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The Nonfiction Book Market is Collapsing?
- Jblx2 25d agoI started reading and at about the half-way point, I decided to search for "AI", "LLM", "generative", which all came up blank. At that point I closed the tab and headed back here. #1 reason I would be very skeptical of purchasing a book published in 2026 is AI. Unfortunately, you need to overcome a pretty big hump in convincing me that there was no AI involved in authoring.
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- matherial 25d agoYeah, frankly, this doesn't make sense to me. Has the author checked any nonfiction categories on Amazon recently? In many categories, 80-90% of all new releases are obvious AI slop. And even for non-self-published releases, about 20-30% previews get flagged as AI by Pangram, compared to roughly 0% pre-2023. I don't buy (new) nonfiction because it now feels like playing Minesweeper.
- dmpk2k 25d agoLikewise. I'm only interested in books that were either published before 2024, or are by authors I respect (e.g. Patterson & Hennessy), or by respectable academic publishers (e.g. Cambridge University Press). I used not to be so picky. It also presents a bit of chicken & egg for new authors: nobody knows them, and now few will risk it, so they stay unknown. They must pursue other avenues to gain traction; far more than was needed a few years ago. The deluge of AI books on Amazon has really been quite amazing. Between them and the higher risk of poorly-printed books, I don't buy from Amazon anymore. Now it's always direct from publishers.
- eru 25d agoI don't necessarily mind reading AI generated content. But the bar you need to clear is: why would I read (or watch or play) what you generate with AI compared to me just directly asking the AI? To be clear: this isn't meant as a rhetorical question. There are AI generated works I'm happy to consume. It's meant as a real bar that you can clear. But it's also non-trivial, and the goalposts are moving as AI becomes better and easier to use.
- thatjoeoverthr 25d agoThis is the bar with other works as well. If you would hire it buy anything that’s just a mindless AI dump, why not use your $5/mo GPT sub?
- sigmoid10 25d agoEspecially with the current rate of progress, you asking ChatGPT today probably means you'll get a way better answer than whatever the author got using a model from last year.
- thatjoeoverthr 25d agoThis, and the fact that GPT is writing for you personally. A text written to persuade a publisher, or to manipulate Google results, has the deck stacked hard against it vs. asking even a cheap AI that can size you up personally.
- matherial 25d agoI agree with you in principle, but I think this ignores the reality. Many nonfiction categories are overrun by self-published AI slop generated at an industrial scale by hustlers in low-CoL countries, never as much as proofread by a human. So yes, in theory, good AI-assisted books may exist. But in practice, they're more or less guaranteed to be drowned out because they take much longer to produce (and are written only if the author has something to say).
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- zulgin 25d agoI think if you read a little bit further in the article you would find that this attitude is exactly why the author believes there is a collapse in non-fiction book. > The collapse of nonfiction is [...] a massive breakdown in the social fabric of trusting education, expertise, or any authority People don't want to read non-fiction because they don't trust the people writing it.
- prmoustache 25d agoHonestly most non fiction books title sound like linkedin posts and have been for decades even before linkedin was a thing. I didn't wait for AI to lose trust in people writing them, they are just all mostly repulsive.
- wodenokoto 25d agoShouldn't that hit nonfiction and fiction equally?
- Jblx2 24d agoWhy would that be the case? Fiction books are already imaginary, so it makes less of a difference whether it is human-imaginary or reshuffled-by-LLM-imaginary. Non-fiction I expect to not be hallucinated-out-of-the-ether.
- rukshn 25d agoFor the last couple of years I’ve only read non fiction. For me reading about real life events is far more entertaining and also a great learning experience that I can’t get from a fiction book.
- zatkin 25d agoI'm in the same boat as you, having only read non-fiction the past few years. It appears quite ironic that the entertainment occurring in the real life events is surpassing the entertainment I hear one usually derives from fiction.
