Spring trends in publishing
"It’s time to celebrate not only the predictability of publishing, but also its slowness." RLF Fellow Caroline Sanderson
“Expect plenty of hoo-ha over the ha-ha.” Caroline Sanderson
Publishing… predictable? Certainly it is. A creative, ideas-based industry it may be, but we sometimes forget that much of publishing’s output is seasonal, driven by a routine sense of occasion.
For example, each January, those of us making the traditional sort of get-fit, get-thinner, get-sober New Year resolutions can choose from a fresh array of health books published from late December onwards. Yes, we hardly get to swallow our final mouthful of Christmas pudding before publishers come over all healthy… for 2025 (as for 2024), think healthy plant-eating, healthy juicing, and (of course) healthy air frying.
Then February brings Valentine’s Day, and a slew of books designed to help us have better relationships. March means Mother’s Day and International Women’s Day, cueing a month filled with mum memoirs (mumoirs?) and works of feminist activism. In April, the pile of new gardening books being published shoots up in height; in May it’s travel books and nature writing that begin to bloom. And then in flaming June, you can bet that a top chef will release a BBQ book (this year it’s Tom Kerridge).
So when I am asked – as I often am – whether I’ve spotted any publishing trends for the year ahead, I’m always tempted to say: well have a look at last year. I’m not being facetious – such predictability helps sustain the whole industry, from the authors who write seasonal books to the booksellers who sell them.
Publishing also loves an anniversary to muster around; after all anniversaries are predictable occasions too, and ones you can see coming from years off. The most celebrated literary milestone of 2025 is likely to be the 250th anniversary of the birth of Jane Austen. As an über fan myself and the author of two books on Austen, I’m perennially astonished at how ‘Jane’s Fame’ (to borrow the title of a very good book on Austen by RLF Fellow Claire Harman) seems to increase with every passing year. The sales of her novels hardly need the boost but expect plenty of hoo-ha over the ha-ha even so.
More sombrely, wartime anniversaries are a reliable staple for publishers, and 2025 is set to deliver on this front, with a parade of dates and books marking 80 years since the various end points of the Second World War beckon; from the liberation of the Nazi concentration camps and victory in Europe, to victory in the Far East later in the summer.
If only devastating conflict were a thing only of the past… but alas that is far from the case. Led by books like Undefeatable: Odesa in Love & War by RLF Fellow Julian Evans, a striking thread running through Spring 2025’s publishing connects works that bear witness to wars raging today. From Looking at Women, Looking at War by Ukrainian novelist, poet and activist Victoria Amelina who was killed in a Russian missile attack in June 2023 to The Eyes of Gaza by Plestia Alaqad out in April, these books present the work of writers at their most necessary. As US author and journalist, Omar El-Akkad questions of himself and his fellow writers in his searing book, One Day We Will All Have Been Against This: “What is this work we do? What are we good for?”.
Something else writers and their publishers are good for: producing meticulously-researched, deeply-considered, inspiringly-written, carefully-edited non-fiction books. As disruptive new kids on the publishing block promise books written and spat out to market in double-quick time with the aid of AI, it’s never been more important to remind ourselves that things speedily produced – fashion, food, and especially books – mostly don’t do us any good at all. While we might have to wait a few years for the next work by a favourite author to land, that is all part of what makes our industry so special and exciting.
So with highly anticipated, new non-fiction on the way this spring from an array of reliably marvellous human writers that includes Robert Macfarlane, Barbara Demick, Jason Allen-Paisant, Philippe Sands, Hallie Rubenhold, Rob Cowen, Philip Hoare, Cordelia Fine, Ta-Nehisi Coates and Richard Holmes, it’s time to celebrate not only the predictability of publishing, but also its slowness.
The excitement of opening a jiffy bag containing a proof of the new book by a favourite non-fiction writer never dwindles. But for all I’ve written about the importance of books we can bank on, the ultimate joy of my job is finding a new, totally unpredictable, entirely unforeseen gem by a new author I’ve never read before.
All the writers I’ve listed above were once themselves debut authors on whom a publisher took a risk, with no idea whether sales or acclaim would follow. While the predictable parts of publishing continue not greatly to surprise us from year to year, long may it also be an industry of innovation and downright gambles; one which puts sometimes blind faith in the talents of the real live authors, without whom we would all be culturally poorer.
Caroline Sanderson is a writer and books journalist. She is Associate Editor of The Bookseller for which she has compiled the monthly New Titles preview of forthcoming non-fiction since 2000.
Caroline is a Writing For Life Fellow for the Royal Literary Fund, and is currently Writer in Residence at South Tees NHS Foundation Trust and the Programme Director for Stroud Book Festival.
Caroline is the author of six non-fiction books, including biographies of Jane Austen and the singer, Adele. Her memoir – Listen With Father: How I Learned to Love Classical Music – will be published by Unbound in July 2025.