As this episode airs, I’ll be at a family reunion. But instead of skipping a week of Novel Marketing, I wanted to share something special with you.

Last week’s Author Update episode went in an unexpected direction. We started off planning to cover breaking publishing news, but ended up spending the entire time discussing the shifting vibes in the cultural zeitgeist among readers.

So much is changing right now that it took a whole episode to unpack it.

Books that should be hits are flopping, while surprise bestsellers are coming out of seemingly nowhere. But once you understand how the culture is shifting, these trends start to make sense, and you may even start to see where things are headed next.

We recorded the episode live with an interactive chat room of listeners. You’ll occasionally hear us reference comments from the chat.

If you’d like to join us for a future Author Update Live, we’re on YouTube every Friday at 4:00 PM Central. Just subscribe to the Novel Marketing channel and turn on notifications.

We also have a new Author Update YouTube channel. Right now it features clips, but soon the full show will move there. Be sure to subscribe to that channel too.

You don’t have to watch live, but it’s a lot of fun to interact in the chat room. Now, enjoy this special episode of the Author Update

Understanding the Zeitgeist: Why Readers Want Ruthless Heroes, Romance, and Hope

By Thomas Umstattd Jr. & Jonathan Shuerger
Author Update Podcast

What happens when the stories that once dominated the bestseller lists stop resonating with readers? Why are dystopian tales falling flat while romantasy surges ahead? I

n this week’s episode of Author Update, we dive deep into the shifting cultural tide—what Germans call the zeitgeist, or “spirit of the age.” We’ll see how it shapes what readers want.

It has to do with culture, and it’s particularly important for authors. A book that resonates in one era may not resonate in another. We’re in the midst of a major cataclysmic zeitgeist shift that has been predicted for decades, and it’s now happening.

The kids don’t call it a zeitgeist shift. They call it a vibe shift. But I think everyone can feel it. Things are a little different. The stories that resonated before don’t resonate anymore. Superhero movies aren’t as popular.

So what is popular? We’re going to get into that. In this episode, we’re going to hit zeitgeist from several different angles.

Romantasy Rules Kindle

Thomas: Every once in a while, it’s important to take a step back and look at the bigger-picture trends. And one of the biggest picture trends is romantasy. Jonathan, is it true that two out of three of the bestselling books on Kindle are romance books?

Jonathan: Yep, that seems to be what reports are indicating. The Bottom Line recently interviewed Alex Newton from K-lytics to break down the numbers on how romance is performing.

Publishing trends usually follow a five- to ten-year life cycle. They also looked at Google search data, such as searches for billionaire romance, which rose with Fifty Shades of Grey. That’s now trending down. Meanwhile, mafia romance and hockey romance have been on the rise.

Right now, in the Kindle Top 100 bestsellers, 61% of titles are romance. That includes romantasy, which is a major component.

Thomas: It also includes women’s fiction, which I think makes up about 6 or 7% of that 66%. So, six out of ten are true romance, and the rest are women’s fiction, which is kind of on the edge.

Jonathan: However, if you go to the epic fantasy bestseller list, you don’t find traditional epic fantasy anymore. You’ll find romantasy. These books have romance as a key element, whereas before, epic fantasy was more about good versus evil, man versus monster, and kingdom versus kingdom.

Thomas: From what I understand, a lot of romantasy is basically Conan the Barbarian stories told from the damsel’s perspective. It’s the same man-with-a-dark-past trope. He’s honorable but not good. He’s powerful but not kind.

Different romantasy stories have different kinds of male leads, but that Conan-type character seems to be what readers are drawn to. It’s a very classic sword-and-sorcery element, which is slightly different from epic fantasy.

Do non-romance genres still have a place?

Jonathan: People are wondering, “Where’s the genre diversity in the top of the market?” Alex Newton thinks you shouldn’t just look at the top end. Mid-tier authors are doing very well writing litRPG and gameLit. These aren’t romance-focused, but they still sell well. So no, you don’t have to write romance to make money on Kindle right now.

One thing I’ve noticed, from my days doing atmospherics in the Marine Corps, is that you need to look at what else is happening in the culture. Right now, there’s a recurring question: Where are the men? Women on social media have been asking that for the past two years. They’re saying they can’t find men who are willing to commit.

Thomas: There are singles events where no men show up. It’s interesting that The Accountant, one of the top movies on Amazon Prime, starts with the main character attending a singles event. You see lots of enthusiastic women hoping to find a match.