- rf15 25d agoSee, because of the learning experience I steer away from non-fiction books. I am deeply afraid of the narrative red string applied to reality - connecting a tiny subset of the observable data points to a simplified interpretation/explanation of the whole. If I want to learn, I look at raw data, reports, white papers, etc.. Because authors always have some bias or other, especially when they decide to write a book-length document. (Except, of course, a data catalog of sorts, like a lexicon or other exhaustive enumeration - those are usually a good starting point) I have enough of my own biases, and rather get a diverse set of inputs on a topic. Fiction though? Sure, let's suspend our disbelief and have some fun. Edit: to clarify: this is not me accusing authors of non-fiction books to always have some evil agenda to push. One human only has limited capacity and things will always fall through the cracks. Do your own research with the constraints you actually care about, if you can.
- verisimi 25d agoYes, everything outside of personal experience is somewhat fictional - one probably wouldn't agree with the biases, assumptions or assessments of any author/content creator.
- bob1029 25d agoI think there is something deeply wrong with the state of contemporary fiction. I was on Spotify the other day checking out the fantasy audiobook offerings and the only item that wasn't absolutely repulsive was Jim dale reading Harry Potter. Everything else comes off like cheap asset flips on steam or thinly veiled rants that you'd find on obscure subreddits.
- comrade1234 25d agoOne thing I've learned listening to Monocle podcasts is that non-fiction writers have to hustle a lot to be successful. Many of their regular guests are non-fiction writers and they are constantly talking about what conference they just came back from, what workshops they've been running, etc. And part of this hustling is appearing in Monocle podcasts and news programs.
- vidarh 25d agoFiction writers also have to hustle a lot to be successful. The average full time writer in the UK would've made more at McDonalds in the UK, and I doubt it's much better elsewhere. It's both an extremely competitive field, and it's incredibly hard to convince people to read your book even for those near the top of their field in terms of quality. But non-fiction writers have an additional problem, that I think the article glosses over: If I like, say, romance novels, I'm not looking for new books to be dramatically different to what I read before. A lot of genre readers - the by far largest genres are romance and thrillers - expect books that stick closely to expected conventions. Romance readers will form a mob with pitchforks if there isn't a happily ever after, for example. Non-fiction, on the other hand, must set itself apart. Why should I read your How to Win Friends and Influence People look-alike when I can read Dale Carnegie's original? It needs to be very different or clearly better and I have to find it in between the many hundreds of thousands (not an exaggeration; might even under-estimate the number at this point) of new non-fiction titles every year, where fiction titles are not: You don't need 50 books on meditation, or 50 books on repairing your washing machine, but you might have 50 books in the same narrow sub-genre of fiction because it's what you like to read, and so the opportunity cost of picking up an unknown name feels very different. A whole lot of the non-fiction market is also being cannibalised by blogs, tiktok, youtube videos and the like - and LLMs -, whereas a video is more likely to tease the fiction book rather than replace the need for it.
- Ekaros 25d agoAlso when I think of better end of non-fiction. How many books on certain topic I need? Say ornithology or on birds... Maybe a few at best. Unless I am collector or interested in that specific niche. Which already massively cuts down audience. Take history. Huge overall. But if you only go for specific events, periods or areas(town for example) it might cut down audience significantly. So I think it is fair to say for fiction that some niches could be lot smaller say than generic fantasy, romance and such. And also I can read lot more fantasy books if I get around to it... Some of them are bloody enormous series too.
- socalgal2 25d agoIf non-fiction book market = self help, business help, advice. Good riddance? I might be wrong but I feel like most of that stuff is the same as YouTube, TikTok. Random person with no qualifications realizes they can maybe make some money by writing about their own random opinions on how things are with no actual data, just feels. Someone else mentioned history but AFAICT, at least in the YouTube realm, lots of "history" channels are people with alternative hot take ideas about history portrayed as history experts, because it's what gets views. I'm only guessing that same basic fact, controversial ideas get sales, means similar things happen with books. Especially with it being easier than ever to publish.
