Last week saw the US Book Show, a single-day but large event that comes far enough after other major gatherings—like the London Book Fair—to feel as though a world of water has passed under the bridge since then.
ALLi News Editor Dan Holloway
The latest report shows what people have been reading in the first half of 2025. And one thing hasn’t changed: “Romance with a dark twist” remains the hottest property. Rebecca Yarros has four of the top ten best-selling books. Romance overall continues to rise in popularity, up 24 percent from last year.
Darkness Dominates the Charts
But the “dark twist” is, overall, the thing that stands out most. Dark fantasy is also up 23 percent, with horror up 13 percent and psychological thrillers up 29 percent. As a writer, this fills my heart with joy.
Looking at who said what provides a crucial temperature check for where our industry sits right now. With the increasingly obvious caveat that “right now” means just that. Next week, who knows where we’ll be?
Big Books and AI Take Center Stage
Publishers Weekly has some fascinating reports on the discussions during the event, but one quotation they used in summary really stood out. They describe the series of panels as characterizing “an era increasingly characterized by chasing big books with bigger audiences and the encroachment of artificial intelligence technologies.”
Now, we are very familiar with the fact that AI is everywhere—at least in the news—these days.
But the other part of that is really interesting. In my first post of the week, I looked at reading trends.
What I hadn’t really commented on there was the dominance of the bestsellers in the market. We know Rebecca Yarros is popular. But The Onyx Storm has smashed decades-old records and appears in the top ten bestsellers of the year not once, but twice.
Ironically, sales of the limited edition outstrip those of the standard, which shows that it’s not just blockbusters that are thriving, but special editions (indies, take note).
Midlist Strength and Direct Sales
There were two really fascinating aspects to this “big books” trend that stand out amid the discussion.
First, it prompted a panel on the importance of midlist authors who “sell through”—that is, they might have a small print run, but they never have returns from that run.
And second, there was a spotlight on sales made direct to readers. I find nothing in the write-up about the publishing industry declaring how much it has to learn from indie writers, so let me say it instead.
Indies know the importance of building a direct relationship with our readers, building a steadily growing community around our books, and then consistently delivering to that community something they will value.
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