There’s a dearth of real-life romance, and when something is missing in real life, people look for it in fiction. Anyone experiencing that kind of lack as they work a desk job doesn’t want to read more about desks. You want Conan the Barbarian. Right now, women especially seem to be missing romance.

This past week, Grok released an AI girlfriend companion. It’s rough. I don’t want to say cringe, but you can talk to your AI girlfriend about anything. The point is, there’s a void. Damage has been done to the way men and women relate to each other and form the kinds of connections that build families. People are now turning to fiction to fill that gap.

How have male protagonists changed?

Thomas: Take Jack Reacher as an example. He’s a very active protagonist. He punches bad guys. But romantically, he’s incredibly passive. That’s a big shift from stories 40 years ago, where male leads were much more active romantically.

That shift isn’t resonating with women. The Jack Reacher stories, including the Amazon Prime show, seem to be targeted more at men. Most of the people I’ve talked to who’ve watched it are men. Women seem to want a more active romantic protagonist.

Jonathan: That’s so funny, because I’ve had the exact opposite experience. It’s the women in my circles who are talking about Jack Reacher and posting shirtless pictures of him and saying they’re watching it for the plot.

Thomas: I may be undermining my own point here. A lot of women just like that actor, and they don’t care what the plot is. It’s just like putting Fabio on a book cover.

How are the four turnings reflected in fantasy stories?

Thomas: Larry Correia shared an insightful graphic. It connects the “Four Turnings” theory with four flavors of fantasy: grimdark, nobledark, noblebright, and grimbright.

So, at the peak of the third and fourth turnings, we had peak grimdark. Think The First Law, Warhammer 40K, Malazan: Book of the Fallen, and The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever. These stories are bleak and subversive. For example, in The Wizard’s First Rule, you find out the hero is actually the son of the dark lord.

Now, as we pivot from the fourth turning to the first, we’re entering a nobledark era. These are still dark stories, but with nobility at their core. Examples include The Lord of the Rings, The Once and Future King, The Kingkiller Chronicle, Saga of the Forgotten Warrior, and The Stormlight Archive.

There’s no nobility in Warhammer 40K, but in something like Stormlight, there is. It shifts away from hopeless grimdark toward stories with honor and moral clarity, even in darkness.

What is noblebright, and how does it relate to the four turnings?

Thomas: The first turning also includes peak noblebright, so we’ve now moved the full spectrum away from grim. Noblebright includes The Chronicles of Narnia, The Phantom Tollbooth, A Wrinkle in Time, The Last Unicorn, and The Chronicles of Prydain.

Then there’s also grimbright, which includes Xanth, The Dragonriders of Pern, The NeverEnding Story, The Princess Bride, and Watership Down. What I love about this framework is how well it aligns with our four turnings episode—the one that kicked off all the zeitgeist conversation.

If you looked at the original post on X, many people were referencing Alexander Macris and my episode about this. We connected fiction in general to the four turnings, but we hadn’t yet made the connection between grimdark, nobledark, noblebright, and grimbright. I think this is a helpful heuristic.

If you’re writing a grimdark story, you’re skating to where the puck used to be. If you’re writing a nobledark story, you’re skating to where the puck is. And if you’re writing a noblebright story, you’re skating to where the puck is going to be. So, if you’re at the very beginning of your career, you should be thinking about nobility first for your story.

Jonathan: That assumes the trend will continue in the same direction. These things sometimes reverse.

Thomas: It all comes back around. The wheel of time turns ever onward.

Jonathan: The clock can reverse. This isn’t everyone’s experience. Look at the Soviet Union. They stayed in grimdark for a very long time. They never made it to nobledark or noblebright.

Thomas: If you’ve ever been to Russia, you know there is only grimdark.

Jonathan: Exactly. Sometimes things get stuck. But what he’s saying here is that the best, charismatic speakers read the room. They understand how the people around them are reacting emotionally and adjust accordingly.

If you can do that with your audience, if you can keep your finger on the pulse of what they’re responding to, you’ll know where the puck is going.

Right now, people want nobledark because the setting is dark. That’s our world. But we still want nobility. We want heroes and people who will stand up to the darkness.

