love going to lavish events. But really, I was excited because as an indie author, I wanted to see more events to get involved with in order to self promote and network. It’s a full time job to get your name out there and events usually are a good way to do that. Unfortunately, over the last year or two, there has been a new trend that I think we all could do without.
The first fantasy ball I ever attended was by Fantastique Collection here in Arizona. It was their winter fantasy ball in 2021 where I was first asked to attend as a costumed character because of my cosplay background. But once they asked me to attend as a character, I actually asked to be there as an author as well and the experience was absolutely magical. I loved it. I sold out of my books, I was so so grateful and still am because their Arizona events have always been a great experience for me. For me personally, I had not heard of a fantasy ball like that before and I was really excited and really nervous to get involved. I ended up returning the following year and then last year as well I was asked to portray the Suriel from the ACOTAR series, at which time I was also there as an author.
But in those years following, I saw balls showing up left and right. Tickets are usually over $100 and sometimes, depending on the location and the accommodations, perks, etc, they can be thousands of dollars to attend. Of course, if you have the funds, by all means, get your party on. Dress up. Be in your own fantasy novel.
These events usually have a few authors or vendors who are able to sell and promote their work and be a part of the aesthetic and I think that’s absolutely wonderful. It’s adding to the atmosphere, but it gives us a chance to promote ourselves to a crowd of potential readers as well.
And then of course we have the book events that also started to gain popularity with the growing pool of indie authors and they started to pop up everywhere as well. Some of these events are great. The smaller ones have cheap booth spaces and are really just around to support indie authors like myself and they don’t seem to strive to be anything super elaborate which is fine. Admission is usually very inexpensive or even free. Sometimes we don’t need an event to be hundreds of dollars. Sometimes I think people just want to buy books and meet people and with free of inexpensive admission, attendees have tons of money to spend on small authors.
But not every story is a good one and I think this very dark and ugly light started to really shine on events when one specific festival went absolutely viral earlier in 2025. And if you haven’t heard of this event, you must be living under a rock which… congratulations…because this event even reached mainstream news channels and youtube channels that had nothing to do with the bookish side of the internet. Everyone was and still is talking about this event.
That event was A Million Lives Book festival, which the internet nicknamed A Million Lies aka the Fyre festival of booktok.
If you don’t know anything about this event, there are plenty of videos that have covered it in great detail so I’m not going to go too deeply into it, but to sum it up, the festival was put on by Archer Management and promised a lot, but gave… nothing. Basically, authors were misled and prepared for crowds that didn’t show up, therefore leading a majority of them having spent a lot of money on travel, stock, and booth expenses with no profit to show for it.
As a consumer, you might think, "well are they just complaining because they didn’t sell?" Sometimes that is the case, but in this situation, no. Because there were no consumers in the first place. Someone stated that about 30 people showed up one day when over 500 attendees were promised by the event organizer. Being transparent with the number of tickets sold is usually kind of essential for events like this because it’s a way to gauge how many books authors need to bring.
When authors bring books to an event, we have to pay out of pocket to order those books. With trad authors (aka authors who are traditionally published) the publisher is the one that pays for those books and all of that. As indie authors, that’s all us. We pay for the books, shipping the books or transporting them, and if we don’t sell, we also have to deal with leftover stock being shipped or transported back. In other words, it’s always kind of a gamble and it’s usually not cheap.
The festival also had a “Lavendar Ball” planned on the second day of the event. This was supposed to be a high class, dress your best, kind of event, much like the fantasy balls that I just mentioned. Usually at these fantasy balls, everyone dresses to impress, there are drinks, sometimes food, music, and immersive décor. The Lavender Ball did not, in fact, have any of that. No DJ, no decorations, and… well, there was nothing. According to sources and pictures, there were just a few tables without tablecloths and some foam flower pedals. No mood lighting. No décor whatsoever. A literal Bluetooth speaker provided by the security guard so people had music. And people paid anywhere from $40 to $250 for this event.
If you want full coverage on the event, there are a lot of videos and dedicated articles out there with a lot more information and sources. Truly, despite what a cluster frick it was, it’s really quite entertaining in the same way fail compilations are entertaining. You feel bad, but you can’t really look away.
This entire situation left people wondering WHERE the money from the authors who paid for booth spaces and sponsorships and the very few attendees who purchased tickets (though it’s clear the organizer fibbed about how many tickets were sold) had gone and from there it all spiraled with what I personally think was just a slew of lies. I did follow the whole thing for a while and it just seemed very sketchy. Everything that went wrong… which… was essentially everything… was followed by a really weird excuse by the organizer and eventually, a lot of authors trying to get their money back because basically, they felt lied to.
