Reading · The Profitable Author: Build a Business You Love

Thanks to Beks Roen for allowing me to blend his notes with my own.

Our most recent Beyond the Margins Zoom Power Hour led by Gen Z author and traveling actor Beks Roen turned into one of the most collaborative brainstorming sessions we’ve ever had in one of these afternoon calls. What started as a presentation on marketing to younger audiences became a collective think tank, with authors in the room building on Beks’s insights to generate some of the most creative event and outreach ideas our group has generated in a short sixty minutes. More on those in a moment.

First, some foundational points from Beks.

Beks opened with something counterintuitive even if the signs are everywhere (you may start noticing examples all around you after reading this): The AI Age has ushered in growing and renewed interest in all things non-digital. Physical media. Analog skills. In-person events. Hands-on activities.

Sure, we older folks are nostalgic and ready for this. But so are the digitally-native younger generations, Gen Z (1997–2009) and Gen Alpha (born 2010–2024). Basically, that means most of us, regardless of generation, are beyond ready to spend less time online, but for young people this means an extra layer of novelty. The real world holds a kajillion new realms to boldly go experience and explore.

Beks elaborates:

Younger audiences are also trending back toward physical media.
They’re here for the digital detox movement that’s making it cool to be offline.
Gen Z and Gen Alpha are also particularly interested in how something was made and the values behind not just the product, but the people making it.

For authors who are already building human-scale, authentic, experience-driven businesses—this is very good news.

As an mid-twenties author with 14+ publications since 2020 and a career spent in professional theater, as a traveling actor, and educating young people, Beks has watched these trends develop from the inside. His assessment is that tangible marketing, which never really went away, is gaining new sway with younger generations, and in-person experiences have outperformed any other book marketing he has done.

Before you can reach younger readers, it helps to understand what’s going on with them.**Reminder: We’re just speaking generally, in broad strokes.**

Beks laid out several behavioral trends worth keeping in mind:

Passive consumption is the default. Young audiences multitask constantly—Zoom meetings with the camera off, texting and scrolling while watching a movie, consuming content while doing other things. Audiobooks, Beks noted, work particularly well for this reason; they allow multitasking in a way print can’t.
Cringe is more than you think. For younger people who’ve grown up hyper-visible online, being labeled “cringe” can go beyond a little embarrassing—it may be experienced as a threat to social standing and belonging.
Same armor, higher stakes. The stoic aesthetic—the calm, blank face; the irony; the studied indifference—isn’t new. Gen X wore it well, and so did plenty of punk and post-punk generations before and after them. What’s different now are the stakes and the scale. For previous generations, a cringe moment faded. For Gen Z, it’s potentially permanent, public, algorithmically amplified, and subject to instant mass judgment from peers they may never even meet. The armor is the same; the reason to adopt it is more acute. What this means for authors is you can’t perform excitement and hope youngsters catch your enthusiasm. Instead, create conditions—attentive listening and social interventions are two things Beks mentioned—where younger people feel safe enough to drop the armor. Once that happens, their loyalty and warmth will bubble forth.
De-enchantment and trust issues. Gen Z has grown up watching institutions promise one thing and deliver another, and they’ve developed finely tuned BS filters. They read hyper-polished brand images as fake. Empty social statements get flagged (eyeroll). They fact-check in Reddit threads before buying anything. For authors, this is great—no big marketing budget required. Instead, try radical transparency—think raw video footage and everyday behind-the-scenes candor—about who you are, what you make, what you struggle with, and why. Plainly state your values. Share your humor, self-awareness, and quirks. Those are credentials for these generations.
Lack of status understanding. Many younger readers don’t yet have the cultural context to understand what makes an author worth paying attention to Try show, not tell.
COVID left real gaps for many. Critical social development years were disrupted during the pandemic. Many younger people are avoidant at first—then break out warmly and energetically once they make a genuine connection. Beks’s lesson from teaching: young people are deeply loyal and can be all-in once you approach them with sincerity and attention.
Belonging and mental health are central. This generation is intensely aware of mental health, values belonging deeply, and may be navigating real economic constraints—living at home longer, working multiple jobs, or dealing with income instability.
“Wholesome.” This is my Gen-X interjection. A common thread among my generation is how “wholesome” our kids, their friends, and their pasttimes can be. “Mom, I’m bringing homemade lemonade with muddled blueberries to dinner!” is a recent burst of enthusiasm cited by one friend. My own 16-year-old has been playing video-game Monopoly til the wee hours with his friends in other cities in this final week before school resumes. I’ve noticed they go through palate-cleansing phases when they’ve just had enough of things like Fortnite and GTA. They have seen dark and disturbing things online since young ages…and are choosing simple pleasures.