This is why you start to see people forming around champions. People aren’t looking for movements or ideologies; they’re looking for individuals to follow. Donald Trump is a huge example of this. He has an entire MAGA movement centered around him. Kamala Harris tried to do it but couldn’t sustain it long enough. Democrats right now are looking for a champion.

You see it in the NYC mayoral campaign, too. People are looking for leaders right now.

That’s nobledark: a dark setting with one champion to follow.

Once that champion saves the world and things start to improve, that’s when we shift to noblebright. Now the focus is on good times with good people. You get your fun stories where hobbits hang out in taverns. This is where Dungeons & Dragons does really well: people meeting in taverns and going off on goofy adventures.

Thomas: I feel like Dungeons & Dragons as an activity maps to all four quadrants. It depends on the zeitgeist and where people are in their personal lives. Just because society is moving in one direction doesn’t mean everyone is affected the same way. Some people are more influenced by trends, and others are like rocks. Society shifts around them, and they stay the same.

Jonathan: You can really see this when you look at Batman. What did we have in the 1960s? Goofy Batman. A comedic, slapstick version saying, “I’m going to punch you so hard, words will appear in the air.”

As the Cold War fear increased, Batman became more of a fighter. He was a darker, grimmer character. That shift continued. Justice League was definitely nobledark in that it was a dark world with a dark but good hero.

Then you get into Christopher Nolan’s Batman, which rotated through several phases. It started nobledark, then went grimdark. Gotham was falling apart. The rich were feeding on the poor. That was Catwoman’s whole argument in the third movie. The eco-terrorists were attacking because of inequality.

The setting was dark, and eventually the heroes became morally compromised. That shift was a turn backward on the clock.

Watch how audiences respond to movies. That will help you decide where to take your story and what they need at that particular moment.

How do stories reflect destruction vs. construction?

Thomas: Another way to frame this is by thinking about construction versus destruction. Dark stories are usually about destruction. A quintessential grimdark story is The Matrix. Neo lives in a bleak world and gains power to destroy that world. At no point is he building something new. His progression is all about destroying.

Jonathan: I don’t agree. His character is about creating hope. Everyone is in despair, except Morpheus, who always believed. But as Neo gains power, more people start believing in him. The line from the first Matrix says, “He’s beginning to believe.” That’s the change.

Neo doesn’t just destroy the Matrix. He represents hope and belief in what humanity can do. Ultimately, what ends the Matrix is a collective belief in change and a chosen one.

Thomas: But that’s exactly my point. He’s still destroying the Matrix. Yes, there’s hope, just like with Katniss Everdeen overthrowing the central district. But the idea is that the evil system must be destroyed, not reformed or rebuilt. That’s the zeitgeist, and that’s why dystopian stories aren’t doing so well right now.

There’s dystopian fatigue.

You can think of it as a spectrum. On one end, you have dystopians. On the other end, you have westerns. Westerns are about building society. Little House on the Prairie is about moving into the wilderness and building civilization.

Even the government is portrayed differently. In The Matrix, the government, which is defined as the machines running the Matrix, is evil and oppressive. In westerns, government protects people from evil.

So it becomes an Arthurian story. The Western sheriff is like King Arthur, building civilization from nothing. Out west, it’s wild and dangerous. Because of that danger, we need government. We need institutions. We need good, strong, even violent men willing to use force to create peace and order.

It’s a very different kind of story.

How is the shift reflected in popular video games?

You can even see a forerunner of this in the video game Fallout 4. It’s post-apocalyptic, but the story is a western. If you play as a virtuous character, you’re not just surviving, you’re rebuilding.

Bethesda games let you choose to play as good or evil, and your experience changes depending on that choice. On the other hand, if you’re playing as a good, noble character in Fallout 4, you’re literally building settlements and restoring civilization to the wasteland.  Even the theme song starts in a somber, minor key, but as it rises, the key shifts to major, and there’s an underlying thread of hope.

I think Fallout 4 came out ten years too early. In 2014, the cultural setting was still dystopian. People wanted cyberpunk, not hopeful. Fallout 4 was hopeful, and that didn’t match what people were looking for at the time.

Young people are more affected by the zeitgeist. The older you get, the less it shapes you. The most popular game among young men right now is Minecraft. It’s almost exclusively about building. There are conflict elements, but conflict isn’t central.

When I was a young man, we were all playing Command & Conquer, which had a dystopian setting. The world was being poisoned by tiberium, and we were fighting over the scraps of a fallen civilization. That’s a very different vibe from Minecraft, which is hopeful. Young men who play the game are building literal cathedrals in Minecraft.

