Today I want to talk about the editing. I’ve written about editing woes before and my experience with a variety of editors, but today I want to discuss why editing is so important.

As an independent author, it can be really difficult to be taken seriously in the writing or reading community. Not always, there are a lot of people who are incredibly supportive of independent authors. There is sometimes the idea that you couldn’t hack it as a professional writer, or that your work was too terrible to be picked up by an agent or trad publisher, or that you’re just lazy, or a bunch of other stigma, which are generally untrue.

Writers, just like people, come in a whole variety of shapes, sizes, skills, abilities, and have different levels of competence, risk tolerance, patience, and so on. Some people query for years before getting picked up by an agent. And even then, just getting a literary agent to represent you does not guarantee they will be able to sell your manuscript to a publisher.

Take these numbers with a grain of salt, since they were provided by Google, but estimates cite that the chances of securing a literary agent range somewhere between 1 in 3000 to 1 in 6000. Further estimates go on to say that roughly only 1 to 2% of manuscripts submitted to publishers ever get accepted.

What can you take away from this?

If you are an author who wants to go the trad publishing route: the better quality your manuscript is, the more seriously an agent or a publisher is going to take it and the further ahead of the competition this can put you. If you are able to, work with a developmental editor to really tighten your story, hone your voice, and get your book in the best possible shape you can before submitting it.

If you are an author who doesn’t want to deal with querying, and you want to go the self-published route, editing is STILL vital to the success of your work. Remember all those stigma I listed just a few paragraphs ago? While you have completely control over your work, that means everything comes back to you and first impressions matter.

I’ve been back and forth with Phil and Dustin a few times about proof editing. I understand that when you are first getting started, it can be tempting to think that readers will be forgiving and understanding, and that typos and grammar don’t matter much. You might be short on funds and not feel like you can afford an editor. Or you might feel like it doesn’t matter and you’ll simply go back and fix things up after the fact, once you have more books out.

I am here to tell you that readers DNF books for all kinds of reasons. Don’t let grammar and typos be one of them. Don’t put it off. Excellent proof editing are like customer service. Most people don’t notice it unless it’s done poorly.

A while back Phil had a reader reach out to him to let him know that while his book was very good, it had a number of grammatical errors and that he almost did not finish it as a result. In this case Phil’s excellent storytelling saved him, but it was a really stark reminder that readers can and do pay attention to those things. So Phil had to go back and carefully edit and re-release his book.

At Dragonsteel Nexus 2025 last year, Dustin had a similar experience. I wrote about Bryan who came by our table and gave us all the First Line Test. He picked up some of our books, read Dustin’s that night, and came back to talk to Dustin about it the next day. He had some great feedback, but also pointed out that there were some inconsistencies. For example a character’s name was spelled two different ways throughout the book among a few other things.

Dustin has since worked with a proof editor to get these inconsistencies corrected. But now I have to go through and reformat and re-upload his book. It’s double work on my part, and if Dustin had been paying someone to his layout and book management work for him, they would have charged him again. Ingram spark charges you to make changes to your manuscript or cover last time I checked.

In my humble opinion, choosing not to work with an editor on the front end under the pretense of saving money just costs you more time and money later on down the road and can leave readers with a negative impression of your work. They can, and do, notice these things.

Put your best foot forward, right from the start and make a great first impression with your readers. Don’t let something as fixable as typos and grammar keep your books from giving readers the best possible experience, and potentially turning them off from your work for good.

Despite all your best efforts, there will likely always be some little typo or something that gets through. This happens even to trad published authors with a team of editors and designers working on their book. (I’m looking at you Heroes of Oympus.)

Personally I find a lot of comfort in this. This book went through an entire team of people and went on to get published with thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands copies printed and no one caught this typo. It happens. That is the nature of typos. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do our best in order to give our readers the best possible version of our story and make the best first impression that we can. In my experience, it’s not worth postponing or putting it off.

Till next time dear reader, let me know what editing pet peeves you have or what areas you like to make a strong first impression in. <3 Tiff

As we (Dustin, Phil, and myself) begin to attend more and more events, we often get the questions “Where do I start?” Our answer is usually to start with whatever catches your interest the most:

The Sellsword Saga by Dustin Ballard follows Cas the Mercenary. It’s gritty, fast-paced, and feels a bit like Clint Eastwood got dropped into a Conan the Barbarian novel.

