Madyn Rose

Some tea on RTD

Blog- Madyn Rose

If you follow my newsletter you’ve already gotten the cliff notes version of my weekend at The Readers Take Denver (RTD) event last month. However, after seeing all the things that transpired, it got me thinking about how it went so wrong. 

Now, this blog isn’t to bash RTD. In fact, I had a good experience compared to others, not that I would ever take away from what they went through. I just didn’t experience the same things. Here is my hot take.

What is RTD? 

RTD was a three-day author signing/writers crafting event starting on Thursday with the welcome events and then 2 days of signings, panels, narrators, Q & A and ending on Sunday morning with a goodbye breakfast of sorts. There were also several special events such as red carpet movies, a casino night, paint party, puppy snuggles/adoption (and man, I really wanted one.) Cocktail hour & a masquerade ball are just a few of the events. All of this was included with your ticket price. The weekend was jammed packed for activities on top of the signings and panels.

They had both reader and craft panels. Reader panels are where authors sit and do a Q & A and it’s usually a lot of fun. The craft panels put you in front of agents, publishers, and fellow authors, giving you some tips and tricks to help your writing at all levels. Although there were some panels I wanted to attend, but never found, such as Amazon publishing, Harlequin, and a few others. At this point I’m not even sure they ran…

One of the features of this event was a dedicated 3-hour for ‘Rising Stars’. Which I assumed was for authors like myself who are just starting out, however after going, I couldn’t say any of them were rising stars. They all had multiple books out, like 5-10+?! These are not rising stars, they could have all been in the main signing rooms. 

What I liked

A weekend away with no kids, or hubs with nothing but my favourite authors and books, books & more books? Yes, please!

One of the things that appealed to me about RTD was the Rising Star program and the writers conference with an assortment of ‘craft’ events specific to writers of all levels. And since I was accepted to the 2025 Rising Star signing, I wanted a leg up and to see what the event was all about. I attended a few craft panels, met literary agents, and even got a request for my latest manuscript! That alone was worth all the hassles. 

I loved meeting fellow authors not just my faves like Meghan Quinn, Amy Daws, Claire Kingsley, Harloe Rae, CC Monroe but, I met so many new-to-me authors. Which is kind of the point of these events!

The encouragement I received about writing was incredible. Any of the authors I asked questions to about the event, writing, self- publishing etc… were very approachable and a few people offered to have me reach out for any questions or help and I am so grateful for that face to face experience.

The special events were fun! I enjoyed the movie, the casino night and the masquerade ball. I went solo, but ended up meeting some incredible book lovers and spent the day with a fabulous group of women exploring Denver. I really hope to keep in contact and who knows maybe we’ll meet up again at a different event.

Where it all went wrong…

There was a lot. The first thing I noticed was the lack of communication and poor organization. An event of this magnitude with thousands of guests, authors, volunteers and industry professionals should have been way more put together and instead it was chaos.

Let me explain….

There was zero signage anywhere to point you to the right locations and normally I wouldn’t be nit-picky about that, however, the place was massive and the events took place on 2 floors on two separate sides of the hotel, and there was multiple rooms the events were in. Wandering back and forth became daunting. Especially since a lot of stuff was happening at the same time.

Which brings me to, another issue. There was too many things happening at the same time and I couldn’t make it all of the things I wanted to do. For example the panels ran at the same time which meant I only got to do 1 of the 3-4 I wanted to do. Yet, there was a long lag in between events where you sat around waiting. It didn’t make sense.

For the signings, it seemed like it was organized well. Your registration ticket was either a red, card or a black card with a list of numbers that gave you access to the rooms on specific days, at specific times. Great no, problem. Until, the popular authors became ticketed at some point through the signing which was not advertised. Basically, you had to wait for your entry number to be called to even get into a room, then you had to get a new ticket with a new number (post it note) and then wait again for that number to be called before getting to line up to see the author. You can already sense the frustration.

This was an epic fail because the numbers called, never got high enough. For example, I had ticket 400 for one of the ‘popular’ authors but I had only ever seen 250 get called. May I add, this was a 3000+ ticketed-person event! Even if not everyone was there for every author, this still was not a great system.

Speaking of not enough time. I witnessed the organizer stop a very popular author from finishing her line, because the room was to be cleared for the next event (again poor organization was to blame) and despite multiple attempts from the author to continue signing in different areas, she was told, no. The organizer asked her to not to attend panels, or to do it during the Rising Star, which the author refused, on grounds of it being dedicated time for rising stars and not wanting to take away from them. Rightfully so. 

This to me was not OK. There was zero regard for anyone standing in lines waiting and since this was day 2 of the signings, our last chance to meet them.  Many attendees weren’t even allowed to get their pre-ordered books because their first number never let them in the room, let alone to be given a second ticket. Absurd. I have seen many posts from authors asking to find people after the event so they can deliver their books.  