But it’s not just Minecraft. There’s also Roblox and even Fortnite. Yes, Fortnite is more conflict-focused, but it still has a strong building and construction element. There’s a kind of hopeful, creative energy in it, especially in the graphics and aesthetic.

Originally, Fortnite was a zombie game in a dystopian setting. You had to build to hold off the zombie waves. But that didn’t resonate with young people. It wasn’t hopeful enough. When they shifted from zombie mode to battle royale mode with a more adventurous, expansive, and optimistic setting, it went from obscure to one of the most popular games in the world.

What is grimbright, and how do westerns reflect it?

Jonathan: In the chat for this episode, Matthew Bowman noted, “There are plenty of westerns that have no true law-and-order characters. They feature the wandering hero like Ronin, the knight-errant, who sees a need and fills a need.”

That falls into peak grimbright. Think of The Magnificent Seven. People are building a town, trying to survive, and someone comes to take it over. So they bring in dark heroes and violent men who don’t partake in the hope. They’re not building anything, but they bring their violence and darkness to destroy evil. That’s Grimbright.

Thomas: One downside of using “western” as an example is that it’s both a narrative genre and an aesthetic genre. Narratively, a western is about hope and building civilization in the wilderness. But aesthetically, it’s about cowboy hats and dusty towns.

You can apply the western aesthetic to any narrative genre. Take Westworld, for example. It’s dystopian, but with cowboy hats and robots. It looks like a western, but it doesn’t tell a western story.

A lot of younger people haven’t really seen the classic, hopeful, noblebright westerns. If you watch a western made in the last 20 years, there’s a good chance it’s a grimdark western. There are no virtuous characters. Everyone’s a scoundrel.

Jonathan: As an author, you need to widen your context window. You should read stories from the last hundred years. Look at what came out after key historical turning points.

The Lord of the Rings is a response to World War I and World War II. Tolkien wrote it out of his wartime experience. Star Wars is a Cold War story. Don’t just look at what was written; look at how people reacted to it.

Artists are weird. Sometimes they’re just expressing their personal struggles. But when you study what connected with audiences, what succeeded or flopped, and what drove societal impulses, then you can start reading the room. And when you can do that, you can write something people get excited about. That’s how you grow your audience.

Where do cozy mysteries fit in the cultural spectrum?

Jonathan: There was a question in the chat: “I write cozy mystery with bite. Where does that fit in the spectrum?” I don’t know what that means because cozy is not supposed to have bite. If you have murders and clues, but characters live in the real world with real problems, I’d say it’s just mystery, not cozy.

Thomas: Cozy mystery as a genre is less driven by zeitgeist. There are some zeitgeist elements, but cozy mysteries are about the psychological satisfaction of putting the last puzzle piece in place.

If it’s got “bite,” it’s probably not a cozy mystery. It may just be a traditional mystery. A real cozy mystery reader doesn’t want an edgy story. They want the warm, satisfying experience of solving a jigsaw puzzle. That relaxation is what they’re after.

In fact, mystery seems outside the zeitgeist. Its appeal is deeply psychological and less influenced by what’s going on in the wider world. Murder is universal. It’s not like, “We’re entering the fourth turning, so murders are trending up.” No, these are cozy murders. It’s kind of funny that cozy mystery is even a thing. There’s always a dead body by page five.

Kristen had a great comment. She mentioned Animal Crossing, which is another example of a building game. Animal Crossing isn’t about conflict. It’s about building an island. It’s very noblebright.

How do the Arthurian legends reflect cultural shifts?

Thomas: My family’s very into Animal Crossing. To bring it back to Arthur (because Arthurian stories are foundational in Western culture), the different turnings show up clearly in his legend.

The third- and fourth-turning Arthur stories are about decline, like Lancelot’s betrayal, Guinevere’s affair, and the fall of the kingdom. Arthur is a grizzled old man.

But the first-turning Arthur story is different. It’s about forming a kingdom of justice and law out of the chaos of Saxon invasions. It’s a very hopeful, noble story.

And while no one’s telling that specific version of the Arthur story right now, someone kind of is.

What is Epic: The Musical and why is it resonating with Gen Z?

