Can we create books for an underserved audience without somehow being accused of hating everyone else?

Apparently, that’s a harder question than it should be.

After a completely normal drive-through conversation sends Rebekah into an existential publishing crisis, we tackle one of the biggest questions surrounding what we’re building at Lion Publishing: if we intentionally create stories that don’t center the themes dominating mainstream publishing, are we excluding people—or are we simply making room for readers who haven’t felt like there was much room for them?

We get into politics becoming religion, why simply saying “I don’t want to read that” can turn into a moral indictment of your entire character, age-appropriate books, free speech, bookstore boycotts, and the difference between allowing something to exist and demanding that everyone celebrate it. And yes, somehow The Hunger Games, JD Vance, Yellowstone, smut, rainbow glasses, and Cubs fans all make their way into the conversation.

Then we tackle another question we get a lot: why don’t we just call Lion a Christian publishing company? We talk about the infamous “little old lady test,” why so much Christian entertainment sacrifices storytelling for messaging, and the difference between Christian themes and Christian fiction. We want manuscripts from people across the political and religious spectrum because we’re not trying to create another ideological bubble. We want genuinely good stories where evil can exist without being glorified, goodness still means something, and heroes are allowed to be heroes.

At the end of the day, we’re not trying to erase anyone else’s stories or tell people what they’re allowed to read. We’re creating the space we wish existed—one where storytelling comes first, our faith doesn’t have to be hidden, and readers who have felt like the odd ones out finally have somewhere to belong.

In this episode:

☕ The drive-through conversation that started an existential publishing crisis

📚 Why we’re creating books for an audience that feels left behind

🗣️ Free speech, political litmus tests, and “books are inherently political”

⭐ Representation, disagreement, and whether not celebrating something equals hate

👨‍👩‍👧 What actually belongs in children’s and school libraries?

🔥 Why smut gets less pushback than saying we don’t want LGBT themes

📖 The “little old lady test” and our problem with Christian fiction

🎬 Why Christian movies have a storytelling problem

⚔️ Bringing back heroes who can face a broken world without becoming part of it

🦁 Why we aren’t Christian publishing—even though our faith is inseparable from our mission

Follow Lion Publishing:

Website: https://lionpublish.com/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Lion-Publishing

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lionbookpublishing/

X: https://x.com/lion_publish

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lionbookpublishing

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lionbookpublishing/

Follow the hosts/authors:

Rebekah: https://rebekahedwards.com/links/

Seth: https://linktr.ee/sethcordleauthor

Henry: (lol, you thought this guy had social media?!)

Support the launch:

BackerKit: COMING SOON

Like, subscribe, and share as we push back against Narrative Decay — one good story at a time.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Why don’t books have content ratings?

We have them for movies. We have them for TV. We have IMDb parental guides, Common Sense Media, MPAA ratings, and a thousand different ways to figure out whether a movie is appropriate before you sit down to watch it.

But books? Good luck. Hope you enjoy wandering blindly into the smut mines.

In episode 2 of Narrative Decay, Rebekah Edwards and Seth Cordle are joined by Rebekah’s husband, Joshua Edwards, to talk about why books desperately need better content details—not censorship, not bans, not pearl-clutching panic, but clear information so readers and parents can make their own choices.

We get into the difference between content warnings, trigger warnings, and content details, why “only 6% smut” is still a lot of smut, why sexual content often hits differently on the page than on the screen, and why readers should be able to know what they’re picking up before they’re already attached to the characters.

We also talk ACOTAR, Assistant to the Villain, Hunger Games, Project Hail Mary trailer spoilers, Harry Potter and witchcraft ratings, political content in fiction, Christian readers, parents trying to keep up with voracious kids, and Rebekah’s in-progress book rating app that may or may not be powered by her AI son, Clanker.

PLUS, we ask the real question: does wanting content details mean you’re afraid of being challenged, or does it just mean you’re a grown adult who gets to decide what you want to put in your own brain?

In this episode:

📚 Why books need content ratings/content details

🎬 Why movie ratings don’t translate perfectly to books

🔥 The problem with smut being hidden until you’re already hooked

👨‍👩‍👧 Why parents need better tools for teen and YA books

⚠️ Content warnings vs. trigger warnings vs. content details

🧙 Harry Potter, witchcraft, religious themes, and rating nuance

🚫 Why knowing what’s in a book is not the same thing as banning it

🤖 Rebekah’s book rating app and the rise of Clanker

🦁 Why Lion Publishing wants to be upfront about our own books

Follow Lion Publishing:

Website: https://lionpublish.com/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Lion-Publishing

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lionbookpublishing/

X: https://x.com/lion_publish

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lionbookpublishing

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lionbookpublishing/

Follow the hosts/authors:

Rebekah: https://rebekahedwards.com/links/

Seth: https://linktr.ee/sethcordleauthor

Support the launch:

BackerKit: COMING SOON

Like, subscribe, and share as we push back against Narrative Decay — one good story at a time.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Lion Publishing launches this fall with three debut novels, three wildly different speculative worlds, and one very stubborn refusal to make “Let Us Hear Your Roar” the podcast title. (That's Rebekah, because she thinks it's a stupid title, SETH!)

In our first episode, Rebekah Edwards, Seth Cordle, and Henry Hall introduce the books coming our Lion’s first launch: a LitRPG apocalypse born from a tabletop campaign, an epic fantasy about thieves mistaken for heroes, and a YA western fantasy where demon-slaying gunslingers ride through the old West.

Then we get into the bigger question behind Lion Publishing: what happened to storytelling, and how do we get back to stories that are actually worth reading?

We talk character arcs, static heroes, D&D as storytelling fuel, why modern fiction often feels politically force-fed, the influence of Star Wars, Animorphs, Harry Potter, Firefly, Sanderson, Salinger, and more... PLUS, why “based storytelling” doesn’t mean propaganda in the other direction. It means plot, character, world, wonder, courage, humor, tragedy, and stories that remember what stories are for.

In this episode:

👋 Meet Lion Publishing’s first three authors

📚 Hear about our debut novels and launch plans

🌀 LitRPG, epic fantasy, YA western fantasy, and tabletop chaos

🚫 Why “not woke” is not enough

🖋️ The case for actual good storytelling

👨‍🚀 Static characters, heroic arcs, and why Luke Skywalker still matters

🪄 D&D campaigns, found family, flashbacks, and the books that made us readers

Follow Lion Publishing:

Website: https://lionpublish.com/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Lion-Publishing

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lionbookpublishing/

X: https://x.com/lion_publish

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lionbookpublishing

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lionbookpublishing/

Follow the hosts/authors:

Rebekah: https://rebekahedwards.com/links/

Seth: https://linktr.ee/sethcordleauthor

Henry: (lol, you thought this guy had social media?!)

Support the launch:

BackerKit: COMING SOON

Like, subscribe, and share as we push back against Narrative Decay — one good story at a time.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.