The Nonfiction Book Market is Collapsing - by Sean deLone

Dear Head of MineSubscribeSign inThe Nonfiction Book Market is CollapsingSean deLoneSep 08, 20261333148ShareThis is not one of those periodic “End of Reading” Atlantic click bait essays. Americans—well, the kind who read books or newsletters about books—are well-versed in the challenges with literacy and education that have stretched on for decades. Rather, today we’re tackling the multi-year, fairly rapid—at least relative to book industry speed—radical change that book publishing has experienced over the past decade.First, the entire industry boomed in Covid—writing is a hobby and reading for pleasure is, too—and has trudged along as it usually does, staying flat, growing a little over the years since 2020. But for the past decade the market for nonfiction has slowly collapsed. What has happened in the last ten years1 is that the overall industry has grown modestly, but fiction and nonfiction have basically flipped positions. In 2015, 6 of the top 25 bestselling hardcover books—this is a not-perfect but useful proxy for new books published—were fiction. In 2025, 18 of the top 25 hardcover books were fiction, meaning only 7 were nonfiction, almost an exact inversion of ten years ago.The Great Fiction-Nonfiction InversionThe nonfiction collapse has profound implications for the industry. Nonfiction, historically, has always been seen as the more stable part of the business for logical reasons. The demand for nonfiction has always felt more predictable than fiction. Novels are complete imaginations often written by relatively obscure strangers. Nonfiction has experts and clear topics of interest. Want to lose weight? Grab a diet book. Want to learn about World War II? You got options. Presidential memoir? Maybe not these days, but sure. And nonfiction books are written mostly by famous people or experts or popular quacks—also known as people with a built-in “platform.”Nonfiction being more predictable and stable means that nonfiction book advances have typically had a higher floor than those of fiction and, somewhat counterintuitively, are sold on less material. Celebrities have probably gotten millions for a cocktail napkin-worth of material (if that). Other nonfiction proposals can range anywhere from 30-120 pages but usually end up in the middle of this range. You’re paying the author for their public stature, not necessarily their literary prowess. These books are treated more like a commission, the term “book advance”, although it refers to all books, likely comes out of nonfiction because authors are advanced a stack of money to entice them to set aside some of their time—instead of engaging in speaking, television, teaching, politics—to write a book. Whereas most novelists are advanced money to revise a full manuscript they’ve already written.The paradigm of nonfiction being the more stable category is no longer the case. Part of this is platform unpredictability— it is less and less certain which platforms will translate directly to book sales. Media also isn’t as concentrated; you can’t depend on coverage on a few national news programs to push out copies but rather a parasocial connection—even with a relatively smaller reach—between author and reader is likely to translate to stronger sales. Bunnie Xo has a large social media following for instance (2 million on Instagram) but isn’t an established household name such that you’d think her book would be the third bestselling nonfiction hardcover this year. However, the nonfiction decline is far less about the changing nature of “platform” and the fractured media landscape, and more about a precipitous falloff in demand. No amount of platform is going to change that interest across the board in nonfiction from celebrities down to science has been slowly disappearing. Even if nonfiction is stable and more predictable than fiction in the abstract, it’s by far worth taking the risk on an unknown novelist if the return is potentially 4x as much. Let’s bring the nonfiction collapse into current day context. Two weeks ago, the entire hardcover nonfiction bestseller list sold 42,000 copies, whereas just the top two bestselling fiction hardcovers the same week—The Calamity Club in its 15th week on-sale and Yesteryear in its 19th week on-sale—sold 52,000 copies. It’s not inconceivable that on the right week, one fiction hardcover with first week sales could outsell the entirety of the hardcover nonfiction bestseller list.Men Again…Longtime Dear Head of Mine readers may know this stat, but fiction/nonfiction reading habits are extremely gendered, with 80% of women making up the fiction market, and nonfiction being a more 50-50 proposition.2 Yet, the sensibility of nonfiction market is far more catered to men. An incomplete and quick measure of this phenomenon: 8 of the top 25 bestselling nonfiction books in 2025 were authored by women, 2 by organizations (Guinness World Records and New York Times) and 15 by men. Also, while the vast majority of editors are women, the historical sexism of all industries and the demand for nonfiction books means that the editors who are men that remain are typically more powerful3 and tend to work in nonfiction.Yes, the nonfiction collapse is at its root connected to the continual, ever-devolving crisis of men. Proportionally we are gaining many more women as readers and losing our few men. However, since nonfiction is actually a place where gender parity exists in the readership, we must consider that the “male” crisis is actually a societal crisis. As far as a grand theory for why the nonfiction market has shrunk consistently, we must look at the primary reason people read nonfiction.Dear Head of Mine is a reader-supported publication. For full access to the archive and occasional bonus content please consider becoming a paid subscriber.SubscribeThe Root of the Nonfiction Decline“The collapse of nonfiction is less a ‘male reading crisis’ than a massive breakdown in the social fabric of trusting education, expertise, or any authority other than follower count and force of personality.”Nonfiction is read more for information and learning than pleasure, there’s more natural authority conveyed in something marketed as “real” and not “made up”. At a base level if readers seek out nonfiction to learn and be informed, is it really a shock that nonfiction reading has declined precipitously over the last decade? Trust in media, according to Gallop, is at an all-time low in the US at 28% whereas just five years ago it was at 40%. Importantly, reflected in these stats is that trust being “none at all” in media—as in rock bottom—has risen from 24% of respondents to 34% of respondents. It’s a perfect proxy for readers and not such a radical jump in logic that if people don’t trust other forms of written authority (like newspapers and other journalistic outlets) they have similarly become skeptical of the authority of nonfiction books. It’s all part of the self “educating” movement from health to homeschooling that leads to random conspiracy theories propagated on the Internet rather than relying on expertise.Newspapers or books have never been perfect vessels of unbiased information, but they are certainly better than completely unvetted conjecture. The collapse of nonfiction is less a “male reading crisis” than a massive breakdown in the social fabric of trusting education, expertise, or any authority other than follower count and force of personality.4Literary Nonfiction: A TheoryThe health of any economy can be judged by its middle class, in book publishing terms this is “The Midlist.” This is completely a subjective impression, but it seems that both fiction and nonfiction became noticeably less literary and serious, especially last year. It’s not that artsy, “literary” books are inherently better than popular entertainments— there are plenty of unsuccessful (read: bad) versions of both and plenty of successful (read: good) versions. It’s that literary fiction and nonfiction are important because they provide a bellwether for how much challenge, difficulty, or complexity a reader or consumer is willing to accept. If a moviegoer is willing to give a chance to a 21st-century silent black and white film, you can assume they must really love film. The same is true of books: the 800-page biography reader is a much more valuable and committed book reader than the one who buys Bill O’Reilly reheated-nacho, co-authored, 291-page popular histories (this page count includes notes and sources and index!). The nonfiction bestseller list got particularly unserious last year, with political books (as it’s been called, “Hollywood for ugly people”), celebrity properties, and general fluff— the Guinness Book of World Records and the New York Times Puzzle Mania! make for a very unserious top 25 bestsellers. While there are signs of life in 2026—literary memoir like Strangers and stalwarts like Patrick Radden Keefe and David Sedaris— nonfiction is still having quite a silly year.“Literary fiction and nonfiction are important because they provide a bellwether for how much challenge, difficulty, or complexity a reader or consumer is willing to accept.”Sea ChangesThe tide going out on nonfiction sales and reading is entirely reshaping the power balance in the industry. Not overnight, but slowly, the money is flowing to fiction and away from nonfiction. It is causing quite a scramble. Fiction is unpredictable, it requires taste, it does not favor the solid metrics or predictability which, if you are running a publishing company, are much more preferable (businesses tend to prefer predictable growth and low volatility or at least high growth alongside high volatility). Fiction is also an easier category for the big publishers to capture and corner the market on. For instance, a handful of talent agencies represent nearly all A-list actors, and therefore a significant supply of big nonfiction bestsellers. The capture in supply carries over to publishers—when is the last time a big celebrity has published a huge bestseller with an indie press?5“The tide going out on nonfiction sales and reading is entirely reshaping the power balance in the industry. Not overnight, but slowly, the money is flowing to fiction and away from nonfiction. It is causing quite a scramble.”Identifying and capturing the bestselling fiction talent is not as possible as nonfiction talent. It’s why as the markets for fiction and nonfiction have flipped in size we’re seeing new entrants and competitors at the publisher level and the rise of more self-publishing successes. There are massive novelists with a couple thousand Instagram followers, and that’s after they’ve sold millions of copies. Fiction writers are basically anonymous people in the media landscape, which is quite heartwarming from a human and artistic perspective but maddening for a business one. Fiction writers often have no platform, although one of the structural changes we’re seeing is the migration of a lot of celebrity talent to publishing novels, we might well be seeing Ryan Gosling’s short story collection very soon.6For now, fiction, and particularly fiction of an escapist nature, is providing the perfect market counterbalance to the decline of practically-inclined nonfiction. In the long run the collapse of nonfiction hints at deeper problems in book publishing not so easily fixed. If nonfiction represents the authority that books have, then this market tells us the underlying authority of a book as a cultural object is slipping. That if the commercial trends in fiction cool down there will be less of a reliable base of readers than ever. Stay tuned later this week for some radical ideas/predictions to bring nonfiction back.Share1Almost exactly when I joined the industry, as it happens.2Roughly.3The industry is about 80-20 women to men, roughly, but more like 50-50 when it comes to leadership. The Big 5 publishers are all led by men.4I believe the ancient Romans warned us about this one, in case you’re worried this is a purely modern predicament.5 An exception here is extremely problematic celebrities whom big publishers, occasionally, refuse to publish and so they go outside the Big 5 to the handful of blood money publishers instead.6Actually, celebrity novels probably won’t come from people this fun or interesting.1333148SharePreviousDiscussion about this postCommentsRestacksJPH4416hDoes this coincide with the rise of podcasts or is that too obvious? I wouldn't have listened to these 5 years ago, but most people I know, particularly men, now do so and it probably replaces time they would have otherwise spent reading non-fiction. You still learn stuff from a podcast, maybe less than from reading, but the content refreshes every week and the cost is living with a couple of adverts or a sub you pay for anyway. Arguably, this and other substacks are also new kinds of competition in the non-fiction market (many replace op-eds but some dive into real subjects) and these serial formats might fit the non fiction market better than they do fiction (at least since Dickens or the pulps).ReplyShare4 repliesTesla Monson13hAs a woman with a literary nonfiction book coming out in April (BEGINNINGS, Flatiron Books), this hurts to read. But I have hope that we can still bring in readers who are genuinely interested and want to learn from a truly reliable source (in my case, I am a scientist and professor). And I remain committed to scientific outreach through long-form writing. Maybe it's the books that have to change. But maybe we can also commit to publishing things that are socially valuable even if the dedicated audience is a little bit smaller. The knowledge should still be out there and accessible to anyone who wants to gain it.ReplyShare2 replies29 more comments...TopLatestDiscussionsNo postsReady for more?Subscribe© 2026 Sean deLone · Privacy ∙ Terms ∙ Collection notice Start your SubstackGet the appSubstack is the home for great culture