Thomas: I was at a homeschool conference last week and met a listener who said, “You know what all the young people are obsessed with right now? They won’t stop talking about it.” I asked what it was, and she said, “Epic: The Musical.” So I started researching it, and this musical is the first purely Gen Z production.

It was created by Gen Zers. Everything was developed on TikTok. It’s been entirely sandboxed. I have yet to meet a millennial who knows anything about this musical unless they have a Gen Z sibling. Nearly everyone in Gen Z is obsessed with it. It has a billion streams on Spotify, and that’s Taylor Swift-level streaming. It has millions of views on YouTube. Anyone who puts Epic: The Musical in their title is getting hundreds of thousands or even millions of views. There’s so much demand. Young people are going crazy for this story.

If you want to understand where the zeitgeist is going, you need to listen to Epic: The Musical. Just mentioning it might trigger your algorithm to start recommending the animatics. People have animated the entire musical.

It’s a musical about Odysseus, targeted at young men and women. You wouldn’t think that would set the world on fire. Technically, it’s an opera more than a musical, using operatic techniques with electronica and rap. It’s Hamilton-inspired.

The creator used TikTok to explain musical concepts. He’d talk about leitmotifs, showing how a certain melody represented Penelope. Each character had a different instrument. At one point, a siren pretends to be Penelope and uses her melody but not her instrument. If you’re paying attention, it hits differently. There are a lot of Easter eggs like that.

So he was teaching music theory as part of the marketing. His TikTok videos explaining these things got millions of views. It was wildly popular among Gen Z TikTokers.

He also held auditions on TikTok. The singers all have incredible voices, and they’re mostly unknowns. But they auditioned on TikTok, and the cream rose to the top. If your duet resonated with listeners, it gained traction.

What makes the story different from traditional retellings?

Thomas: The content is a retelling of The Odyssey, but it’s not a re-imagining. It stays true to the original. It doesn’t try to “fix” The Odyssey, especially not the morality.

In the second song, Odysseus takes Hector’s infant son and throws him off a wall, killing him. Zeus told him to do it. If he didn’t, the boy would grow up to avenge Troy. So Odysseus kills a baby. Song two. No corporate production would ever allow that. No millennial would approve of that because it’s morally offensive. But Gen Z is engaging with it.

One of the themes is that ruthlessness is a form of mercy on oneself. That’s Poseidon’s position. The story follows Odysseus trying it by showing mercy to the Cyclops. That act haunts him for the rest of the journey. It’s about learning to do what needs to be done, even when it’s hard.

It’s not a “woke” story, but it’s also not anti-woke. It’s just a serious moral exploration. It’s a very masculine story.

How are young women responding to a masculine narrative?

Thomas: As I was researching it, I saw videos of random cast members doing live events. Gen Z is losing their minds. The crowds are full of screaming girls singing along. The performers aren’t even singing because the entire room is belting every lyric. It feels like a rock concert.

And yet, the story is deeply masculine. At one point in the story, the crew captures and kills the sirens to prevent them from harming the next crew. Still, it’s incredibly popular with young women.

This ties back to the romantasy trend. Young women seem to be drawn to male protagonists with a ruthless edge. The idea that the hero kills a baby is not a dealbreaker like it would be for millennials. Millennials would never have forgiven Odysseus.

What I like about this story is that it follows a classic two-act structure. It aligns with everything we’ve been talking about with zeitgeist, culture, structural storytelling, and heroes who are allowed to be heroes. Plus, the music is excellent.

Is it a Western or Eastern story?

Thomas: It’s also a very Western story. Someone once said that you can tell if a story is Western or Eastern by how it treats dragons.

In Eastern stories, dragons are revered or befriended. You ride them, submit to them, or live in harmony with them. In Zelda, the dragons are benevolent. You can’t kill them.

But in Western stories, dragons (or monsters) are something to conquer. Odysseus blinds the Cyclops. Beowulf kills Grendel and Grendel’s mother. Nature is not something you make peace with. You conquer it or it kills you.

Jonathan: The knight rides out to fight the dragon simply because it’s there.

Thomas: Right. In Eastern stories, the characters want to make peace with the dragon. In His Majesty’s Dragon, they explore different cultural relationships with dragons. It’s fascinating.

We’ve had a lot of Eastern-style stories recently, where dragons are good, helpful, or symbols of power. But Epic: The Musical returns to the older Western view: dragons (or monsters) are evil. You either kill them, or they kill you.

