Hello, dreamers. I remain in what I call the querying “sweet spot”: the point between six and eight weeks after submission when most agents respond. I’ve yet to hear back on any of my remaining seven active queries. There remains a decent chance some, or perhaps most of them, will result in the dreaded CNR: “Closed—No Response”.

It may seem counterintuitive, but as hard as it is to handle rejection, most querying writers would prefer an outright rejection to radio silence. A rejection with feedback can help you refine your query for the next round. A form rejection isn’t as helpful, but at least it tells you what you’re doing isn’t working. But not even receiving a response is maddening. Did they not see your query? Or was it so bad they didn’t feel the need to dignify it with an outright “no”?

In any event, I’ve known from the start that my querying is a long shot, simply because of my book itself. Literary-leaning adult hard sci-fi is always a hard sell (unless your name happens to be Andy Weir). The fact that my book fits into what is typically a niche market is one of the reasons I’ve learned to pay close attention to what’s currently selling in the literary industry. Which brings me to this week’s topic…

Trends in Publishing

Like any industry that sells creative material, the publishing industry follows trends. At any given time, there will be certain genres and subgenres that are selling better than others. Often, these trends follow successful books. If a particular book takes off and becomes a bestseller, publishers will begin actively hunting for other books like it, hoping to cash in on its success. Readers who enjoyed the book will immediately search for other similar titles. That search leads them to other new books that follow the trend, and suddenly similar books are cropping up everywhere. Once publishers start snapping up every new book in a particular genre, agents start actively seeking writers with similar works. As highly-successful books are adapted to other media—namely film and television—the trend becomes self-propagating.

To the casual entertainment consumer it may not be readily apparent, but when it comes to mass entertainment the publishing industry still drives the market. While a blockbuster film or ratings-dominating television series may spawn similar books, it almost always works the other way around. This is why, despite shifting trends in readership, the literary industry continues to be a multi-billion dollar business.

Take this as an example: since the mid-2010s, science fiction has been a mainstay of film and television. The origins of this trend can be traced back to the late 2000s, when a number of highly-successful series of young adult sci-fi novels were released. Novels like The Hunger Games (2008) and The Maze Runner (2010) spawned a boom, to the point where young adult science fiction became arguably the most marketable genre in publishing for over a decade (often referred to simply as “YASF”). By the mid-2010s those books were being adapted into blockbuster feature films. But even before that, as YASF readers aged into the adult market their tastes spurred a resurgence of adult sci-fi. The popularity of YASF in the late 2000s likely contributed to the success of 2010s novels like The Martian (adapted to film in 2015) and the Expanse series (adapted into a hit television series around the same time).

This is but one illustration of the power of the literary industry. Even now, fiction literature is driving our culture. Unfortunately for writers, however, trends in literature can shift rapidly. Thus, for a querying writer, it’s crucial to keep a close eye on what’s selling at any given moment.

Current Trends in the Literary Industry

Right now, there are several genres that are selling particularly well. Romance remains easily the most marketable genre, though the traditional publishing industry is tiring of the genre due to its ubiquity in self-publishing. However, women’s fiction (which is often seen as loosely related to romance, though that’s a gross oversimplification) and various subgenres continue to sell well.

Beyond that, there are several subgenres that are particularly hot right now:

Romantasy

A portmanteau of “Romance” and “Fantasy”, romantasy is exactly what it sounds like: romance with swords and dragons. It’s been one of the dominant subgenres in publishing for the past three years or so. But the market is becoming saturated, and it appears to be losing steam.

Dark Romcom

This is the current hottest genre in the literary market, combining extremely dark humor with elements of true crime, thriller, and outright horror. Spurred by the runaway success of novels like The Butcher and the Blackbird and Lights Out, the genre is poised to take the place of romantasy in the coming year or two. One of my closest writer friends, Bee Norris, recently landed an agent with her dark romcom Kill Me, Maybe just five days after she began querying. That’s how popular this genre is.

