HALLIE EPHRON: Last week, the New York Times ran a sort of autopsy on the 2025 book business, and it was not all gloom and doom.
Here were some takeaways:
- Nonfiction and Y.A. are hurting
- Genre novels (that's us) are booming
- Books about sex and magic were blockbusters
- A.I. disrupted online search flooding Amazon with poorly written books made it harder to distinguish them from books written by humans
- Major retailers ordered fewer books
- Fewer companies were providing distribution channels to bookstores
- Book bans threatened to limit purchases
- YA fiction fell (down 12% from last year) but many of those readers moved on to different categories...
BUT BUT BUT - In toto, 🌟print book sales were mostly unchanged
- Paper (as opposed to digital) books still make up about 3/4 of book sales
- Audio book sales held steady
- Physical bookstores are hanging in there and 422 new bookstores joined American Booksellers Association
From our perspectives, as a long-time published authors...
? What's changed most behind the scenes, from an aspiring or published author perspective, about writing, pitching, publishing, selling...?? And is there good news nestled within the not-so-good?
HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Hmmm. Great question. I have heard: popcorn books. People want fast, SHORT, popcorn books. “I read it in one day” is the new best thing.
Genre blending is no longer anathema–anyone can blend genres and everyone understands it.
We all wish we had sprayed edges.
People are caring less about trade reviews. (Do you find this is true?)
As in: A star from PW is not as important as reviews from readers.
The industry says blurbs are dead, but authors (and readers?) do not agree. Even if they say they agree, it matters.
You better have a fabulous cover.
No one knows if in-person book tours work.
To quote WIlliam Goldman, no one knows anything.
JENN McKINLAY: The more I know the less I know seems to be my relationship with publishing. I think most things like the flood of AI generated books will get sorted through attrition. Readers will not tolerate bad books.
Influencers still seem to be publishing’s darlings for marketing and publicity (insert eye roll) and whether that works or not, I have no idea.
But I believe the one truth that holds is that a good book will find its readers and authors simply need to focus on their craft, write the best story they can, and the readers will find them. Like the movie Field of Dreams, “If you build it, they will come.”
RHYS BOWEN: I have never understood the publishing industry. Why they sink millions into a book while ignoring equally good similar books.
Having been with Lake Union ( an Amazon Company) for eight years now I can see what works there. Intense and ongoing marketing to those who buy similar books. They still promote a book I wrote in 2017 which means the titles stay on bestseller lists for ever. But the trade off is that they don’t make it to regular bookstores. NYT won’t include them in bestseller lists.
The big problem is that anyone can put their book up on Amazon and the reader has no way of knowing which books have had editorial guidance and which are half written by AI. A reader tries a mystery for the first time. It’s poorly written and the reader decides mysteries are not worth my time.
I personally have only written books I want to read but are not on the shelf yet. I don’t follow trends or markets.
And as for the future: All I know is my family went to Barnes and Noble on Boxing Day and each retuned with a bag full of books. And these are my grandkids! There will always be readers.
LUCY BURDETTE: LOL on the sprayed edges Hank! I didn’t even know what those were until Jenn explained it to us, and then I saw tables and tables of them at Barnes and Noble. Gorgeous and I want them now!
As for reading the publishing tea leaves, no idea. I find I’m best off putting my head down and writing my pages and making them the best stories I’m capable of.
JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Not gonna lie, I envy those sprayed edges, glorious romantasy covers and the sets that make a picture when you line the books up on your shelves. Sigh!
It’s interesting that you say short books, Hank, because I’ve spoken to several readers who long to sink into big, JONATHAN STRANGE AND MR NORREL sized novels. I wonder if it’s kids who cut their teeth on the Harry Potter series growing up and wanting that immersive experience?
Publishers apparently don’t see the value of authors appearing much in public, but every indy bookseller I spoke with said they’re vital to their business.
Yes to young people loving paper books. My 20s-30s kids are all readers, as you might expect, and none of them do ebooks. Meanwhile, everyone old enough to have presbyopia LOVES the convenience of being able to change the font size!
My intuition says books that sweep the reader away into a different time/place/income level will be popular for the next couple of years. We’re still living in the bad vibes economy, and readers want to escape, not get their noses rubbed into How Bad Life Can Be. So I’m looking at beach reads, glamorous thrillers, historicals, fantasy and romantasy to be or continue to be hot in 2026.
