RIGHT NOW - TikTok’s A Million Friends Weekend
Recovery for Authors Burned by a Broken Promise
I hate publishing articles back to back, I never want to overwhelm my subscribers, but this article is urgent because its about an event happening RIGHT NOW! If you like books, you’re going to want to read this.
Over this weekend of June 13–15, a bright corner of TikTok is lighting up with storytelling, community, and something unique to social media spaces… Solidarity.
A Million Friends Weekend, a TikTok Live event created and hosted by KT Wishert (an indie author, developmental editor and narrator), is happening right now! Bringing together authors and professional audiobook narrators, and bookish businesses to present three days of live readings, panels, and giveaways for YOU, a reader.
But the story behind this event is just as important as the books it showcased.
In May 2025, around 150 indie authors, narrators, and small businesses were invited to vend at the A Million Lives Book Festival, an event hosted by Archer Fantasy events that promised big crowds and a typical book convention experience. What they got instead was an under-attended, poorly organized, and deeply damaging experience. Many of these writers and vendors lost hundreds, sometimes thousands, of dollars in travel, shipping, booth fees, and lodging, only to arrive and find the event a shell of what was promised. Not only this, but they were left to represent the event to guests who arrived to a lack luster experience, risking their reputations doing so.
In the wake of that betrayal, several events have popped up in support of the authors, narrators, and vendors who attended the event. You’ll remember my recent article about the upcoming Booktok Festival in August, and how author Atlas Creed is hosting a relief page on his Indie Author Connect (IAX) platform. Just like these, A Million Friends Weekend was born as a remedy giving authors a platform worthy of their stories.
With a focus on narrators, each panel, each live has been a model of care and coordination. For example in the author pitch sessions KT themselves hosted, steering a very smooth ship. Authors arrived for their time slot with an elevator pitch of their book before handing it over to a professional narrator who performed a live reading of the author’s book excerpt (while the author’s promo graphics filled the screen in the background).
Moderators also worked behind the scenes to keep things running smoothly by fielding comments, sharing author links, and making announcements. Moderators in the live used their backgrounds to display space rules throughout the sessions. The format struck an impressive balance between polished and personal, offering visibility and respect for the authors featured.
Beyond the readings, the event will also host industry panels (right now as I write, I’m hearing from a business that does amazing sprayed edges for books).
My only critique thus far is that there doesn’t seem to be a transparent schedule of the event, which, if that is the case, makes it hard for attendees to know when panels of interest will occur. The only schedule I was able to find was a TikTok carousel of a handful of narrators— when they’d be joining TT lives throughout the weekend.
All in all this weekend is about great authors, great narrators, and great bookish businesses, but more, it shows a strength of the indie community. That we take care of each other. There’s something quietly radical about building a positive space in a typically toxic and broken one.
Let’s keep showing up!
Please join me this weekend on TikTok for this bookish event. Follow your new favorite authors, narrators, and get some cool merch if its in your budget!
Also, go give KT a follow on their social media (TikTok and Instagram) and check out their upcoming duology The Hallowed Heir.