Forged in Ancient Fire Cover Reveal and June 2026 Update

One year ago this week, I posted the first chapter of Forged in Ancient Fire on Substack.

In April, the final chapter went live.

I’ve learned a lot over the past year. I enjoyed the process of posting two chapters a week. It was fun to see readers’ reactions (and occasionally wonder about the lack of reactions). More importantly, the serialization gave me a deadline. It focused my efforts and helped push the manuscript toward publication.

When I posted that first chapter, I knew the manuscript still needed work.

The story was complete. The characters were there. The narrative wasn’t going to change.

But the manuscript was, frankly, bloated.

Most Urban Fantasy novels land somewhere between 75,000 and 100,000 words. Forged in Ancient Fire was north of 150,000.

Too many.

It needed cutting.

So why publish it?

Mostly because I wanted it out in the world. It was also an experiment. And while those chapters were appearing twice a week on Substack, I was working behind the scenes to trim scenes, tighten dialogue, improve pacing, and remove anything that slowed the story down.

The story itself was never the problem.

The problem was that I had spent seven years learning how to write fiction.

And during those seven years, I got better.

Not perfect.

Just better.

My approach changed.

Fewer words often work better.

They move the story along.

Short sentences—and even single-line paragraphs—give readers a brief mental pause.

I find myself liking that approach more and more.

As the revisions wound down, I began looking for a cover designer.

Yes, I could have created something myself in Canva. I use Canva constantly and have designed plenty of graphics over the years.

But I also knew that book covers serve a specific purpose.

A good cover tells potential readers what kind of story they’re looking at before they ever read the first sentence.

I wanted a cover that felt at home in the Urban Fantasy genre.

After exploring a lot of options, I ended up working with Damonza, a New Zealand-based company that had been recommended by a successful author friend. Their portfolio included hundreds of covers across multiple genres, and they also offered interior formatting services.

My goal has always been simple:

If someone picks up this book, I don’t want it to look self-published.

I want it to look like something that belongs on a bookstore shelf.

Damonza took my cover brief and created two initial concepts. I chose one and we continued refining it through several rounds of revisions. Along the way, I shared versions on Facebook and other social media platforms and received a lot of thoughtful feedback that helped shape the final result.

And so, after seven years of writing, revising, learning, cutting, and polishing, I’m excited to finally share the cover of Forged in Ancient Fire.

The manuscript has now undergone developmental revisions, copyediting, and proofreading. The cover is complete, and the interior formatting process is about to begin.

Assuming everything continues on schedule, my current expectation is that Forged in Ancient Fire will be available in paperback and ebook formats sometime in August 2026.

As with any independent publishing project, that’s still a tentative target. There are always a few moving parts between final files and publication day.

But we’re getting close.

Very close.

One more thing for paid subscribers.

When I launched the serialization, I promised that paid subscribers would receive a signed copy of the book once it was published.

That promise still stands.

As soon as printed copies are available, paid subscribers will receive a signed paperback edition of Forged in Ancient Fire. I’ll share the details when we get closer to publication, but I wanted to confirm that it’s still part of the plan.

Thank you for reading.

Thank you for commenting.

Thank you for encouraging me when the process felt long.

And thank you for spending the past year following Jia Peach’s journey.

We’re almost there.

One detail you may notice on the cover is the small text at the bottom:

Book One.

Aha.

If it says Book One, that means there must be a Book Two.

And there is.

The sequel, Margin of Error, is already underway. At the moment, I’m about 25,000 words into the manuscript. My target is roughly 80,000 words, although novels have a way of deciding for themselves how long they want to be.

The story picks up after the events of Forged in Ancient Fire and continues Jia Peach’s journey as she struggles to balance ordinary life with responsibilities she never asked for—and powers she doesn’t fully understand.

It’s still early in the process, but if progress continues at the current pace, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Margin of Error published sometime in 2027.

And for those of you who like sneak previews, the paperback edition of Forged in Ancient Fire will include the first chapter of Margin of Error as a teaser for what’s coming next.

Jia’s story isn’t over.

In many ways, it’s just getting started.

Leave a comment