The Neversleep Scrolls by Phillip Walton follows Fraek Neversleep, a human spymaster in a city of elves and feels like a 1940s noir detective story in a fantasy equivalent of Los Angeles.

Tales of Tigraen and Short Stories from Tigraen by Tiffani Sahara follow Jaren and Songbird on their quest to slay an ancient evil, and feels like a classic adventure-quest fantasy for fans of The Last Unicorn, Ladyhawke, and Lord of the Rings.

That said, since all of our books are taking place in the same world, it stands to reason that people would want to know where to start. Are these books happening concurrently? Do we need to read them chronologically? Do we need to read all them to understand what is going on? These are all great questions! Allow me to answer them.

Are all these books happening concurrently? Yes! Most all of our books are happening somewhat concurrently in the timeline, just in different parts of the world. We are each focusing on different characters in different countries so we can lean into our own unique styles of storytelling. If you are curious as to where in the world these books are happening, here is a map I put together.

Do readers need to read them in chronological order? No! At least not at this time. You can read all of the books that have been released in The Sellsword Saga and then read Tales of Tigraen or the Neversleep Scrolls or vice versa, and it won’t make any difference. This may change as the world expands, but for now, read each series in whatever order you like. Most of our books act/can be read as a standalone, but do reference events and materials from previous books within their own series. (So, book 2 in the Neversleep Scrolls will reference events in book 1 from the Neversleep scrolls, but you will not have to have read any of Sellsword Saga, and so on.) For readers who are curious, here is a rough outline of our chronological order.

Do readers need to read all the books to understand what is going on? No! As of right now there are some easter eggs in each books, but we have not tackled a full crossover just yet. (Although that is coming soon-ish.) There are some events which I like to refer to as Anchor Events, which are mentioned in all of the books, but you do not need to have read all of the series to know what is happening. It is rather interesting to see different countries responses to the same event though.

Do you have any crossovers? Not yet! We are working on establishing the ground work first before we start writing cameos and crossovers, but rest assured we have that planned.

Till next time dear reader, what is your favorite shared universe or crossover event? Let me know!
<3 Tiff

Today I want to share one of my favorite Haiku by the legendary Japanese poet Kobayashi Issa.

蝸牛 / そろそろ登れ / 富士の山
katatsumuri / sorosoro nobore / Fuji no yama
snail / slowly slowly climb / Mt. Fuji

There are some slight variations proposed to the translation, but you get the jist of it. (What I find interesting is that the verb “nobore” is the form you use when you’re telling someone to do something. [You] Climb! or in this case: Snail, climb!)

When I have a huge task ahead of me, I often think of this Hiaku and feel comforted. All you have to do is keep putting one foot in front of the other. Making a tiny bit of progress each day is better than no progress. I’ve probably talked about this before, but if you make 1% progress every day, at the end of a year you’ll have made 365% progress! (Or 366% if it’s a leap year, haha!)

This post seems appropriate after my post about my Kanban Board last week. I’ll admit, after that post I got a little grumpy about how little progress I was making. Here we are in MAY, almost half-way through the year and a lot of my tasks haven’t even been started yet. I needed to get my butt in gear and get working ASAP. So I picked one at random and got going. Offering direct sales through my website was something that seemed do-able in a fairly short time frame and is also something I’m really wanting to offer so people have a choice outside The Zon for buying my books. Then when I thought about all the effort it was going to take to make my books available on my website I got even more grumpy.

This task seems simple on the surface. “Post books on website for sale.” That should just take like an hour or two right? Wrong. (Thanks optimism bias and planning fallacy. You guys are jerks.) (I mean, maybe you can get it set up that quickly, but I could not.)

There are a lot of little steps that go into the larger task. I have to take photos of my books and/or format the pictures appropriately for the website AND I have to set up the ecommerce part of my website AND I need to weigh and measure all my books for shipping according to said ecommerce portion of my website AND I need to connect my banking app or Paypal to the website (finances are not my happy place), AND I need to set up all the tax stuff so Uncle Sam gets his cut AND I have to choose my fulfillment option AND I have to weigh and measure all the packaging and calculate shipping AND I need to go count my inventory AND… well, you get the point.