The authors should have been equalized, but instead the ‘popular’ authors were all together in one area. Which happened to be where the issues were in even trying to get in. On day 2, once I made it into the popular room, it was nearly empty except for a few lines. I spoke with a few of the authors and PAs who were frustrated that they weren’t allowing more people in the room. I was told that the day prior they had barely anyone in the room, and they sat around waiting for people to be allowed in! Which was baffling since I was told I wasn’t even allowed near those rooms day 1. Had they have been spread out throughout all the signing rooms, maybe more people would have gotten to them. I was also told that the influencers were supposed to have access to the authors before the signings for interviews etc, but the authors were never told about it. Like, huh? Why wouldn’t you tell them?

None of this is the fault of the authors. They were doing their absolute best to sign as many as they could in the time frame they were given. 3 hours per day was not nearly enough time. Many of them did additional signings in the hallways between events to get to more fans.

Apparently, registration took over 3 hours as they were severely understaffed. (I was glad I flew in Friday morning instead of Thursday).

When I registered I was told they ran out of the lanyards, swag, and program guides. Uhm, what? Again this was a ticketed event! You knew how many people were attending so how they had run out was beyond me. The WhatsApp group was full which meant I couldn’t get real time updates. I was told to follow a link to a website for line postings for access to the rooms which wasn’t updated regularly. Again, more wandering/waiting.

The volunteers were constantly told the wrong information about lines and procedures, and the PAs and authors were screamed at and told to shut everything down and get out of the rooms. There was no microphones, megaphones or anything to help anyone who was making announcements. Instead they just stood and yelled at the top of their lungs which I could never hear over the noise.

As an example, I stood in line waiting for entry the volunteer for the Adams room had been told the numbers were starting at 1000 and was letting people in, I was in the 1100+ range so she had said give 20 minutes in for the next wave. Cool no problem, I looped around in another room gave it some extra then took my place in line only to get to the front to have another volunteer tell her no, she was only supposed to call people under 1000 and not let the rest in yet. I watched the poor volunteer lose her mind and freak out knowing the backlash that was coming from the hundreds of people waiting in line with the current called numbers. At this point were an hour into the three hour time frame for signings. Not good. Luckily she took pity on me and I was allowed in and I’m fairly certain at one point they gave up and just let everyone in.

Multiple events were scheduled in the same space back to back with little to no time to change over between them, leading to lights were being flicked on/off to clear people out including the authors, assistants and volunteers, which was just plain idiotic and dangerous.

An event this big, should have had a few hiccups, but this was insanity. 

Cost- The tickets were not cheap ranging between $300-$375 USD (mind you it was all access). The hotel was pricey and although there were several off-site hotels, only 2 of them had a shuttle running to the main hotel. Since I was traveling solo it made sense for me to stay at the affiliated hotel for the shuttle except the times were awful and I ended up Ubering a few times kind of deating the point of why I choose my hotel.

How did it compare to Chicago’s Wild and Windy in the City?

I can only compare the author signings because that was the nature of the event but there is a theme of needing more signing time for both events. However, I met all the authors I wanted to in Denver. In contrast, in Chicago I didn’t get to most of the ‘popular’ authors for example, Pippa Grant, Claire Kingsley, Tessa Bailey, and Melanie Harlow among a few others, and I had books for most of them to sign and it didn’t happen. I remembered feeling disappointed because there was an assurance you would have time to meet ‘all’ the authors which doesn’t seem to be the case no matter what. 

Chicago was way more organized and I hadn’t heard anything negative, aside from not meeting all the authors. But it was a huge factor since people are spending a ton of money and time away to meet them.

Repercussions

Backlash. Wow, there has been a steady stream of backlash, not only about the poor organization but how volunteers, PAs, authors, and guests were treated. There have been reports of theft of author merchandise as it was left unattended in unsecured storage areas. There were accusations of sexual assault when other hotel guests came into the Masquerade event and physical, emotional violence between the volunteers and PAs. 

And to make matters worse, from what I saw on social media, the organizer of the event didn’t take any responsibility and instead blamed the hotel, the authors or their teams for example Rebecca Yarros, and anyone else they could.

Many authors have come out with statements about their experiences and from what I heard, more than 200 authors backed out of the 2025 RTD event or any of their future events. Not surprisingly.

In the end, there was a notification posted on social media by the RTD team that the 2025 event was cancelled. 

Closing Thoughts

As I said in the beginning, I actually had a good time in Denver and accomplished more than a lot of the others just in signings alone. The face to face time with agents and attending the craft panels, was worth it although I would like to have done all of them, it was impossible due to the way it was organized.

The best part for me was meeting so many wonderful authors that gave me great advice and were willing to offer advice to a newbie like myself was invaluable. 

Does that take away from all the negative? Nope. In the end I had already backed out of 2025 before it was cancelled because watching so many things happen and how poorly it was run had me rethinking it anyways. 

Will I continue to go to signings? Absolutely! And I might even apply to some other events as a signing author, with or without a rising star because as Emily Rath said, “If you wrote a book, you’re an author. Period.” 

Personally, I love that she said that, and it has given me all kinds of encouragement so stay tuned to see what happens next or where I’ll turn up.