Feminine Rage

An emerging paranormal subgenre, feminine rage stories generally involve brutalized women who undergo a monstrous transformation to avenge themselves upon men who have wronged them. Like all up-and-coming subgenres, it taps into the emotional energy of our current world, where women feel increasingly threatened. The sense that this is poised to be the next dominant genre of literature was behind the ill-advised efforts of Hachette Publishing to push Shy Girl to market before realizing the book was almost entirely written by AI.

Male-Male Romance

The success of Heated Rivalry, a book about Canadian hockey players who fall in love, has led to an upswing of interest in male-male romance novels. Gay romance novels involving men have long been a hard sell, as the primary market for romance tends to be heterosexual women. However, the book and its popular television adaptation have opened a market for gay romance, particularly books involving hockey players.

Young Adult Sci-Fi

After fading following market saturation in the late 2010s, renewed readership from young adults appears to be spurring a fresh interest in YASF.

Upcoming Trends in the Literary Industry

Broadly speaking, literary industry trends tend to follow two-to-five-year cycles. This is due to the time it generally takes for a book to go from agent acceptance to print, which as I’ve said before takes between two and five years. Some genres can stick around a lot longer, like YASF, which lasted around ten years as the dominant genre. But at a any moment there are new genres that appear poised to break through.

Cyberpunk

A subgenre of science fiction, cyberpunk tends to take place in bleak dystopias where technology (particularly computers and cybernetics) has eroded human society. Cyberpunk emerged in the 1980s at the dawn of the modern computer era, and remained the dominant subgenre in sci-fi until the mid-1990s, at which point it gave way to biopunk (coinciding with the emergence of cloning). However, thanks to the rise of AI, cyberpunk looks poised to make a comeback in the next several years.

Cozy Fiction

Perhaps due to the mounting sense of anxiety over the state of our world today, cozy fiction, built upon minimal tension and low stakes, is growing in popularity. While cozy romance and cozy mystery has been a niche market for years, cozy fantasy and cozy sci-fi are gaining increased interest.

Space Opera

On the far end of the spectrum, space opera is exactly what it sounds like: a sci-fi subgenre with high-stakes adventure and intense interpersonal drama. The lasting appeal of Star Wars (and, more recently, The Expanse) ensures that there’s always some market for space opera. But current trends suggest it may be on its way back up.

Solarpunk and Cli-Fi

Often regarded as a direct response to the bleak dystopian sci-fi of the 2010s, Solarpunk and Cli-Fi (climate fiction) seek to present a more hopeful outlook on our current climate crisis. The subgenres have been around for several years, lurking along the periphery of sci-fi, but may be poised for a breakout.

How Querying Writers Should Handle Publishing Trends

To a writer who writes genre fiction (like me), it’s vitally important to know where the market stands at any given moment. Unfortunately, watching the tides shift against your preferred genre can be dispiriting. It’s worth noting that one of the many reasons I waited so long to begin querying Seven Days on Samarkand was the state of the literary market. For a number of years, every agent seemed to be looking for either soft sci-fi (or even science fantasy, which is now all but a dead genre) or time travel fiction. Right now, sci-fi is finally making a comeback in literature. And the recent successes of several hard sci-fi works has me feeling hopeful.

Amid the shifts in the literary market, there’s always the temptation to, as I put it, “write to the market”: to try to force yourself to write something that seems to appeal strongly to current trends. However, one of the biggest pieces of advice I give to other writers is to never write to the market. Write what you know. Write what you like. And if you write it well enough, someone will want it. And remember: trends shift rapidly. It typically takes around a year for most writers to get a book anywhere near finished, and can take another year or more of editing, critique, and beta reading to get it publishable. By the time it’s ready, the market may already have shifted against you.

Rather, understanding the current state of the literary market helps you to better understand your chances. You should never just abandon a novel because it’s not currently “marketable”. But when you go to the trouble of querying, you have to go in with a clear head. You know this isn’t an overnight thing (don’t let Bee’s success fool you; even in such a marketable genre, she’s still the exception). If your book doesn’t seem overly marketable at the moment, you should still query. But if you keep a close eye on the market, you’ll have a better idea of just how much time and effort it might take to find an agent.

No matter how bleak it looks, don’t give up. Your agent is out there somewhere. You just need to find them. —MK