Bad author signing events… a little spilled tea.

I don’t know where these titles are coming from lately, but I’m here for them, lol.

Yesterday I enumerated several reasons why I’m cutting back on attending multi-author book signing events in 2026. I really should have cut down this year but for some reason I just didn’t.

I want to talk today about why some of these events fall apart.

If you’ve been on TikTok lately, you know there was an event in Baltimore called, I believe, A Million Lives author reader event. Apparently, there were warning flags for several months about the venue, miscommunication, and promises that were made and then never kept from the organizer(s). Over 100 authors/vendors/narrators showed up and paid big bucks to be there, and only about 60 readers showed. Video from the event was heartbreaking. Table after table of author after author with piles of books and no one shopping or stopping. Then, there was a “ball” the evening of the event. It looked ( from the videos) like the worst kind of middle school dance. The majority of authors who attended this event ( not all, but a good number) were baby authors and this was their first experience with a book signing. Numerous videos of them crying and bemoaning they were out hundreds, if not thousands of dollars, filled my feed for days. After a while I shut all the posts off.

I’m not demeaning these authors’ reactions and emotions. That would be cruel. But I’ve been there, so I know crying and moaning and asking people to buy your books on a TikTok post so you can break even isn’t the way to conduct yourself. It really puts a bad taste in my mouth about the “authors” who did that, but that’s neither here nor there.

I can relate to what they were feeling because I’ve been to big events that were oversold or undersold, and I didn’t sell one book an dwas out hundreds and thousands of dollars. And I haven’t been a baby author in over 10 years.

So, back to the title of this post. Where I think these events go wrong.

Hubris. Just because you think you can put on an event like this, doesn’t mean you should and chances are you can’t, and probably won’t make it successful if you do. Especially if you have never hosted an event like a big book signing. There’s a reason we employ EVENT PLANNERS, people. Going into an event headspace and thinking you can make it the greatest thing since sliced bread is a recipe for disaster. Which is exactly what happened with A MILLION LIVES.Having hundreds of authors in an event space that is too small to accommodate half of them is a fire code violation waiting for disaster. I don’t understand all these people ( and the majority of them are writers) who plan these events and want to make them the biggest, grandest, most author heavy event ever. Unless you rent out a stadium, it’s not gonna be comfortable for the authors, who bring a lot of stuff to the event to attract readers and sell their books; the readers who are trying to move around from table to table; or any vendors who also come with caravans of “stuff.” Tables are typically 6-8 feet and have to be arranged per fire code rules. I’ve been to too many over-authored events were there was no room between tables to move around or even store stuff.You need volunteers for any event, but a big book signing? You need three times what you think you do. The reasons are varied, but the main one is for the author’s health and safety and to help guide the readers if they have any questions. I was at a huge event in an oversold situation and the signing was 5 hours. I do not have a PA or any help I travel with. It’s just me. So for five hours I couldn’t drink anything because if I had to go to the bathroom I couldn’t leave my table because of the chance of theft. And because I couldn’t drink anything in an over crowded, extremely hot room, I got dehydrated and sick. Hand in hand with that, there were approximately 7 volunteers ( all teenagers) for over 150 authors and hundreds of readers. They did nothing. I repeat. Nothing. They didn’t give out water to the authors, didn’t check on them to see if they needed a break or a snack, or any help at all. They basically sat in a circle and texted on their phones. For an event to be successful you need ADULT volunteers who are equipped with information to impart, care about what they are doing, and will speak nicely and coherently to the readers and authors.Advertising is a must to draw people into an event. A MILLION LIVES had no advertising and people I know who live in Baltimore didn’t even know the event was taking place. A few mentions in facebook groups or an instagram picture is not going to do it. The authors have to pay for the table rentals and registration fees at these events. Some of that money should be going to paid commercial ads in newspapers, on the radio, etc. You can’t just put on an event and expect people to show up if they don’t know about it. This isn’t Field of Dreams. If you build it, they WILL NOT come unless they know about it.Venues. Most signings I have been to of late take place in hotels because they have event spaces that are rentable. This is good. What isn’t is if the hotel doesn’t give a room rate for the authors or the event as a whole. Again, using AML as an example, apparently the hotel hosting the vent didn’t honor a supposed event room rate and authors had to switch hotels at the last minute just so they weren’t charged $300 a night for a bed to sleep in. This is disgraceful and I blame the hotel and the coordinator. Again, just because you think you can put on a successful event, doesn’t mean you will or should.The other thing I see time and again at events that are poorly run is no sense of organization. No program or map of where the authors are situated in a room for the readers; no swag bag; no swag of any kind. Too many of one genre, top heavy and a poor representation of others. For instance, if you are going to run an event and bill it as romance for everyone, and then have over 85 percent dark romantasy authors, MC authors, and smut, I would like to know that because I wouldn’t attend, since I write neither. This wouldn’t be the event my type of readers would attend. This is exactly what happened with the above mentioned event where I didn’t sell one thing. 90%of the authors were either dark romantasy, dark romance, smut, or dystopian, with a few Mafia and MC’s added. Me, standing there with my small town, later in life, sweet with heat books for five tortuous hours was absolutely ridiculous. If you are coordinating an event, you MUST have a varied amount and variety of authors who write in different subgenres. And when you do, please do not put a smut writer next to a sweet one. I can’t tell you how many people who came to the author next to my table, laughed at my subgenre, thinking it stupid or not worth reading. And yes, that did truly happen and yes those readers were incredibly rude to me. I gave them grace because they were all in their early 20s and didn’t have fully formed frontal lobes yet.

OKay, this piece is way longer than I thought it would be.

To reiterate. Just because you want to put on an author event doesn’t mean you should. Not without the proper help, knowledge, and coordination necessary to make the event a success for everyone attending. There are about ten more things I could add to the above list, but, I’m tired and this piece is depressing me…

~ Peg