Is the nonfiction book market collapsing? (This week in books)

This week! Books!

The Nonfiction Book Market is Collapsing / Radical Ideas for Fixing the Nonfiction Book Market – Sean deLone, Dear Head of Mine – For a very long time, nonfiction was the stable, predictable, bread and butter of the publishing industry, outselling more unpredictable fiction. In the past decade, as overall sales have grown, that dynamic has now flipped. Simon & Schuster book editor Sean deLone digs into the roots of these trends, including a collapse in trust in authority, and considers some possible solutions.

Publishing Industry Sales Up in First Half of 2026 – Jim Milliot, Publishers Weekly – Meanwhile, along those lines, book sales are up in the first half of 2026, led by fiction.

Anthropic Copyright Settlement: Publishers Are Making Incorrect Claims on Authors’ Payouts – Victoria Strauss, Writer Beware / Authors Wrangle With Publishers Over $1.5 Billion Anthropic A.I. Settlement (gift link) – Neil Vigdor, New York Times – The first stages of the disbursement of the $1.5 billion Anthropic settlement have been chaotic, with competing rights claims between authors, publishers, and even some literary agencies. The situation seems to be mostly down to poor record-keeping by publishers (shocked! shocked I tell you!), but some authors will need to battle it out to protect their claims.

Destroying Books to Build a Mind – Francesca Mancino, The New Yorker – The case for being slightly less worried about AI companies destroying and scanning books, given old books are culled all the time.

This Hot New Buzzword Is Toxic and Bad For Culture – Charlie Jane Anders, Happy Dancing – Author Charlie Jane Anders makes an excellent case that romanticizing a collective “monoculture” is thoroughly misplaced.

Sweat the Technique: On Writing Process and Possibilities – Lincoln Michel, Counter Craft – A great roundup on different approaches legendary authors employed in their writing process.

Q&A Thursday! – Kate McKean, Agents + Books – Publishers want authors with a platform. It’s hard to build a platform without a publisher. How do authors escape this trap? Agent and author Kate McKean has some thoughts but spoiler, it’s not easy.

This week in bestsellers

Here are the top five NY Times bestsellers in a few key categories. (All links are affiliate links):

Adult print and e-book fiction:

1. The Knave and the Moon by Rachel Gillig
2. Theo of Golden by Allen Levi
3. The Calamity Club by Kathryn Stockett
4. Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman
5. Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke

Adult print and e-book nonfiction:

1. This is Me by Hayden Panettiere
2. American Scoundrel by Kai Bird with Susan Goldmark
3. Crossing the Wine-Dark Sea by Emily Wilson
4. Regime Change by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan
5. Going Further by Ted Cruz

Young adult hardcover:

1. Our Strange Duet by Erin A. Craig
2. Blightfall by Brandon Sanderson and Janci Patterson
3. The Gods Will Sing Our Song by Autumn Krause
4. Barbie: Dreamscape by Alex Aster
5. Wings of Reverie by Anna Bright

Middle grade hardcover:

1. Wonder by R.J. Palacio
2. Flight by Alan Gratz
3. Kiki’s Delivery Service by Eiko Kadono
4. Kiki and the New Magic by Eiko Kadono
5. Wombat Waiting by Katherine Applegate

This week on the blog

In case you missed them, here are this week’s posts:

• All about perspectives in novels

And keep up with the discussion in all the places!

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And finally:

You Can See Everything | Official Teaser HD | A24 – YouTube – I think I speak for all of us when I say the new Nathan Fielder documentary about (with?) Elizabeth Holmes cannot come out soon enough.

Have a great weekend!

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