2025 Trend Predictions
Reading the tea leaves and Goodreads reviews
Trying to forecast publishing trends is a tricky thing, considering that a book sold by an agent to a big five house today might not be released until 2026 or 2027. In some ways, that might as well be a lifetime away. Will TikTok even still exist? I think that more likely than not, it’s sticking around, but the book ecosystem has a way of changing not at all and then overnight. All of this to say, projecting publishing trends feels like a fool’s errand, but I’m still going to try to do it.
I have long theorized that romance trends bubble up first through fanfiction, then independently published books, and finally on through to traditional publishing, which works on a dramatically longer timescale than either of those platforms. BookTok, a platform which is engaged with fanfiction and independently published romance, has provided an excellent window into trends as they happen.