That doesn’t even scratch the surface of the Million Lives Book Festival catastrophe, but I do feel like it was the catalyst for people to start being very suspicious of events following.
See, once one event does it, people start to wonder if all events are doing it.
I am not someone who has ever run an event, but I’ve been vending at them since 2009. I’ve been to poorly managed ones, I’ve been to events that were exactly what they promised, events that were overpriced, events that were total scams. I’ve literally been to so many different events and I feel like I can see the signs and the signs are signing these past couple years. I feel like there should be a way to do background checks these days on organizers before we commit to involving ourselves.
I feel like I can tell when an event is not being managed well just by the way they promote it beforehand. I usually keep up with the hype around it, I look at how the organizers are advertising, I listen to who’s talking about it or if people are talking about it at all, etc. And every time I’ve gone against my gut instincts, I’ve been let down. Which… as of late… I have kind of taken a big step back from events because it is getting harder and harder to find genuine ones these days.
As with any trend, people are always looking to get a slice of the cake. When people started to see how popular these fantasy balls were or just book events in general with the ever growing popularity of romance and fantasy, of course people wanted to get in on it and be included. And since indie authors are also coming out of the woodwork all over the place, there are so many of us looking for events to promote ourselves. And I feel like it’s a little bit of an endless circle. More indie authors equals more people wanting to make events to make money off of us and potentially readers… if they promote their events enough to even get readers to attend. And yes, I say they want to make money off of US as authors. And the reason I’m not saying they want to make money off of attendees is because lately, a lot of events don’t seem to be bringing in the attendees. So I can only assume the money they made was made from the booth expenses and possibly sponsorships.
ANYWAYS, this trend of half-assing events is just growing and growing and people seem to be getting burned left and right. I feel like every other day, something is trending on tiktok talking about another event that went very poorly.
I attended a horror convention back in October of 2025 that I was severely let down by because they failed to promote the event and again, I went against my gut and I got burned. Once more, these poorly managed events, whether they are aware of how scammy it is or not, make their expenses from the money paid by vendors. Vendors like myself expect to make that back by selling product to attendees. That’s usually how this whole thing works. If an event doesn’t promote or bring in the attendees, vendors are left in the hole but the event itself is fine.
I also attended a small outdoor book event by an organizer I already had suspicions about in January of 2025 and again, I got burned. As did the other authors. Luckily, I only paid about $30 for the booth because it was a pop-up event, but honestly I should have just skipped it, however, the organizer promised that there would be a news station there interviewing local authors and that we would get some exposure. They also promised at least a few attendees.
The news station was one woman (no cameras or crew or mic) FROM a news station who was basically walking around handing out her business card. And I sold one book and traded a book with another author and… that was it.
I was trying not to be mad about it because the booth was $30, but my fiancé pointed out how many booths were there and did the math and said that the organizer likely made about $3000 off the event and was banking on people not saying anything because booth spaces were “Only $30” and I think that was a huge eye opener for me.
I mean, this person didn’t even have signage on the street for random people to find us and the parking lot itself was on a side street with absolutely no traffic and I think about 12 people showed up throughout the day (that’s literally not an exaggeration. I think it was probably 12 people) so I have a hard time believing they did any promotions for it. Which, as an event organizer, you have a responsibility to your vendors to promote the event and bring traffic. And for something so small, you could have easily, again, put up small signs and that would have been at least something so that people on the main street might see that there was a pop-up event happening.
This same organizer soon after had done a poll trying to gauge interest for a fantasy ball and only DAYS after the poll (which I don’t think is nearly enough time to gauge interest accurately) they had supposedly already decided on and booked a venue and reached out to me to be a cosplayer at the event. I expressed that I wanted to actually attend as an author and they proceeded to tell me the price of the booths. That’s when I told them that if I’m being hired as a costumed character, I will ask for a free booth space at the very least as payment, especially if I am expected to interact with guests and stuff like that, which I was.
She confirmed everything with me and then I never heard anything about the event ever again. She had even announced another cosplayer before the whole thing just went silent. This to me was just another red flag that put said organizer kind of on a blacklist for me.
Another event by this organizer just happened here in the valley, but I’ve kind of decided to distance myself out of pure principal.
Am I bitter? No, I’m not bitter. Nah.
Yes, I’m bitter and I have my pride.
I don’t want to start any drama with this which is why I’m not mentioning the name of this event or organizer. I know she has somewhat of a supportive following so who knows. Maybe I’m the only one to have had a sketchy experience.
Now, imagine that kind of poor organization on a much larger scale and you have an idea of the current event climate. These people are allegedly making thousands of dollars on authors alone and not providing the crowds and consumers to justify it for us. Without crowds, we no make sales. Without sales… we lose money. Most of us already broke.