I encourage everyone to listen to Epic: The Musical. It’s the first major cultural event I’ve seen that is so tightly sandboxed to Gen Z.

Jonathan: I hate musicals. However, everything you’re saying is true. One of the things Gen Z really struggles with is the impotence of power and the inability of those in charge to do the right thing.

That’s why they disrespect authority figures. They see weakness. For the last 15 to 20 years, we’ve had a middle-management culture—from parenting to supervision to HR departments—where no one takes decisive action out of fear of being sued.

Gen Z wants things to be ruthless again. Get up. Do what needs to be done.

You can see it in the political rhetoric, too. There were TikToks calling for people to ambush and kill ICE agents.

Thomas: And Batman is starting to kill people in the newer movies.

Jonathan: Yeah, but it didn’t land. It was the wrong time. It was too early.

Thomas: Yes, but I think you’re right. Millennials especially feel like this comes from the managerial state, where HR directors have their boots on our necks, holding us down. No one can make any decisions without being in a dozen meetings.

I was listening to an NPR report about how Los Angeles County unanimously passed a resolution to cut red tape for filmmaking. But then they dug a little deeper and found that what they actually passed was an investigation into the possibility of cutting red tape. So basically, they scheduled a meeting about it. And this is why everyone is angry.

There’s no one left who can just make a decision. Everything has been so decentralized that even when everyone agrees there’s a problem, no one has the power to fix it. People are so frustrated that they start wishing King Arthur would just pull out his sword and start cutting through the mess to solve the problem.

Does the new Superman reflect what audiences want?

Jonathan: People in the chat have been asking my opinion about the new Superman movie. Look, I haven’t liked Superman for decades. My favorite version was the animated series Superman, and then Henry Cavill.

I haven’t seen the new movie, but I’ve watched tons of clips. Based on what I’ve seen, I don’t think the changes they’ve made address what audiences want right now.

Let’s go back to Man of Steel. The two big controversial moments in that film still come up. First, Superman’s father orders him to stay under the bridge and not save him. It’s a moment I’m not going to debate here, but I think it’s beautiful and complex.

The second is Superman snapping Zod’s neck. At the time, people hated that. They said, “That’s not who Superman is.” But now? That’s exactly the Superman people want.

Thomas: It’s wild how people talk about Man of Steel like it was a great movie. At the time, everyone hated it. But people’s recollection of it has shifted because they’ve changed. They’re judging that film by today’s zeitgeist. In many ways, it was ahead of its time.

Why is there such a demand for ruthless protagonists?

Jonathan: Actually, stories about Marines killing their enemies are coming back. I’m seeing huge success with Semper Die (affiliate link), which is about Marines going out and destroying evil. I didn’t expect that kind of response, but people really want to see evil defeated right now.

There’s this deep sense that evil is winning. A lot of it is politically motivated. Both sides are calling the other side evil, so evil is now ever-present. It doesn’t matter who’s in power; someone always feels like they’re losing.

And people are tired of it. They don’t want to argue. They don’t want to negotiate. They don’t want to persuade. They just want the evil gone so that life can get better.

That’s where audiences are right now. But they won’t stay there forever, so keep that in mind.

How should authors respond to the shifting zeitgeist?

Jonathan: If you can write fast, you might still hit the zeitgeist right on time. But even then, you need to be asking, “Is this problem going to be solved by the time my book comes out?” Or better yet, “Does my audience feel like it’s being solved?”

If your audience leans conservative or supports Trump, they might believe problems are actively being solved, unless they’re deep into the Epstein stuff right now. In that case, you might aim for noblebright. A hopeful, rebuilding narrative.

But if your audience is left-leaning or more progressive, they may still feel trapped in nobledark. They’re looking for a champion to save them from the darkness.

You have to remember that there is no one-size-fits-all. Someone is always losing, no matter the political climate. So whoever you’re writing for, write for them.

Why is writing for global audiences so complicated?

Thomas: One of the challenges of writing books across cultures is that different cultures are moving through the turnings at different stages. There’s a theory that Eastern and Western cultures are on opposite ends of the turning cycle and that they rotate like a wheel. So it might be the equivalent of the 1980s right now in China.

This is an area that hasn’t been sufficiently researched. The theory of the turnings has a solid foundation with anthropological research behind it. It’s not some crackpot idea I came up with. There are whole books and academic schools dedicated to it.

