renaissance faire – Tiffany Shearn

Renaissance Faire Pt. 2

The renaissance faire was an awesome experience this weekend. Despite breathing in a pound of dirt, sweating in the hot sun, and wearing my poor feet out, I loved meeting so many wonderful vendors and fairgoers. I was floored by the reception to my book. Thank you to everyone who stopped by my tent to hear a little about me and my work.

First, I want to say another thank you to my sister and husband for working my tent with me this weekend. They showed me the ropes learned from last weekend and stuck around in the blazing sun to help make the event a success. We easily found our rhythm, and their passion for my books matches mine. Without a doubt, I could not have managed without your support.

Impressions and Surprises

The biggest surprise for me was how the day flowed. Nine hours of standing around plus two of set-up and prep sounds like it would drag on endlessly, but you move quickly through the day. An hour of unpacking and set-up, and then you have an hour to relax. Other merchants would often come over to chat with us, or we would roam around chatting ourselves. Before you knew it, the gates were opening.

Showing off my book from in front of my tiny tent!

During the first hour or so, most people were drifting around scoping out the offerings or heading to the first show at eleven. We saved our voices for later, mostly nodding to people and showing off the book. The handful of early customers helped us warm up our book summary skills and gain energy from chatting about something we all enjoy.

The joust would let out, and a wave of people made their way through the aisles. It was always fun to see someone perk up when they heard my husband shout out about “fantasy books.” That would be me passing by and hearing someone call out to the reader in me. I immediately had something in common with everyone talking to us, which was a relatively new experience.

From there, it was a flurry of activity and trading off lunch breaks until around two in the afternoon. The late-lunch-lull allowed us to trade another round of short breaks and reapply our sunscreen. Things would pick up again between four and five. We caught our breath then, until the final rush in the hour before closing. Then, it was time to pack up again.

With short breaks and talking about books all day, the time flew by much faster than I expected. Based on this experience, I 100% want to come back next year. I now have this dream of standing at my tiny tent in 2023 and having someone call out, “Oh good! You did get a tent again this year!” #authorgoals

Closing down and packing up after a wonderful weekend!

After Hours

I have still never been to the evening events the fair also offers at the taverns on Saturdays. Instead of attending, we joined the cast and crew D&D session Cleric Games hosted after hours. They ran a little two-hour session for people who wanted to join.

I played a barbarian for the first time. Before this, my paladin was my favorite. My style is to “run in and hit things,” so melee works for me. Barbarian might be my new favorite. I would have to give it more than two hours of play before I make that decision, but raging is very “Tiffany.”

Final Note

Welcome to any new readers checking out and signing up for my blog here after meeting me at the ren faire. If you are here because we talked about my publishing journey, click on the “publishing” tag (by the little tag symbol) below and start with the oldest posts.

If you are here because you loved the books and want to keep in touch, I encourage you to follow my blog by subscribing at the bottom of this page for weekly posts, my newsletter by subscribing on the homepage, or any of my social media accounts. You can find those via the links at the bottom of the page.

As always, thank you all for your support, and I hope to continue sharing more books with you all in the future!

Renaissance Faire Pt. 1

Despite precautions, I took ill after my trip last week. To ensure this did not pass beyond me, I remained home for rest and recovery this weekend. This post is a tribute to the massive efforts put forth by my husband and sister. When I could not attend, they stepped up on my behalf.

Going into the Renaissance Faire, I had no idea what to expect for sales. At my first event, which was much smaller in scale, I sold seven copies. Hour-for-hour, that would put my book needs around seventy. General advice received would put the need closer to five hundred of each book, though I would need to do the math again on that.

Either way, we all went into this with tempered expectations. Sanitized and wrapped in PPE, I pre-signed fifty-eight copies of book one and forty copies of book 2. It was not enough.

The faire initially sold out, so they opened more capacity for Saturday. Roads were clogged, and people waited for hours to get in. Everyone crowded into the grounds excited for their next fantastical adventure. As they passed by, my husband called out to lovers of fantasy books. Then, he and my sister would introduce them to my stories.

Family and friends stopped by to help out through the day, but it was the two of them who set up, tore down, and stood for nine hours two days in a row selling my works. They sold out both days and continued selling even after supplies ran out until the fair closed each day.

Take the kids for a day? Sure, Sis. You want to stay late to play D&D with other vendors next weekend? Of course, my darling husband. I know you both did all of this for family, partnership, and love and not for any exchange. My immense gratitude is yours.

New Readers

For all my new readers, welcome to my fantasy world! I hope you have as much fun with these characters as I do and look forward to the next installment. Rest assured, Hidden Promise is already with my wonderful alpha readers, and I’m about thirty thousand words into the final book rewrite!

See you at the faire on the 20th!