- rrr_oh_man 25d ago> Someone else mentioned history but AFAICT, at least in the YouTube realm, lots of "history" channels are people with alternative hot take ideas about history portrayed as history experts, because it's what gets views. Even worse, it’s shallowly regurgitated ideas of other people’s prior works, with music and visuals and all. Recently, on my formerly favourite new history channel [0], I noticed editing quirks (that would have never passed the bar if a human read it) and overly consistent vocalization… it's jumped the shark :( [0] Fall of Civilisations https://youtube.com/@FallofCivilizations https://youtube.com/@FallofCivilizations
- ChickeNES 25d ago> overly consistent vocalization Is this...really an issue? I can't really blame people for automating their own voice.
- rrr_oh_man 25d agoBeing able to predict cadence and pitch makes me want to fall asleep rather than listen. Though it might be other people‘s whole reason to listen to long form podcasts in the first place
- nicbou 25d agoThere is just more of everything. It's as if the attention economy got flooded in the last two years, and everyone is drowning in noise. Plus reading is competing with all the other ways to spend time. Podcasts are great for nonfiction. Substack and blogs are a much better format for many ideas. Then there's YouTube, and many ways to spend time that aren't ingesting non-fiction. Besides, a lot of non-fiction just isn't that great. Many books should have been a blog post. These books are rarely a rewarding experience for me, unless it's from a rare combo of historian and good writer. > the sensibility of nonfiction market is far more catered to men The book industry is three quarter female. In my experience, book stores visibly cater to a female demographic (featured books, general selection). https://www.leeandlow.com/blog/2019diversitybaselinesurvey/ https://www.leeandlow.com/blog/2019diversitybaselinesurvey/ https://www.wsj.com/business/media/dad-books-are-a-dying-breed-d9a28b49 https://www.wsj.com/business/media/dad-books-are-a-dying-bre...
- echelon 25d agoMost people give away attention tidbits for free via social media: TikToks, YouTube shorts, posts on Reddit. That means attention can be sated by microdosing on free attention morsels rather than paying for something long-form that requires investment. People drowning in free attention and dopamine might not have a need to pay for a premium attention sink. This is happening at an enormous scale. An evening book or prestige movie might be supplemented by doom scrolling sloppy content and memes. Instead of authors being paid for supplying entertainment, ads are being watched. The companies that empower this are worth trillions.
- vidarh 25d agoMost readers are women, and the largest genre by far is romance novels, so book stores catering to women is a matter of chasing sales. Otherwise fully agree with your points. The non-fiction market is easier to saturate as there's only so many unique angles on something, and people will look for something that feels authoritative rather than something fresh, while in fiction you're likely to read many similar premises because it's what you like.
- nicbou 25d ago
- sdcfgy 25d agoI doubt it. Trash is collapsing.
- personjerry 25d agoAbsolutely crazy and useless article IMO in that they never mention AI. They cite readers being interested in learning - well what's the best way to do so nowadays? Ask ChatGPT. Even worse, you can ask ChatGPT to describe the learnings of any reasonably popular nonfiction book directly. No it's not a perfect substitute, nor will the learnings be as memorable, but it's reasonably good enough. That's why I haven't bought a nonfiction book in a long time.
- hollowturtle 25d agoImo Eventually we will circle back to nonfiction quality books, for one just to decrease screen time :) for second we actually need them even for chatgpt
- molteanu 25d agoI donno, read thee classics! They're classics for a reason. You can't go wrong with them. You'll certainly not like them all, but find your niche, there's plenty to choose from. There's plenty of history, philosophy and politics books out there for the non-fiction category, too! Those are not quite self-help in the way we understand most non-fiction, but the ideas in them are far-reaching, some even eternal. For the later, Philosophize This (youtube podcast) is a great help! Enjoy!