I say all this not to have a pity party, but simply to demonstrate how easy it can be to get overwhelmed if we let ourselves. So I chose to break down the task “Offer Direct Sales from my Website” into several smaller tasks, write them all down, and make an effort to make progress on one of those things when I can. Last weekend I got set up on IngramSpark. (Shudder) Then one evening during the week I measured and weighed all of my books. Today my plan is get all the pictures formatted correctly. When I think of only doing one thing at a time it’s much easier not to feel overwhelmed and also to feel accomplished when I get something knocked out.

A while back I remember looking up how many words a day trad published authors tend to write. We all know there are crazy prolific authors like Brandon Sanderson who write like 3000+ words a day. During my search I read an article about how Holly Black posted her word count on social media as she was writing one of her books. Her word count only averaged about 1000 words a day, which many people felt was a small word count for someone writing full time. But she was consistent and 1000 words a day, consistently, gets books done.

Whatever you’re working on that seems insurmountable, just break it down and take some baby steps. A little bit each day gets you closer to your goal. You’re doing great and I believe in you. It’s ok to channel your inner snail as often as you need. Snails may move a little slow compared to some creatures, and that’s ok. They don’t worry about what everyone else is doing and they keep on moving and they get where they are going in their own time.

Till next time dear reader. <3 Tiff

Have you ever heard of a Kanban board? Today I’m going to tell you all about mine.

Attending Dragonsteel with Dustin and Phil was a huge highlight of 2025. It was so much fun for all of us to hang out and get to pitch our books, meet fans, and just have a great time in general. We all live in different states so we don’t get to see each other in person very much and it was a wonderful treat.

Something else that Dragonsteel helped with was honing my focus. In 2025 I had a ton of goals and they were all over the place. Coming back from Dragonsteel I had a better idea of what I wanted to accomplish in 2026. Towards the end of December/beginning of January I put together a Kanban board. I have significantly fewer goals this year, but they all feel more targeted towards the overall vision of what I want to accomplish in my creative work.

A kanban board is a project management tool. (I’m married to a project manager, so no one should be shocked by this.) Mine is just a white board with sticky notes on it. It has three columns: To Do, Doing, and Done. Everything I want to do in the year gets written on a sticky note and posted in the To Do column. When I start on it, it gets moved over to the Doing column, and then when it’s finished it goes to Done. It’s pretty simple, but it’s a nice visual way to see what I’m working on, what’s left to do, and also shows everything I’ve accomplished. (Don’t get Success Amnesia! Celebrate Your wins!) It also helps me make sure I don’t have too many things pile up in the Doing column.

I wanted to share because maybe this type of tool will help you keep on track with some of your goals or projects this year?

Here is my Kanban board for 2026 and my progress so far.

Till next time dear reader, I’d love to hear what sorts of tools do you use to stay organized and to stay on track. <3 Tiff

I think I’m close enough to completion that it’s time to reveal the cover for my next book: Of Festivals and Fey (or oFaF because I get really tired of typing it out).

Sir Hardric, Jaren’s mentor and the knight who watches over Mulk, is throwing a grand Uhel Feast to celebrate the solstice for the first time in years. He’s invited Jaren, Songbird, and Illina to help him prepare the castle for the festival. Unbeknownst to Hardric, Songbird has extended his invitation to Ficiun who graciously arrives the week before the feast to help with preparations. Will Illina and Songbird be able to curb the troublesome fey lord’s mischievous behavior or will the holiday be ruined for everyone? OFaF is a cozy holiday novella that takes place between A Songbird’s Tale and it’s forthcoming sequel and will work to bridge the story from the ending of book one to the beginning of book two in Tales of Tigraen Duology.

Drum roll…..

OFaF is currently with beta readers and will be undergoing final revisions and editing soon. Plus it features a NEW original song from Rowan the Bard! I can’t wait to share this fun and cozy tale with you all.

Till next time dear readers! <3 Fliff.

I’m a little late on getting this post out, but I set a reading goal for the year. I usually try to do Goodreads reading challenge every year and I generally set my goal fairly low. This year I was a little ambitious. And also I wanted something that sounded catchy. So 26 in 26 it is. I’ll be posting mini-reviews on my Instagram, and full reviews of some of my top favorites here on the blog.

I know we’re already into April, but I have been reading since January and figured I would post the list of books I have already read and ones that I hope to read this year.