But the East-West comparison is less developed. Some of the books I’ve read suggest this East-West hypothesis, but then they admit they don’t know enough about Chinese culture to explore it in depth. Still, the idea rings true for me, based on my limited understanding.

Where it gets really interesting is in countries that are a mix of East and West, like Turkey. Some parts of Europe, which now have strong Eastern and Middle Eastern cultural influences, have a mix of East and West that moves them around the zeitgeist window and makes those audiences really tricky to write for.

If you talk to European writers, many of them are making most of their money from American readers. Meanwhile, many Americans think they can just use AI to translate their books into Chinese or other languages, and suddenly become international bestsellers. But the reality is, they’re probably not.

Jonathan: You need different tools for different targets. You have no idea if your book will land well in another country.

Why isn’t translation enough?

Thomas: The biggest barrier to hitting the Chinese market isn’t the language. A lot of people in China can read English. By some counts, there are more English speakers in China than in the United States.

The issue isn’t translation. It’s resonance. It’s a zeitgeist issue, yes, but also a broader cultural issue. Even if you match the zeitgeist by shifting your story in time to align, you’re still dealing with massive cultural differences.

Take the dragon example. It’s a cross-cultural symbol, but it means different things in different cultures. How a culture handles a man-versus-nature conflict differs. Is nature something to be conquered, or something to accommodate?

Many authors are puzzled when their book flops internationally. They think, “I translated it. I published it. Why didn’t it succeed?” But there are multiple factors, including cultural mismatch, language nuance, and economics.

How does economic context matter when targeting foreign markets?

Thomas: One thing Americans don’t realize is how poor Europeans are compared to Americans. Most of the wealthier European countries have a per capita GDP of around $40,000 to $50,000. The US average is closer to $60,000. Many European countries are on par with the poorest US states.

And that’s not our impression of Europeans, because the Europeans we meet in the US are the ones who can afford to travel here and spend money. So yes, there are wealthy Europeans, but not enough to support most authors on their own.

And don’t even get me started on GDP math in micro-nations. Some of those numbers are skewed because of how the populations and commuter workforces are calculated.

Jonathan: The point is, there are a lot more factors than the language your book is in. You need to know your target before you launch, or you’re going to miss badly.

Thomas: You can waste a lot of money, or worse, start to believe things about yourself that aren’t true. Like, “I must not be a good author because I’m not making any sales.”

Jonathan: You really have to understand the mechanics. A book launch isn’t a firework. It doesn’t explode on its own. The audience has to resonate with it, react to it, engage with it, and share it. That’s how success happens in book marketing.

Why don’t American books always succeed in other English-speaking countries?

Thomas: Another helpful way to understand this is by looking at other English-speaking countries. Some authors ask, “Why is my book doing well in the US but not in the UK?”

So I ask them, “Did you think the UK version of The Office was funny?”

People loved The Office so much that they made an American version. I’ve tried multiple times to watch the UK version, and I just can’t get into it.

Jonathan: I love the American version of The Office. The UK one is a struggle for me.

Thomas: That’s a great example of a cultural difference. And the UK and US are still more similar to each other than, say, South Africa and the US.

I’d say we’re probably more culturally similar to the UK than to New Zealand. But we’re probably most similar to Australia. Still, even Australia and New Zealand are quickly shifting toward geographic alignment. They’re becoming more Eastern in outlook. More of that “dragons are to be lived with” kind of culture.

Are fantasy readers tired of dungeon master-style stories?

Thomas: There’s one more zeitgeist topic I wanted to bring up. This was from a post that went viral on X, and it was about fantasy readers getting tired of DM-written fantasy.

What is a DM?

Jonathan: A DM is a dungeon master. It’s basically the DM’s job to make up a story or adapt one, and let the players play through it. Then the DM adjusts the story based on what the players do. Good DMs do this to maximize the players’ enjoyment, but it really depends on what the players want. That’s what makes Dungeons & Dragons so flexible.

But “DM” is kind of a catchall term for any kind of tabletop RPG. Some people like doing sci-fi, or Warhammer 40K, or Star Wars, or The Lord of the Rings. There are all kinds of settings. I’ll just keep using the term D&D for simplicity.

A DM’s job is to take a low-grade story and let people play through it. You don’t want it to be too literary or epic, because then players can’t interact with it. You don’t want your players speaking in high Elvish. You just say, “Okay, you have the high Elvish skill, so now you’re speaking it.”

