Info from the Smart ones, with links and cites.
by SB Sarah
Last year I started a list of book conventions and fan gatherings that went completely sideways or didn’t happen because they fell apart during the planning. The title: WTF Cons? I realized in about mid-May that keeping track would be a full time job and I couldn’t keep up with it. There were that many.
Sometimes it’s lack of organization. Sometimes the follow through is so bad the City of Baltimore files civil contract claims against you, as is the situation with Grace Marsceau, the organizer behind A Million Lives Book Festival. You know, the one that made headlines about how much money people lost. There was Sinners & Stardust which came with a side order of Sexual Harassment. There were weekend cons that promised attendees for registered authors and didn’t deliver any; there were gatherings that promised reader events that didn’t materialize. I could keep going but I’d be here for days.
The latest breakdown per Threads seems to be Getting Witchy With It in Salem, MA, scheduled in both 2026 and 2027. The CEO of Anytime Author Promotions, Virginia Johnson, posted a video about Minneapolis, and to say it didn’t go over well is an understatement.
Johnson has since deleted the video, which was allegedly 40 minutes in length, but @MollysBookList posted this clip:
Video Player
(If you have a copy of the full video, please contact me.)
“I have yet to see an ICE agent in the wild.”
“You’re seeing the extremism of what Minneapolis, of what the news wants to show you.”
Which part is “the extremism,” I wonder?
The part where ICE executed Renee Good? Or the part where ICE executed Alex Pretti? The tear gas canisters lobbed at pre schoolers or the ones tossed at high school students?
As of right now, ICE is reporting arrests of 3000 people and moving detainees to Nebraska without any due process. Gabriel Brito in Minneapolis St Paul Magazine reported on 9 February that “even the most conservative estimates figure over 3,000 people have been detained during Operation Metro Surge.” So where did those thousands of people go?
The level of privileged, ignorant bullshit this person seems to be fertilizing her professional reputation with is truly breathtaking.
(Also, is she driving while recording this? I can’t tell from the windows but it appears that the car is in motion and she’s driving it. If so, then I ask most sincerely, WHAT THE FUCK IS UP WITH THAT. And I once saw someone tuning a violin while slowly moving toward the George Washington Bridge at 7am. Pardon my fuddy duddy question but is this a thing? That people do? Record videos while driving?)
I haven’t been able to find any active social media accounts for Anytime Author Promotions, and I haven’t seen a statement. I have reached out to them directly – though I tried to use the comment form on their site to reach out, but I received an error message that my message was unable to be sent.
But when I looked into the company, I was shocked. This isn’t one event: it’s many.
Look at the number of events being produced by Anytime Author Promotions:
- Flirty in Kansas City, MO, Tampa, FL, and Des Moines, Iowa.
- Dreaming Dirty in Ann Arbor, MI, Baltimore MD, and Las Vegas, NV.
- Getting Witchy with It in Salem, and New Orleans and Charleston.
- RAGE in Atlantic City, NJ, and Versailles, Ohio.
- Books and Chocolate in Hershey, PA.
- Glass City in Toledo, OH.
- Book Blast in Dallas, TX and Seattle, WA.
That is a lot of events – fifteen by my counting which is not my greatest skill – many of which are scheduled into 2028.
And sure enough, authors are posting about dropping out and forfeiting their deposits – that’s a song many know all the words to.
So many authors, in fact, that it’s a trending topic on Threads right now – twice. (I have a screengrab but I don’t want to post it because one of the other trending topics is a spoiler for a tv show.)
Some are dropping out of multiple Anytime Author Promotions events, including Sarah Zane who was scheduled to attend four of them:
Revelations about the alleged political alignment of the CEO of Anytime Author Promotions do not appear to be new – only the video is.
Author Maddox Grey reported in November 2024 in another thread that the Anytime Author Promotions Facebook group seems to have a history of using right-coded language and fostering a community that does so as well:
I cannot find this Facebook group, only pages that are sporadically updated, so I can’t fact check this claim.
What a shitty position for folks trying to grow a career to be in. The two largest cons are long gone, along with all the support and reader connections they fostered. There are many other gatherings, but as I mentioned at the start, it’s a risky prospect. They can be replete with inexperienced conference organizers, insufficient budget for events and security, and low turnout among authors, readers, or both. It’s a real crap shoot with time, money, and energy – all of which are in limited supply.
To create a successful event, in my experience, you need buy-in from several key groups. In this case:
- Authors, but especially some with established audiences and name recognition. That said, hosting an author with a massive fanbase requires additional security, space, and logistical organization for crowd control and safety for everyone.
- Readers who might want to meet those authors and potentially be introduced to new ones, which requires outreach and engagement and, you know, marketing and publicity. Readers also might want or expect a reader-focused event like a party or similar, and not just a book signing and panels. So that means budget allotments for decoration, entertainment, etc.
- Host Location, i.e. where will this event be held? Is there an airport with direct flights or easy driving access and parking? Does the space have enough room should items A and B yield a high turnout? What about food – because food costs inside hotels will send your eyebrows right into your hairline.
Then, considering the above, how much will attending cost? How much are table fees? Will those fees cover the cost of the above items? Those margins might thinner than the profit on a mass market paperback.
(I also want to say a word about conference organizing: I used to do this, so I’m not just talking out of my ass here. I have always followed what I call “the mafia rule” when blogging: “You don’t talk about the work, don’t talk about the family,” so the most I want to say is that many years ago, I worked a nonprofit which hosted meetings between their membership and US and international officials. Organizing these gatherings both in the US and abroad was my job. So while I’m a little rusty, I’m pretty familiar with the large and small scale logistical coordination of stakeholders and invested parties.)
Anytime Author Promotions may have struggled with many of the above, according to Melissa Lam, who posted a series of graphics as a statement regarding their withdrawal from their 2027 event in Kansas City – one that they stated they have already paid for in full:
Lam then went on to share the eleven other events they will be appearing at in 2026. So there are other options – many other options.
I think we are accelerating past the point where embracing right wing rhetoric and supporting the actions of the current administration yields ferocious backlash, especially within romance, and especially within communities of marginalized people within romance.
With one video and the resulting social media response, Johnson appears to have damaged the brand of the company and reduced author and reader attendance at most of the scheduled events, if reports on Threads are accurate. That is a big, big mess.
As this seems to be an evolving situation, I’ll update this post if more information becomes available.
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