Already finished:

• The North Tower by Michelle N. Hagood (Great Indie Author read! I will be picking up the rest of the Trilogy)

• In the Shadow of Their Dying by Michael R. Fletcher (Grimdark at it’s grimmest.)

• The Magician’s Daughter by H. G. Parry (Great for fans of Howl’s Moving Castle)

• What Blood Remembers by C. William Phillips (Indie Author)

• The Knight and the Butcherbird by Alix E. Harrow (I LOVED this little short story, 5 stars for me.)

• Six of Crows & Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo (Kaz has been added to my list of all-time favorite characters, both 5 star reads for me)

• Morning Glory Milking Farm by C. M. Nacosta (Don’t judge me, I got curious.)

• Red Rising by Pierce Brown (I’ll be honest guys, I’m not sure what the hype is all about. Deadly trials and battle royale academy stories don’t do it for me, but if you want Hunger Games in Space, this might be for you.)

• Nine Goblins by T. Kingfisher (A fun little romp with the Whinin’ Niners, a unit in the goblin army who just want to get home in one piece.)

To be (hopefully) finished by the end of the year!

• Alchemy of Secrets

• The Ashfire King

• Breath of the Dragon

• The Buffalo Hunter Hunter

• Crown of the Sundered Empire

• Elantris

• The Forgotten Oath

• In the Veins of Drowning

• Jurassic Park

• King Sorrow

• The Legend of Uh

• Marigolds and Murder

• The Spear Cuts Through Water

• The Starless Sea

• Steel Gods

• The Thrice Bound Fool (I will put everything on hold and might even call out of work to read this book when it comes out.)

• Tigana

• What the Library Hides

Astute readers may notice that this does not add up to 26. I had to add on some books that came out this year that I forgot about in January when I was originally creating this list, and I wanted to leave room for books that might not get finished. (Life is too short to read books you don’t enjoy.) We’ll see what all I’m able to accomplish this year. Maybe I make it to 26, maybe I ‘ll manage more. Wish me luck!

Till next time dear reader, let me know if you’ve read any books on this list and what you think I should add or subtract from it. <3 Tiff

Hello dear reader!

Today I am going to talk about hooking your audience. When Phil, Dustin and I were at Dragonsteel, we had a gentleman named Bryan come by our booth. He was fantastic to talk to and we spoke with him several days over the course of the convention.

I think it was day two he came back around and he told us that he was doing what he dubbed “The first line test”. He was going around to tables and asking for the first lines from each book at the table, and whichever book had the best first line was the one that he bought.

This was ridiculously humbling. I’m pretty sure Dustin, Phil, and I all looked at each other and thought “Oh no” as Bryan started picking up our books and read our first lines out loud.

First Dustin’s book. “Cas limped into town.”

Then Phil’s book. “When the somber toll of the nursemaid’s bell rang in the humid night air, marking the hour, the city of Arathes had quieted to a hum.”

Then it was my turn. I asked if it could be the first line of the prologue or if it had to be the first line of chapter one. Bryan said I could pick so I went with the prologue. “Jaren knew he was dreaming because he could see.” He flipped to chapter one. “Jaren woke with a start.”

He gave me a look, and probably said something along the lines of “Yeah, that’s pretty lame for a first line.” And he’s not wrong.

When I was writing my first book, I wasn’t thinking too much about the first line, which of course is your first chance to really hook your reader. There are a number of mistakes that I made with my first book. My first line isn’t that great, it starts with the dreaded and cliche scene where a character is waking up, and so many more rules of writing which I didn’t know existed at the time. I just wanted to tell the story that I wanted to read but couldn’t find anywhere.

I think I had put much more care and attention into the prologue being the hook, but I have since learned that people don’t always read your prologue. And of course, without the Prologue for added context, my first line feels EXTRA cliche.

Despite this, I am still immensely proud of my first book. Are there a lot of things that could be improved upon? Sure. But it was my first book and I think it was written to the best of my ability at the time that I wrote it. I certainly hope I have learned and improved since then.

I may go back and see at some point if I can craft a better first line. It might be an interesting exercise to try to rewriter the first line, first paragraph, or even the first chapter, just to see how much I’ve improved or changed as a writer. But I have other projects I need to get through first.