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The nonfiction book market has experienced a significant collapse over the past decade, fundamentally shifting its balance in favor of fiction. While the overall publishing industry grew modestly during this period, the distinction between fiction and nonfiction has inverted; for instance, in 2015, six of the top twenty-five bestselling hardcover books were fiction, whereas by 2025, eighteen were fiction, leaving only seven as nonfiction. This inversion suggests a profound change in market dynamics that goes beyond simple shifts in publishing trends.

Historically, nonfiction was perceived as the more stable segment of the book business due to its association with expertise and predictable demand; topics such as self-help or historical facts offered a higher floor for advances because authors were often recognized by existing platforms or built-in authority. This perception was based on the expectation that nonfiction was read primarily for information and learning rather than pleasure, allowing it to operate on a different set of metrics than fiction. However, this stability paradigm has evaporated due to platform unpredictability and a fracturing of media trust. The decline in demand is not primarily driven by changes in personal platforms but by a general erosion of faith in established authorities, including education and expertise, which the author argues is reflected in declining trust in media generally.

The collapse also involves a change in the perceived literary quality of the market. Nonfiction has become more unserious, increasingly featuring celebrity properties and light content such as puzzles, suggesting that readers are willing to accept less complexity or difficulty in books compared to previous eras. This shift indicates that fiction, particularly escapist fiction, is providing a powerful market counterbalance. In terms of industry power, the tide is shifting toward fiction because it is more unpredictable, allowing for greater volatility and offering publishers an easier route to capture talent due to the presence of large celebrity networks.

Furthermore, the decline in nonfiction can be contextualized within broader societal shifts regarding gender. While reading habits remain gendered, the essay posits that the market collapse is less about a specific "male reading crisis" and more indicative of a breakdown in the social fabric of trusting external authorities. The diminishing value placed on nonfiction relies on faith in established knowledge sources, which has eroded, leading readers to seek different forms of authority. Ultimately, the commercial trend signals that if nonfiction represents the authority books once held, this market shift indicates a decline in the underlying cultural authority of the book as a general object.