Faire Booth Preparations

I mentioned recently that my application for a booth at the local Renaissance Faire was approved. This weekend, I planned to go shopping for additional items for an outdoor booth dressed in the necessary theme. I hoped to have ninety percent of the materials and do a test run in the backyard. I would take some pictures of how amazing it looked and share them with you to bask in the glory of my creative use of limited funds.

As you can imagine, little of my shopping today went according to plan. The canopies we have are too big—my booth space is only 5×5—and none of the stores we stopped at had any options smaller than 8×8 or a 7.5-foot circle. Looking for decoration accents was also a bust. The craft stores were too DIY for my skill/time, while Party City’s merchandise was too modern.

Fortunately, our most important stop of the day paid off and made the shopping headache worth it. Looking into suggestions for decorating a Ren Faire booth, there were many recommendations to use old sheets to wrap modern supports to make them look more like a medieval cloth tent.

We went to Goodwill to search the linens, picking up a number of sheets to cover the tent, table, and chairs. I plan to use our twine to tie it all to the supports for that billowy tent feel. On a pass through the decorations, we also found another picture stand and a wood box to replace some of the more modern items we used at my first book signing in February.

This was the table at my first signing. I will use most of this again in August.

The rest will need to wait for delivery, as it had to be ordered online instead. I should have most of it before the end of the month to do a trial run. In addition to the tent, I ordered more sealing wax for more wax seals, some cute butterfly hair clips for potential giveaways with books, and some bookmark charms shaped like swords and other old weapons. Along with the advertising flag I ordered, I think my booth is going to look marvelous, and most of the supplies can be used again in the future!

Books at the Faire

I have seen a lot of advice on how many books to bring to events like this, and it still feels like I am stumbling in the dark. Some say 20 per 1,000 attendees at the event (I’m not sure if this is for each book or total), which would mean about 600 for this event for me. Another person recommended 50-100 of each book for a two-day event, depending on size. This would put me at about 400 books for this two-weekend event. I have decided to order 250 more of my first book, which will give me around 280 available. I’m debating between 150-200 of the second book, which I hope will arrive before the first weekend. The books will not go bad, so hopefully, my guesses will not be a massive overspend.

As for my second book, it has been with the editor for a couple of weeks now. This one is about 30k words longer than the first, so it is taking a bit more time. She expects to have it back to me by next weekend. Over this next week, I want to finalize the cover, frontmatter, and backmatter so it is all ready to upload to quickly order a proof copy. If that first proof looks good, then I will have about six weeks for a large order to be printed and shipped in advance of the event.

This also means the book is likely to be released ahead of schedule! I need the paperback to be live to order author copies on KDP (yes, I know there are other options). Sign up to follow my blog here or for my newsletter on the homepage to hear when Hidden Sanctuary officially goes live.

As a final note today, thank you to all the new readers leaving reviews for Hidden Memory. I am now up to 16 ratings/reviews! Reviews are amazingly important to new authors, and I appreciate all of you for taking the time.

Have another great weekend!

Hidden Sanctuary Cover Reveal!

The time you have all been waiting for has arrived! Okay, maybe it is just me, but I’m going to share it and pretend everyone else has been biting their nails in anticipation. If you can’t wait even a moment longer, you can scroll down to see the new cover, but I first wanted to share some exciting news.

WA Renaissance Faire

The organizers have accepted my application for a booth at this summer’s Renaissance Faire! I will be there for the second and third weekends of the fair, August 13/14 and August 20/21. With Hidden Sanctuary set to release on August 16th, I am scrambling to make the necessary changes with enough time for author copies to arrive in time for inclusion at the booths. If all goes well, I will be able to sell some advance copies that first weekend!

August 13/14th is the “Fairytales & Fantasy Adventures” weekend, aligning perfectly with the story told in the Hidden Series. Then, on August 20/21, the theme is “Across the Multiverse,” for those who want to dress up in more of a geek chic than fantasy nerd. Either way, I will be there all four days selling books and signing them all!

Hidden Sanctuary

Thank you to Jonathan Lebel for another piece of beautiful artwork. He, once again, took a stick figure sketch from me and turned it into this beautiful landscape with inspiration from the stunning Cascade range we have here in Washington State.

After the entire series is released, I will probably look at changing up the covers to something more action-oriented and target-market, but I love the art of these images. These original covers will be for me, and I can appeal to the market later.

*Spoiler alert* This blurb below includes spoilers for Hidden Memory.

Larron’s hope fades as he discovers it is not only his people facing the brink of destruction. As the council tries to save what they can, a young mage approaches Annalla with a tempting, if crazy, proposition. He knows a story, an old family tale, and it might hold the answer to finding the fairy.

Join Larron and Annalla as they work with new allies to continue their desperate quest against a cruel dictator bent on destruction in Hidden Sanctuary!