Phil, Dustin, and myself all discussed the interaction after Bryan bought a book and headed off to enjoy the rest of the convention. It was a great lesson for all of us. You know that first lines are important. But by pitting them up against each other to see which one was the most interesting and knowing that whichever book came out on top got the purchase, that kind of puts things in a whole new light. It’s one of those situations where you know something, but you don’t fully realize it until that moment kind of thing.

If you book is lucky enough to be in a bookstore, the title and the cover help get a reader to pick it up off the shelf, but your first line might mean the difference between a purchase or not. I know not everyone starts with the first line. Some people flip to the middle of the book and read a few paragraphs, some people like to read the first line or the first few pages, and some people just go on vibes alone. But when you think about your first line competing with a bunch of other first lines, it does change how you approach it.

Wherever you are, thanks Bryan for that valuable lesson! Our future books will be much improved by it.

Till next time dear reader, let me know what your favorite first line is, or which of the three of our first lines you would pick from. <3 Tiff

This post today is mainly for my fellow writers and convention vendors. I wanted to recap Vendor tips from Dragonsteel Nexus 2025. What went well, what do I wish I had done different, etc.

Check out my tips for vendors from Dragonsteel 2024 or my three biggest takeaways from Dragonsteel 2024.

Things that went well that I want to repeat:

• A cooler with snacks! We brought carrots, apples, jerky, and nuts to snack on throughout the day. These were easy to get and were light enough that you didn’t feel icky from eating something greasy, heavy, or sugary, which I feel like most convention concessions tend to be.

• Laminated cards that show how all our books intertwine in our shared world. This is helpful for explaining the unique aspect of how we as writers work together in a shared world.

• Having more than just two people run the booth. This is great if you need a break you can step away and know that the person at the booth won’t be overwhelmed because they’ll still have some backup.

• Getting an AirB&B instead of staying at a hotel. For us, this made a lot of sense because we were traveling as a group. If I were to attend a convention by myself I might still book a hotel. But in this case, having a house that we could all hang out in together, cook breakfast and sometimes dinner at was really delightful. It felt much less cramped than a hotel room and really helped us decompress in the evening. It was much quieter than a hotel as well.

• We brought plenty of business cards this year, so we didn’t run out! I think I ordered 500 for each of us, so a grand total of 1500 cards. I would say we probably gave away a bit under 750 total.

• QR Code for the email sign up list. Much better than trying to read handwriting on a paper sheet.

• Wagons, still a Godsend, highly recommend.

• Participating in the convention game, but only because we had more help at the booth this year.

Now. On to what I would have done differently.

• I would have created the text on the banners differently. They don’t actually give enough detail about what we do to be useful. I’m already in the process of revising them.

• I packed pretty much all the books in cardboard boxes. The reason being I had them on hand and in my mind I thought we would just collapse them and discard them if we sold an entire box worth of books. Yeeeeah, next time I’m putting everything in Rubbermaid containers. Which leads me to my next point.

• I’m bringing way less books next time. I’m also considering shipping most of them ahead of time.

• I need to find a way to highlight that we have original music for several of our stories. Not sure how to do this yet, but I’ve got a couple of ideas.

• I would like to have some kind of small token or thing for younger kiddos who come by the booth. I could probably do some cool wooden coins on my Glowforge as an example.

• Scheduling shifts for people to step away from the booth.

• I am going to change up how I do bade ribbons next time. At DSNX25 I had them free with purchase. I want to have some kind of a free option and a purchase option next time.

Well friends, there you have it. Some of my bigger lessons learned from Dragonsteel Nexus 2025. I’m looking forward to implementing these changes at my next convention and learning even more lessons!

Till next time, dear reader! <3 Tiff

Today I’m going to be taking you through my recap of Dragonsteel Nexus 2025.

Some notable differences were that last year I was on Indie Row and I had that spot for only one day. This year I went all in and got a 10x10 booth for the entire three days of the convention. Last year it was just the hubs and I. This year Phil, Dustin, myself and the hubs all went. Previous years I have stayed in hotel right across from the convention center, this year we got an Air B&N just a few blocks away.

As with previous years, I drove this year. I had to get a rental car because we were bringing so much stuff.

My dear sweet husband, God bless him, wanted to bring A LOT of books. So we packed the car FULL.

