once upon a scam

Let me tell you a story.

Once upon a time (August, 2025), there was a fantasy book convention making its debut in the Washington DC area. It promised many splendors:

Immerse yourself in your favorite bookish worlds with over 100 vendors and guest authors, exciting panels and workshops, TTRPG room, plus our own Starfall Masquerade and High Fantasy Fashion Show. Dress to impress for the first book-centered cosplay competition, make new friends with over a dozen cosplay fandom meetups, and so much more!

Sounds lovely, yes? Indeed. So much so, that despite a similar convention (called “A Million Lives”) crashing and burning earlier in the year in Baltimore, Your Humble Narrator paid to attend Once Upon A Con as an author.

At first, Your Humble Narrator enjoyed his experience at OUAC. During the three days of the convention, he sold over 90 books, and made about $1600 in sales. He was very happy with his results, seeing as how he had been placed at the far end of a row of authors, and none of his books were of the very popular “romantasy” subgenre that almost all the other authors were selling.

A unique feature of OUAC was that VIP attendees were given “doubloons” (tokens) that they could exchange for books from participating authors, who would then be fully reimbursed by the OUAC organizers. This was a great incentive for attendees to take a chance on books and writers they had never heard of.

Your Humble Narrator exchanged seven books for doubloons, including a few copies of his latest novel (see above). He gave his totals and email information to the staff who were running OUAC, and was assured that payment would be forthcoming.

Throughout the convention, Your Humble Narrator heard grumblings from some of the attendees (and the staff!), who said that all was not well behind the scenes. He chalked this up to the usual hiccups and problems that first-time conventions experience, and thought nothing more of it, planning to participate again in 2026.

He found out several days after the convention that the goings-on that had been mentioned were considerably worse than he had heard. But he was assuaged by an email from the OUAC organizers, sent on August 20, that he would soon be reimbursed for his books:

August 29th came, and Your Humble Narrator received another email from “Kiri,” the co-chair of OUAC, that said that payments would be later than anticipated:

This message troubled Your Humble Narrator, as he has been in the book business long enough to know that there are some bad actors who try to fleece authors. Nevertheless, he re-sent his PayPal information and the amount owed, and waited patiently.

September 18 came and went, and Your Humble Narrator was not paid. Nor, as he noticed on social media, were any other of the authors at OUAC:

On September 19, Your Humble Narrator sent a polite reminder email to Kiri, but received no reply. Over that following weekend, he also learned that he had been banned from OUAC’s social media, with his comments about not being paid having been deleted. Perhaps it was in response to this poke he took at them on Instagram and Facebook:

You should understand, Gentle Visitor To This Blog, that Your Humble Narrator is not, from a financial viewpoint, pressed about the $130 he is owed. YHN lost more than that over the OUAC weekend by a technological snafu with his credit card reader.

No, what annoys Your Humble Narrator is being jerked around and played for a chump by some person who nicknamed themself after a character in the Avatar movies. Or whatever. Nevertheless, YHN reached out one last time by email to Kiri:

All of this unpleasantness is an unnecessary shame. YHN was very happy with his sales at OUAC. He really enjoyed meeting many lovely people. He feels badly for the put-upon staff who worked their tails off to make the event happen while Kiri and their partner Elaine Mayer (aka Maya Claire) allegedly partied and ignored all the catastrophes (like panels being canceled, or the balls and shows not starting on time) that were going on.

Nor does YHN feel any animosity to the readers who traded doubloons with him. It’s not their fault that Kiri and OUAC refuse to carry out their side of the bargain they made with authors and attendees. You readers don’t owe Your Humble Narrator anything, and he hopes you enjoyed the books.

But Your Humble Narrator tells you this: this is not the end of the story. While he is resigned to the fact that he is never going to get what’s owed him, he is going to go out of his way to make life difficult for Kiri and OUAC. He is going to dog them and drag them on social media any chance he gets. He is going to make it known far and wide what happened to him, the other authors, and the attendees.

He is not going to let the scammers who ran OUAC pull this shit again on anyone else.

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Kenton Kilgore writes books for kids, young adults, and adults who are still young. Follow Kenton on Facebook for frequent posts on sci-fi, fantasy, and other speculative fiction. You can also catch him on Instagram.