Metricool for social media without social media. Beks uses Metricool (free version) to schedule all his social media posts without having any social apps on his phone, allowing for online presence without the dopamine frenzy.

Social media as a bridge, not the destination. Online marketing complements in-person connection—use it as a bridge to bring people to the real thing, not the thing itself.

Values, fun, and relatability. Younger audiences are values oriented. They want to know what you believe, why you’re doing what you’re doing, and whether you’re a real person or a marketing apparatus. Don’t think of import, impact, fun, and relatability as add-ons…they very well may be your entry point.

The rise of TTRPG actual play shows. Tabletop RPG (role-playing games) actual play shows (think Dungeons & Dragons played out on video or audio) have built enormous audiences among younger people as something that can run in the background while they’re doing something else. The participatory, collaborative, and narrative nature of these shows is worth understanding as a model for author events.

Beks identified the kinds of physical spaces and communities where younger audiences are already gathering—and where author outreach and events make natural sense:

Parks and outdoor spaces, coffee houses, farmers markets, sports leagues, biking communities, apothecaries/witchy/metaphysical/nontraditional spirituality shops, craft and DIY spaces, zine culture, board game cafes, tabletop RPG communities, cosplay/SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism)/Renaissance fairs/LARPing, pride events, and college towns.

Note the common grounds: Experiences over stuff, participation over passive consumption, community over transaction, the real world over the digital world.

This is where our session got going. The group collectively generated ideas for reaching younger audiences through event that I’m still thinking a lot about:

Theme attire requirements. Shared attire creates automatic belonging—you’re already in community with everyone else who showed up dressed for it.

Partner with bars, restaurants, and coffee houses. Younger audiences are already there. Bring the books to where they are; support small, locally-owned businesses.

Partner with theaters for post-show social hours. Author appearances, book sales, and merch in a space where the audience is already in an engaged state and has something to talk about with others.

“Introverts Corner” and color-coded nametags. Designate a low-pressure zone, use nametags that signal social preferences, and consider other small structural change that makes events feel easier for the avoidant-until-comfortable crowd.

Free swaps components. Bring a book, take a book. Meet an author, maybe buy a book. Low barrier, high participation, community feel.

Author-led productivity dates. Body doubling is already a thing younger people do—sitting together to work, creating accountability through proximity. An author-hosted version, perhaps with multiple work sprints, cookies, and a book included in a low ticket price is a natural fit.

Silent book clubs, side-by-side crafting, side-by-side working. Host structured parallel activity events that create community, with social performance optional. Insert author and book sales or book with price of entry.

Create a game or experience around the story of your book. The TTRPG instinct applied to author events—participatory, narrative, and memorable.

Everything Beks shared and everything this group generated in sixty minutes points straight to the human preference economy I’ve written about here a couple times—the growing market for things made by, delivered by, and experienced with real humans. Younger readers don’t necessarily need different content from you. They’re putting down their screens and looking out to the real world for authenticity, experience, and meaning—the same three pillars that define the human preference economy and, not coincidentally, the same three things good author businesses are already built on.

Turns out that the common ground between authors in general and Gen Z may not be a big, fat generational mystery. Rather, there are things all generations are looking for more of these days even if we each have our own spin on it: human connection, values in action, and interesting, fun, or meaningful experiences. If you’re an author focusing on building a human-scale business, this isn’t a particular challenge to overcome. It’s a market already moving in your direction.

Beks Roen (they/he) helps queer folks and allies find adventurous connection and remember they’re loved and not alone through queer theatre & Shakespeare.

After reading independently at eighteen months old, accidentally becoming a professional Shakespeare actor within weeks of graduating high school, finding themself with funding to train in stage combat, and accidentally co-producing a virtual theatre festival during the pandemic shutdown, Roen realized that mayyybe engineering wasn’t the career right path...

They now write queerly classic adventures, celebrating trans and aspec possibilities and magic. With stage combat training from Dueling Arts International, 3 world premieres (“On The Cusp,” Hudson Valley Shakespeare; Boy-ish, So Deck the Halls, Blanket Fort Theatre), seven years of professional acting (Great Lakes Theater, Ohio Shakespeare, more), and over fourteen international publications (Anodyne Magazine, COVID-19 Memorial, Phi Beta Kappa, more), Roen is dedicated to bringing stories of hope to audiences outside major theatre hubs.

Which of these ideas are you most excited to try? Which younger-reader spaces are already part of your world but you haven’t yet thought to bring your books there?

Authors, Gen Z, and Book Marketing: Meeting on Common Ground in Real Life

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