In hind sight, we brought waaaay too many books. I think we packed over 300 books into the rental. We’re just not well known enough yet to be selling that many books in a weekend. But dream big and live and learn! Upon learning that you can ship you wares to the event host ahead of time, we decided it might be prudent to do that if we are able to attend this event in the future.

This was my third year at Dragonsteel and I have always been very fortunate with weather. This year, not so much.

Because I work a full time job in addition to writing, I don’t have a lot of flexibility in terms of taking leave, so we ended up having to leave the day the weather decided to get nasty. Huge chunks of our drive looked like the road above where we maxed out at about 45 MPH. What is normally an 8 hour drive from Denver to Salt Lake ended up taking us 12 hours. T_T It was definitely not the most fun drive I’ve ever taken.

We eventually made it safe and sound and that’s what matters. I was a little bummed that I missed Brandon’s walk through of the exhibitor area, but maybe I’ll catch him next year, as I will likely be planning the travel much differently if I get accepted as a vendor in 2026.

We got in fairly late but were able to get everything unloaded and set up the night before the convention opened.

Nick and I picked Dustin up on the way, and Phil flew in from TN the first day of the conference and so we all made it! Since the three of us all live in different states it’s not very often we get to hang out in person together, but here we are!

The next three days were a whirlwind of awesomeness. We had SO much fun getting to talk to attendees. We sold books, we saw tons of amazing cosplay, we got to talk to other independent authors and other craftspeople, we got super inspired, Dustin lost his voice. I was so busy I forgot to take pictures. The whole thing was fantastic.

Dustin brought his chaimaille vest from when he used to be involved in SCA for an item on the table for people to interact with. Some of my favorite moments where when kids stopped by and got to try on the chainmaille.

Another really cool moment from the event where when we had someone stop by the booth and say “Oh, hey, you were here last year, I got everything last year, what’s new this year? I’ll take one of everything that’s new.” I was speechless, that was just such a neat interaction. Side tangent, it really doesn’t take much to make an author’s day.

For Dustin, he had someone buy book one of the Sellsword Saga, go home, read it that evening, (it’s a pretty short book) and then come back the next day and chat with him about it. What an amazing interaction! Dustin is normally a pretty reserved human, and it was so fun for me to watch him light up when he was talking to people. It was very much a highlight of the convention for me.

I tried to buy books and prints from as many authors and artists as I could, but I spent most of the time at the table, so I didn’t get around to every booth I wanted or to any of the panels or anything else because we were pretty busy. Which is a great problem to have! Hopefully next year Dustin and Phil will feel a bit more comfortable at the booth and we can be a bit more organized about taking shifts so we can get around to seeing and supporting other vendors.

All too soon it was time to pack up and go home. Happy, revitalized but exhausted and in much need of some introvert time, we headed for home.

Dragonsteel really is a very special convention. I think both the vendors and the attendees are just genuinely great people and everyone feels happy and excited to be there. The Dragonsteel staff are amazing and really go above and beyond to take care of both vendors and attendees. If you have a chance to attend this convention, I highly recommend it.

I’m really looking forward to going next year if we’re able to. Next week I’m going to post about all the biggest takeaways from the event.

Till then dear reader, enjoy your January! <3 Tiff

Welcome to 2026! I hope you had a safe and wonderful holiday season. It’s so lovely to see you all back.

As is tradition (is it really tradition, or is this just something I like to do every year? Is there even a difference?)… *ahem. As is tradition, I want to start the year off by doing a re-cap of the goals we set out to accomplish last year and what our goals for 2026 are. So without further ado, here we go!

Blacksteel Press 2025 Goals:

• Dustin plans to finish the first draft of Sellsword Saga Book 3.

  • In Progress. We published Mercenary Measures, which is the Sellsword Saga Book 2, and Dustin is currently working on the first draft of book 3.

• Phil will finish the first draft of the Neversleep Scrolls Book 2.

  • Complete! Not only did Phil finish the first draft of Neversleep Scrolls Book 2 (Shadows Spill the Darkest Blood), but it also went through initial rounds of beta reading and revisions. Phil is hoping to release book 2 in early(ish) 2026.

• Tiffani will finish the first draft of Tales of Tigraen Book 2.