- hollowturtle 25d agoLately whenever I enter a book store in Italy, I'm overwhelmed by the amount of fiction romance for girls and womens. I get 3/4 of readers are womens but all I'm left with is a gigantic pile of nonfiction shit I'm not interested about, I know for sure most of it will leave nothing to me. Increasingly way too many people attempted to sell a bunch of nonfiction books, and it shows there amounts of unsold copies. Most of them being a marketing political campaign. There gems for sure but it's becoming increasingly harder to find them. Also the only fiction books I'm interested about are sci-fi, and the dedicated space is soo small that you feel a weirdo with strange hobbies. But I swear to you, cause I read a fantasy novel from my wife's selection, that a saga like The Expanse is 100 times better written than all that new shit. Finally rest of the book store is now dedicated to manga and graphic novels. Not bad I love them but the ratio is overwhelming as well
- ButlerianJihad 25d agoI was in the central library a year or two ago, and I had to ask directions to the stacks, because the shelves were all being rearranged (downsized) and none of the diagram handouts matched the floor plan anymore. Strolling down the aisle with the reference librarian, I asked about biographies and she said something like "the person that the book is written about" and I said "...Subject?" and she reluctantly admitted that most of the library patrons haven't learned library terminology, so the staff uses simple English to explain stuff to patrons.
- PeterStuer 25d agoWhen I saw the literature lists my sons got from school for reading, I was not surprized boys get turned of on reading at a young age. With education being this feminized ( I think over here >95% of k12 teachers are now female, and 70-80% of high school), I do not even know they even see how unappealing and biased the selection is for the average young male.
- wodenokoto 25d agoI'm not really sure I'd categorize David Sedaris as non-fiction or put him in the intellectual high-end of that. I love his books, but they are the literary version of a stand-up show. To paraphrase: If an audience of live arts is willing to go see a ballet, they must have an appetite for challenge, difficulty, or complexity. There are signs of life and appetite for being challenged in 2026 - Jimmy Carr sold out his tour.
- RamblingCTO 25d agoThe gender move is divisive and intellectually lazy. Publishing trend -> it's men's fault. But wait, it's actually a societal trust crisis. Come one. Can we please not entertain trash like that? No proof of the connection was provided, it's just virtue signalling. In times like these we don't need more division and hate.
- potamic 25d agoWhat is their source that the non-fiction book market is collapsing? Their entire premise seems to come down to the fact that non-fiction in 2025 took a smaller share of the top 25 best-selling, hardcover books compared to 2015. It's baffling enough to draw any conclusions from the top 25 of anything, but then to narrow down to hardcover disregards any confounding effects of preferences in format. On top of that they seem to be strangely unaware of this whole phenomenon called ebooks that has been taking the market over by storm. Besides, non-fiction isn't analogous to fiction, it's not a useful category even. The subset of people who may read biographies may be very different from those who may read popular science or those who read self-help. There is no common denominator encompassing all of these other than the fact that it is a written medium. Fiction is different this way that it is a creative expression often read for the sake of reading and the point is not so much to reach the end. What would be more useful to see is the trend of specific categories of non-fiction over time and which ones are growing and which ones are not. Perhaps in some ironic way, this article demonstrates why interest in non-fiction may be declining. When you take a singular, weak data point and stretch it over 5 pages saying the same thing, to create a complete non-issue over something that concludes nothing of significance by the end, you have to wonder if one would want to read more of such spiel.
- thatjoeoverthr 25d agoStretching nothing, but encompassing a fairly standard payload. “The crisis of men is they don’t trust us, the authorities.” No need to pin down why. We’ve poisoned the well so the article is done.
- greggsy 25d agoI recently cleaned out an IT department that had been around since 2005. Mostly old workstations, gross keyboards, floppies and about a cubic metre of manuals. The market for printing training manuals and textbooks was dwindling up until the early 20’s, but it was completely wiped out by covid.
- fithisux 24d agoSince I do not want to subscribe in the substack feed, here is what I see as a serious reason 1. Shipping costs 2. Nonfiction books are huge. Who will read these books like e.g. "The Elements of Statistical Learning" 3. Pedagogy collapsed and barrier to access has skyrocketed 4. LeanPub/Gumroad are alternative means of distribution 5. Bad presentation full or references, and show-off 6. They do not usually give solutions to every day problems