Silver lining

Though the pandemic brought uncertainty to many aspects of the publishing business, increased sales of adult fiction has been a bright spot and the genre continues to outperform other categories, and not just in the general trade market. Religion publishers say fiction sales are on the rise due to reader demand and a wider range of subgenres in the category today.

“You don’t have to look any farther than the BookScan reports to know it’s a great time to be in fiction,” says Amanda Bostic, publisher of fiction at HarperCollins Christian Publishing. “One of the silver linings of the pandemic was that people had more time to read, and they remembered how much they love stories. It’s a joy to help readers find the stories that truly resonate for them and to watch the fiction category continue to grow.”