  • In Progress. Yeeeeeeeah, I’ve been really dragging my feet on this. What I have accomplished is to finish and publish a novella Of Dwarves and Dragons (a spin-off story featuring Kroegan and Tetsu), as well as get through initial drafts and revisions Of Festivals and Fey (a bridge novella between A Songbird’s Tale and the sequel. I really will get to work on it this year, I promise.

• Tiffani (and hopefully Dustin and Phil) will attend Dragonsteel Nexus 2025 provided our application for a booth is approved.

  • Complete! We had an absolute blast! Expect more posts about our big takeaways to come.

• Tiffani will release the audiobook version of A Songbird’s Tale, provided there are no more significant delays on the narrator’s end.

  • COMPLETE!!! After nearly 18 months… the book is now finished and available on Audible. I couldn’t be happier with it.

Blacksteel Press Goals for 2026

• Dustin will finish the first draft of Winding Divide, the Sellsword Saga book 3

• Phil will publish Shadows Spill the Darkest Blood, Neversleep Scrolls book 2.

• Tiffani will finish the first draft of A Knight’s Tale, Tales of Tigraen, book 2

I have a lot of other little projects that I would like to finish this year, so hopefully I can get those knocked out as well.

That’s all for now. Coming up in the next few weeks we will recap Dragonsteel Nexus 2025 and return to our regular posting cadence. Happiest of New Years and may 2026 bring us all peace and prosperity!

Till next time dear reader, I’d love to hear about your writing or reading goals. :) <3 Tiff

It’s that time of year again: time for the team to take a much-needed break. To rest, to recuperate, to feast, and to fill out creative cups. Basically we’re going on holiday, but unlike Bilbo Baggins, this is a holiday that we intend to return from.

Don’t worry, we’ll be back with lots more adventures and excitement next year.

I also want to take this opportunity to say thank you so much. To new fans and old. Your support means everything to us and we appreciate each and every one of you. Thank you!

Till next time dear reader, from all of us at Blacksteel Press: Merry Christmas, Joyous Rohatsu, Happy Hanukkah, Cheerful Kwanzaa, Festive Winter Solstice, and Happy Holidays!!!

See you all in the new year! <3 Tiff

Stop by if you’re in town!

Find us in the Aether District, booth A-13m between Donato Giancola and Dragon Roast.

Come see our booth and pick up signed copies of books! Pics to follow the event.

I hope this finds you well. I’m busy preparing for Dragonsteel Nexus 2025, so I don’t have much in the way of updates, but I do want to share something fun I’ve been working on with you!

Sometimes I feel like it’s a little hard to explain what Dustin, Phil, and I do, all writing in the same world. But I made this graphic for Dragonsteel recently that I think sums it up nicely!

What I really like about this is that you get a sense of where all the books are taking place in relation to one-another. A Songbird’s Tale, and the spin-off novels that I have written all take place in country of Tigraen. The Neversleep Scrolls, which Phil writes, take place in the city of Arathes, which is in the country of Sarmatti. The Sellsword Saga, which is Dustin’s series about Cas the Mercenary are a little different. Cas is a wandering mercenary, so his adventures will take him all over Nova Eian. (Nova Eian being on of the continents on the world of Galhadria.) You can see that Cas started in Gazea, just outside of Tigraen. From there he’s traveled all the way to Pileus. His next adventure will take him over to Drialadon in The Free Kingdoms.

Eventually, I’ll have to get a bigger map, but for now, I think it’s neat to see how much we have accomplished collectively. At some point, you can expect some of these characters to bump into each other…

Both Shadows Spill the Darkest Blood and Of Festivals and Fey are slotted for release sometime in early 2026, so keep your eyes peeled for those.

Till next time dear reader! ~ Tiff

Today I want to announce that the Galhadria team is heading to Dragonsteel Nexus in December!

This year all of us are heading to Utah! Dustin, Phil, and I will be in the exhibitor section at our booth for all three days of the convention. We are so looking forward to connecting with you readers. You can find us at booth A-13 - Authors of Galhadria.

MAP UPDATED! (On the map we are listed as Dusty Rabbit)

We will have books, stickers, and pins. Among our books we will have some new releases that we are so excited to share with you! Stay tuned for more details!

Till next time dear reader! - The Galhadria team

In the interim, I’m drafting book 3!