That being said, I have been incredibly picky about events that I attend as an author because of a couple events that were not up to par. If it’s a first-time event, like I said, I keep very close track of how the event is promoting itself, if people are talking about it, etc. And I think places like Eventbrite should really make ticket sales public for this very reason because if an event like AML promises a certain number of attendees, there should be a way for vendors to somehow verify that rather than going off the word of the organizers… cuz they’re not that honest these days, let’s be real.
This kind of scammy behavior isn’t entirely new. We’ve seen things like this happen with the ACTUAL Fyre festival. With that Willy Wonka experience. With that Bridgerton Ball a while back. There have been plenty of others that have gone completely viral for all the wrong reasons and unfortunately, this isn’t going to stop. Where there is money to be made, people will flock, and that’s essentially what is happening now in the bookish world. People will always capitalize on trends. Right now, book events are trending.
I think the latest downfall of a bookish event was Once Upon a Con, which is a whole other can of worms that is still trending everywhere so go check out the drama around that if you want to know the tea. Once more, the convention owes authors money and not because authors were upset at the lack of attendees, but for other reasons that I personally think are pretty severe. I’m not sure if authors are still fighting for those refunds or if that drama is over, but it was a bit crazy.
And, of course, this isn’t specific to only bookish events, but because that’s the circle I run in… sort of… because I honestly try not to get too deep into any community for the sake of my sanity. But I do hear more about bookish events than anything because I’m constantly looking for events to sell my books at. And I really have distanced myself from the cosplay and general convention scene the last couple of years so I don’t hear as much about that.
I do still vend at conventions fairly regularly, but that’s all it is. I’m a vendor and I typically choose shows that are established or shows that I already know handle themselves well because I want to make a profit and not dig myself in a hole because an event was poorly planned. If I’m being transparent, events are quite costly and a lot of work goes into vending at them. A majority of my money as an author comes from my online presence and while I do see the benefits of going to events to meet people and get your face out there, the effort of getting books, preparing merchandise, the expenses of getting the product in the first place, blocking out a day or even a weekend to sell your books, etc. Sometimes I don’t see the benefit. That’s entirely something personal to me. Some authors make most of their profits from shows and selling physical books first hand, but my lifestyle doesn’t really support attending them that often.
When it comes to my horror art, I don’t really sell online and I do notice that people don’t want to buy art online anyways and they much prefer buying it in person so it’s more beneficial, but when it comes to books, the fear of attending an event that is looking to profit off of me as an indie author rather than the attendees, that’s alarming. And of course, as an attendee, you want to know that the event is going to deliver on what you’ve paid for which, from that perspective, things also aren’t looking too great. Organizers are charging more and more and providing less and less.
It’s getting harder and harder to find honest events. It requires a lot of asking around and research to find out what other people’s experiences have been. I tend to look up if an organizer has put on events before to see if they have any experience, but that’s not always successful. I weigh the price of the booth and the venue. Travel.
Yes, it’s kind of a lot, but a lot of indie authors don’t have money to attend a bad show. These shows to a lot of us are an investment and while investments don’t always pay off and we all understand that (hopefully) when a show is blatantly built on deceptions, we’re not just being lied to, we’re being used. And in the case of A Million Lives Book Festival, a lot of those authors after selling near to nothing at the festival, were left in a lot of debt. Because… crazy enough, like I said, money to buy booths, travel, buy books, and potentially ship books costs quite a bit.
I genuinely wonder if these event organizers go into it TRYING to scam us all and thinking they can get away with it or if they’re just really bad at event planning and it’s just a genuine mistake on their part. Either way, if it’s a scam, don’t do that. It’s shitty. If you’re just inexperienced, maybe start smaller. If you’re not prepared for what goes into it, don’t do it because people are wising up… I hope.
I know that people have started to or have at least threatened lawsuits against some of the latest events and if that trend continues, who knows. Maybe we will get more honest events. Or maybe not. I don’t know. I’m not the person to do market predictions or anything like that. I’m not that smart, but I hope that we can weed out the scammy events and clean up our rosters because it’s kind of getting out of hand. You know, I got excited for a while there thinking there were more bookish events where I could promote myself and it’s turning out that misses are more common than hits and that’s a shame.
Anyways! If you’re an indie author just getting started in the event scene, my advice to you is to do your research. Work within your budget. If you happen to have the money to lose and you want to take chances on some of these sketchy events, that’s your prerogative, but if you don’t have the funds, be very careful about who you trust because bad shows are becoming a growing trend.
Thanks for reading, fam, and enjoy the rest of your day <3
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