Happy Tuesday!

Before we dive into the mess that was Readers Take Denver this year, I wanted to share a cool photo of Bookum with Coach Prime, Deion Sanders at Tattered Cover from last week!

A primetime event for the team at Tattered!

Let's Score Some Touchdowns:

•  📚 Nook with Dr. Eric FitzMedrud

• 📺 Volunteering at Readers Take Denver

• 📖 Funny Story

This Week On Bookum:

Salt-N-Pepa told us to do it, so we have to do it… Let's Talk about Sex 🎶

This Thursday at 2 PM EST, we will have an exclusive Bookum Nook with Dr. Eric FitzMedrud to discuss his new book 'The Better Man': A Guide to Consent, Stronger Relationships, and Hotter Sex.

Dr. Eric FitzMedrud is a therapist specializing in relationship and sexual issues in the San Francisco Bay Area. His book is a finalist for both the Benjamin Franklin Independent Book Publisher’s Association Award for Psychology & Foreword INDIES Award, Family and Relationships.

We will be talking "about all the good things and the bad things that may be" on Bookum!

Download the app to join the conversation -  www.bookumapp.com

This Week in The Book World:

We interrupt our usual creator wins spotlight to shine a light on a BIG loss.

Last weekend, I worked as a volunteer at the now infamous Readers Take Denver (for research purposes, of course 🤣), a convention for readers and authors to meet.

If you need the TL;SIU (too long; Sum it up) - People flew across the country to a readers' event in Denver and got completely shafted from a customer service, event experience, value for their time and money spent, etc.

First hunch: I knew that moving from Downtown to the resort this year would take away from readers actually experiencing Denver (which is a beautiful city, by the way).

I thought I'd give some insight from one volunteer’s perspective:

(Note: people had some really bad experiences, so take this solely from my perspective. I use humor in my narrative because it was so chaotic; I had to step out of it at times, but people had been hurt and traumatized. Give grace when engaging online because the attendees, authors, volunteers, and vendors deserve it.)

• I'll drop some posts below of authors getting their books stolen, fights with volunteers, to organizers scamming, attendee commentary, etc. follow threads links for more.

Rebecca Yarros, Attendee, Attendee #2

Back to volunteering…

After orientation (just a zoom call), you got to pick where you wanted to work (panel, signings, etc.). Once you got to your station, it was a "get in where you fit in" vibe. (Looking back, I didn’t know where I was officially working until the day before registration.)

Safe to say there was not enough prep for the volunteers for the magnitude of the event. (Note: I volunteered last year at the inaugural one, so to quote Deion Sanders, I knew they were going to be on that bull-junk for the volunteers, but for it to spill over to the attendees & authors 😡).

I worked the door at 'Signing' on Friday, right by Rebecca Yarros’ table (aka the cool door 🚪).

I felt bad for a lot of people with high numbers (for example, some people had 3000+ numbers while they were on 300. The math was, in fact, not mathing) who had pre-ordered books that couldn't get picked up or signed.

Being a natural rebel, I let a smooth 300+ in to get their books early because they were patiently waiting. (Also, I know readers who paid just wanted to see their favorite authors and let them know how much their books meant to them.)

I paid attention to capacity (aka once 5 people left, I let 3 in from my makeshift “wait here real quick line”), but I tried to help readers win 🤣.

Once again, no security, all vibes (which was a theme throughout the weekend).

At the rate the signing was going, there was going to be a zero percent chance those people were ever going to get signings/books they paid for.

Sidenote: I talked with Melissa from Steamy Lit on our podcast last month, and she made a great point about the anxiety of ticketing at book signings that I didn’t realize until I experienced it firsthand. It's very chaotic. Clip below.

No water was given to the authors for a 3-hour book signing and over 2000+ people rushing their tables, so author assistants were running upstairs to get bottled water.

I was a one-man band at the door, so there was nothing I could do to help authors or their assistants during this time.

After a good old-fashioned, I pulled up the next day as a rogue volunteer.

Gone from my post, I began to do some investigative journalism (aka ask people if they knew/liked using the Bookum app so far 😆 - all jokes aside, we were supposed to work one day and get one day free, but the organizers actually tried to retract this setup a week before).

I talked with some authors (shout out to @terreece; she’s an awesome and kind author you should definitely check out her books) who had some bad experiences like table breakdown flipping and light flickering to get out of the rooms (Also, pretty dumb to turn off the lights if people are cleaning up and trying to leave anyways).

I also talked with an influencer/debut author who got into it with a volunteer (which is wild because volunteers weren’t paid, so they didn't need to take their job that seriously, but that's just me 🤷‍♂️).

Influencers were mistreated, readers were mistreated, authors were mistreated and vendors were mistreated. A full sweep.

Too many stories for this newsletter but ultimately, what you have read from attendees across socials is true.

The organizers scaled too quickly, as the event was at least 7 times bigger than last year (over 3,000 people) and left a lot of people out to dry.

Felt bad for a lot of paying attendees, authors, and vendors. They were robbed of a good experience, and the organizer (who is actually an author herself, Lisa Renee Jones) is making it worse by gaslighting, not taking responsibility, and promoting next year's event like nothing just happened.

My Take: Denver needs a good, well-run book event, so hopefully, people give the next Denver book event a fair chance, even if it’s not Readers Take Denver!!

Feel free to share your experiences with us - the book space needs transparency in all areas! Also, open to hosting a Nook about it.

This Week in Publishing:

Like I said last week, it's about to be an Emily Henry world and we are just living in it.

Funny Story releases today, and bookstores are hosting Midnight releases… Need I say more!

Add the book to your TBR today and start a book club on our Bookum with friends!

As always, if you enjoyed this week’s newsletter, please share it with others. Every share helps and keeps us growing!

Definitely share to a book content creator friend that might enjoy our newsletter!

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Happy Reading!

Download Bookum on Apple or Android Here!

See you next week!

Footnotes (Aka other articles we are reading and Bookum content):

Dr. Raymond Williams joins The Creators Talk Podcast Friday!

Conversation with Publisher Winnifred Tataw on Win’s Books - https://youtu.be/LU8ns9D1F0g?si=PiZBWhGteXEy-sL_