It’s been a few weeks. I had to step away from things for a while. Now that I’m back, I wanted to check in with you and see how you are doing?

I want to pause from my normal post topics today and give some space for all of the absolutely turbulent things going on in the world right now. Perhaps it’s just me, but it feels like things are becoming increasingly violent and hostile. I’m not here to talk about how we got here or the specific issues themselves, but I do want to check in on my readers and see if you are taking care of yourselves.

We were never meant to be constantly bombarded with the kinds of information and news that we see today. Our brains are not wired to handle witnessing televised murders, terrorist attacks, bombings, and/or shootings in 30 second clips, before scrolling on to something else equally terrible. I worry about how desensitized people are getting to seeing things that only a few decades ago would be considered truly atrocious to witness.

Maybe I’m the only one, but I feel like my heart is breaking with how much anger and vitriol I get bombarded with on the news or on social media each day. This group hates that group simply because of a difference of opinion. This group is calling for the extermination of this other group. In the last month I’ve seen footage of people getting shot in the streets execution style, a man get murdered in front of his children and wife and an entire stadium full of college kids; I’ve seen footage of riots and destruction, of people being abducted off the streets; I’ve seen videos of people calling for the murder of children simply because of the political or religious affiliation of their parents; I’ve seen footage of a lady wearing a shirt that says “Make America Kind Again” screaming in rage while she beat a cardboard construction of a political figure.

We are not ok as a society right now.

I don’t want these things to be normalized. I don’t want casual posts about political violence, or assassinations, or mass shootings or the celebration of someone’s demise to just be part of what I see on my daily feed. If social media wasn’t one of the main methods to connect to new readers and market my books, I don’t think I would be on it at all. Not because I want to be blind to all the things happening in the world, but because I’m frightened of the attitude most of society seems to have towards them.

What do we do? How do we change things?

I don’t know how we fix things. How do we turn away from so much anger and hate and move towards creating a gentler, kinder world? I wish I knew. Life is hard, and cruel. But that doesn’t mean we have to be. I don’t have all the answers. I can’t control what people say online, or what they post, or how they think. But. I do know that I have control over myself and my own actions. And I can choose to be kind. I can always choose to be kind. And hopefully I will leave those whose lives I touch just a little better for it.

Take care of yourself friends. Till next time, and every time, choose kindness.

<3 Tiff

Today I want to share a new release. A new novella which details the backstory of two characters from A Songbird’s Tale. This short story details the story of how Kroegan the dwarven prince met Tetsu, princess of Sho.

I’d love for you to check it out and let me know your thoughts!

Till next time dear reader! <3 Tiff

Today and I want to update you on something that has finally, finally, FINALLY come to fruition!

My debut novel is finally available in Audiobook format. For right now it’s only available on Audible, but once my exclusive contract runs out, I plan to expand to other listening platforms.

As a special bonus, the narrator, Arthur Rowan, wrote the songs for my book and he re-recorded How Many Souls creating a tavern version. It’s pretty spectacular.

So if you’re the audiobook listening type of human, or if you know of one, please check it out or share this book! Till next time dear reader, enjoy your listening! <3 Tiff

Today I want to share my newfound love for short reads. I am actually growing quite fond of novellas. Generally, a novella is around the 30-50k word count. Something that you finish typically in one to two sittings (maybe more depending on how fast you read or how much time you have.) These novellas are kind of like a reading snack. I’ve found they help whet my appetite and can help get me out of a reading slump. Plus the little dopamine kick from finishing a book is great.

Additionally, I’ve been trying to work on writing some short stories and novellas to help improve my writing craft. Writing a short story can teach you a lot. You have less time to establish what is going on. You have to be concise and to the point. You don’t have time to meander around or spend a long time worldbuilding.

While I am really proud of my first novel, I know there are lots of things I could have done better. The best ways to keep getting better are to read good stories, keep writing, keep practicing, and keep telling stories in their entirety from start to finish. The more reps you put in, the better. Short stories are a great way to get some good reps in without having to go through the long process of writing an 80k-100k+ novel. I work full-time outside of my writing, so I have limited time to practice.

Here are some of the short stories that I have enjoyed over the past year or so.

Well dear readers, have you read any of these books? What is your favorite novella? Let me know in the comments!

Till next time, go enjoy a short story. <3 Tiff