Romantasy authors and readers alike had high hopes for a romantasy book festival — but it didn’t deliver.
A Million Lives, a book festival for romantasy authors and readers held on May 2 and 3 in Baltimore, promised a wide range of attractions, including “a vendor hall, panels, a content creation room, fandom cosplay meet ups, a cosplay competition and a ball,” per Archer Management, which facilitated the event. Instead, attendees arrived in their gowns and costumes to a mostly empty conference hall.
Tickets to the “Lavender Romance Ball” — which also included access to all other attractions within the festival — cost $250, according to the Archer Management site.
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A TikTok user with the handle Azthia Bookwyrm was invited to the event as an influencer, but received no instructions from organizers on what to do to promote the event, she told PEOPLE in a statement. Communication from the coordinator Grace Willow and Archer Management was sparse, she said, but she decided to attend anyway to connect with authors.
At the festival, Bookwyrm also experienced an unexpected accommodation change — as did other authors and attendees, she says — from the Hilton Inn near the convention center to a Days Inn. She called A Million Lives a “huge financial loss” for those hoping to make sales at the festivals, as more authors were in attendance than actual festival goers.
courtesy of Author C.A. Burkhart
Music for the Lavender Romance Ball, courtesy of Author C.A. Burkhart.
“The silver lining out of all of this is that the book community came together. We made new friends, found a lot of exciting and amazing books that need more attention in the reading world,” she says.
“Independent authors put a lot of time and effort to make their books come to light and the face that they were treated this way was devastating,” she adds. “They deserve better.”
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Author Sarah Zane tells PEOPLE the Lavender Romance Ball was “far from magical.” She was one of many authors who brought piles of books with her in hopes of connecting with her audience, but the whole festival turned out to be a “letdown.”
“I have attended numerous other conventions as a signing author, and never have I felt so lied to or let down by an event,” Zane says, adding that the ball was a “travesty.”
Courtesy of Sarah Zane
Author Sarah Zane at A Million Lives.
Book festivals are a great way for authors to connect with their audience, but it doesn’t come without cost. Authors often have to pay for a spot in the festival to sell their books — and hope the upfront cash is mitigated by all the sales.
The event didn’t offer any kind of swag bags to attendees, despite the ticket cost, author Kait Disney-Leugers said in a TikTok. There were no badges or wristbands (standard for a conference or festival) — not even any water. The ball itself was held in the basement exhibit hall, the same room where the tabling was held.
“People paid actual money to go to this, apparently … [it] was, like, the saddest thing. Completely not what was advertised,” Disney-Leugers said, calling A Million Lives the “Fyre Fest of Books.”
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Courtesy of Sarah Zane
Sarah Zane and authors on a panel at A Million Lives.
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Stephanie Combs was attending A Million Lives as an author — her very first time doing so at a festival, she told CBS News. Organizers had informed Combs that roughly 500 to 600 tickets were sold, though she only saw 20 to 30 people on the first day, and only 100 the next.
Furthermore, the panels didn’t even have proper seating, so attendees sat on the floor which Combs told CBS made the ball feel like a high school cafeteria.
“As an author, I felt bad for inviting my readers to this event because they were promised this amazing, wonderful, fantasy-themed ball and I felt like they didn’t really get what they paid for,” Combs said.
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