The point of the viral post was that reading a book shouldn’t feel like playing a D&D campaign. A book should have a higher production value. That’s the concern. The ease of publishing has resulted in a flood of low-quality books, and some readers feel like they’re just reading someone’s play session.

Thomas: Some DMs even use their play sessions as inspiration for their writing, which makes everything feel like a generic version of D&D, which is already a generic version of Tolkien.

Some writers won’t put a monster in their book unless there’s a D&D stat page for it. At that point, are you really telling a story? Or are you just letting your players or your AI generate content for you?

Now, in defense of it, a D&D play session can be a version of the bedtime story with dice. There’s interactivity.

Right now, I’m telling my kids the story of Odysseus, because we’ve been listening to Epic: The Musical. My kids love it.

There are songs about Odysseus and the Cyclops. They tell the story through narrative songs with big vocabulary, which makes my kids curious. Sometimes they want clarification. Some of the storytelling is visual, and the animatics help fill in the gaps, especially during instrumental fight scenes. If you don’t already know The Odyssey, some parts can be hard to follow.

So I tell my kids the story myself. That’s not interactive, but when I tell them stories I’ve made up, they’ll interrupt and say, “Have him do this,” or “No, he wouldn’t say that.” That interplay is fun. It’s what helps keep the story resonant. The audience becomes emotionally invested. It’s the same phenomenon romance readers experience when they say, “We want the couple to get together. Just kiss her already!”

Jonathan: Fun like that is rooted in the social setting. Everyone’s contributing, everyone’s engaged. It’s honest, and it’s addictive. But that fun doesn’t translate into a novel.

No one gets to interact with a book. Readers don’t get to contribute while reading. So if you write a novel based on your campaign, it’s not going to land the same way. It was micro-targeted to a very specific group of your players. That emotional connection doesn’t scale to a general audience.

I still have people from my old player groups who laugh and reminisce about the crazy stuff we got up to. But I can’t novelize that. You wouldn’t get it. You’d just feel left out. It’s like being on the outside of an inside joke.

Should DMs write books, or stick to litRPG?

Thomas: If you’re a DM writing a derivative D&D-style story, just go all in and write a litRPG. Those readers who want dice rolls and numbers, and they want to read, “He had strength 10 and punched with agility 12.” That genre exists, and it’s vibrant.

But if your audience isn’t into that, it can really pull them out of the story. I saw a tweet that said, “If you’re writing fantasy, never use a number. Don’t say it’s four miles. Say it’s down the road.” Because as soon as you give a number, some reader is going to check the map and do the math.

But that’s just one approach to writing. This is why it’s so important to know your audience. If you’re writing for a more female audience, they often don’t want things quantified. That’s great. But there’s also a certain kind of autistic creator who does want everything quantified. They want to know you started at strength 12, then leveled up to 15.

Don’t let the zeitgeist get in the way of connecting with your reader. Ultimately, you’re here to thrill your reader. The zeitgeist is just a tool to help understand them.

We don’t really understand our own culture until we step outside of it. I went to a 1970s-themed restaurant today with some friends, and it made me uncomfortable. I didn’t fit in. It wasn’t made for me. Some things were even offensive to me. It was a caricature of the 70s.

I had to debrief with my wife afterward. I’m not nostalgic for that era. I wasn’t alive in the ’70s, and I barely remember the ’80s.

Every generation has its own sins, its own challenges, its own triumphs. Understanding the times is key.

Tools for Writers

We closed the episode with some exciting new tools for authors:

• Structure Analyzer – Upload your manuscript and check it against story structures like Hero’s Journey, Save the Cat, etc.
• Character Namer – Get AI-generated names with meaning and historical accuracy.
• Developmental Editor – AI-powered manuscript evaluation that highlights structural improvements.

You can try these at PatronToolbox.com.

The zeitgeist is shifting fast, and if you want to write books that sell, you need to feel where the puck is going. Write stories that satisfy the hunger in your readers, whether that hunger is for heroes, for hope, or for a ruthless hand to set the world right again.

Featured Patrons

Krisan Marotta, author of Start Strong: A New Believer’s Guide to Christianity

A book that will equip you with the knowledge and guidance you need to confidently navigate your new faith journey. 

You can become a Novel Marketing Patron here.

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