DEBORAH CROMBIE: Julia, my daughter, who is a few years older than your kids, only reads paper books, preferably hardcover, unless she is desperate. So, yeah, I think "ebooks will kill print books" was probably a bit overblown. As was "reading is dead, no one can get published, etc., etc.," back when I was first contemplating writing a novel, mumble-mumble years ago.
Basically, the business model of publishing has never made any sense, no one has any idea what actually sells books, and all you can do is the best job you can of writing your book.
HALLIE: So that's our somewhat-insiders view of the state of publishing.
Turning it over to you, now... looking back over the year from where you sit, what's changing (or not) in book publishing??
(And for those of you who have access to the NY Times, here's a link to their 2025 autopsy of the book business.)
Genre blending is no longer anathema–anyone can blend genres and everyone understands it.
We all wish we had sprayed edges.
People are caring less about trade reviews. (Do you find this is true?)
As in: A star from PW is not as important as reviews from readers.
The industry says blurbs are dead, but authors (and readers?) do not agree. Even if they say they agree, it matters.
You better have a fabulous cover.
No one knows if in-person book tours work.
To quote WIlliam Goldman, no one knows anything.
JENN McKINLAY: The more I know the less I know seems to be my relationship with publishing. I think most things like the flood of AI generated books will get sorted through attrition. Readers will not tolerate bad books.
Influencers still seem to be publishing’s darlings for marketing and publicity (insert eye roll) and whether that works or not, I have no idea.
But I believe the one truth that holds is that a good book will find its readers and authors simply need to focus on their craft, write the best story they can, and the readers will find them. Like the movie Field of Dreams, “If you build it, they will come.”
RHYS BOWEN: I have never understood the publishing industry. Why they sink millions into a book while ignoring equally good similar books.
Having been with Lake Union ( an Amazon Company) for eight years now I can see what works there. Intense and ongoing marketing to those who buy similar books. They still promote a book I wrote in 2017 which means the titles stay on bestseller lists for ever. But the trade off is that they don’t make it to regular bookstores. NYT won’t include them in bestseller lists.
The big problem is that anyone can put their book up on Amazon and the reader has no way of knowing which books have had editorial guidance and which are half written by AI. A reader tries a mystery for the first time. It’s poorly written and the reader decides mysteries are not worth my time.
I personally have only written books I want to read but are not on the shelf yet. I don’t follow trends or markets.
And as for the future: All I know is my family went to Barnes and Noble on Boxing Day and each retuned with a bag full of books. And these are my grandkids! There will always be readers.
LUCY BURDETTE: LOL on the sprayed edges Hank! I didn’t even know what those were until Jenn explained it to us, and then I saw tables and tables of them at Barnes and Noble. Gorgeous and I want them now!
As for reading the publishing tea leaves, no idea. I find I’m best off putting my head down and writing my pages and making them the best stories I’m capable of.
JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Not gonna lie, I envy those sprayed edges, glorious romantasy covers and the sets that make a picture when you line the books up on your shelves. Sigh!
It’s interesting that you say short books, Hank, because I’ve spoken to several readers who long to sink into big, JONATHAN STRANGE AND MR NORREL sized novels. I wonder if it’s kids who cut their teeth on the Harry Potter series growing up and wanting that immersive experience?
Publishers apparently don’t see the value of authors appearing much in public, but every indy bookseller I spoke with said they’re vital to their business.
Yes to young people loving paper books. My 20s-30s kids are all readers, as you might expect, and none of them do ebooks. Meanwhile, everyone old enough to have presbyopia LOVES the convenience of being able to change the font size!
My intuition says books that sweep the reader away into a different time/place/income level will be popular for the next couple of years. We’re still living in the bad vibes economy, and readers want to escape, not get their noses rubbed into How Bad Life Can Be. So I’m looking at beach reads, glamorous thrillers, historicals, fantasy and romantasy to be or continue to be hot in 2026.
DEBORAH CROMBIE: Julia, my daughter, who is a few years older than your kids, only reads paper books, preferably hardcover, unless she is desperate. So, yeah, I think "ebooks will kill print books" was probably a bit overblown. As was "reading is dead, no one can get published, etc., etc.," back when I was first contemplating writing a novel, mumble-mumble years ago.
Basically, the business model of publishing has never made any sense, no one has any idea what actually sells books, and all you can do is the best job you can of writing your book.
HALLIE: So that's our somewhat-insiders view of the state of publishing.
Turning it over to you, now... looking back over the year from where you sit, what's changing (or not) in book publishing??
(And for those of you who have access to the NY Times, here's a link to their 2025 autopsy of the book business.)
