Nonfiction Publishing Faces Market Contraction as Book Reviews Disappear and Editors Are Laid Off
Recently, The Washington Post's Book World section shut down, leading to job losses for critics and editors, following reductions in serious literature. In January, Simon & Schuster let go of nonfiction editors Colin Harrison and Eamon Dolan. Harrison was responsible for publishing Anthony Swofford's Jarhead and Mikhail Zygar's The Dark Side of the Earth, while Dolan edited Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation and Mary L. Trump's Too Much and Never Enough. Nonfiction book sales fell by 8.4% over a year, with Kamala Harris's campaign memoir, 107 Days, being the only title in the top ten. This downturn is attributed to a shift towards free online content, with 40% of Americans not reading a single book in 2025.
Key facts
- The Washington Post's Book World section closed, with editors and critics laid off.
- Simon & Schuster laid off nonfiction editors Colin Harrison and Eamon Dolan in January.
- Nonfiction book sales fell 8.4% in one year, twice the decline of fiction.
- Only one new book, Kamala Harris's 107 Days, was among the top ten nonfiction sellers last year.
- Forty percent of Americans did not read a single book in 2025.
- Narrative nonfiction informs media, including films like Killers of the Flower Moon and series like Hamilton.
- Books like Eric Darton's Divided We Stand became relevant after the 9/11 attacks.
- Daniel Yergin's The Prize, a 1999 Pulitzer winner, remains essential for understanding current oil market issues.
Entities
Artists
- Anthony Swofford
- Eric Schlosser
- Mary L. Trump
- Mikhail Zygar
- Kamala Harris
- Donald Trump
- John Updike
- Maggie O'Farrell
- Ron Chernow
- Eric Darton
- Jason Elliot
- V.S. Naipaul
- Steve Coll
- Lawrence Wright
- Naomi Klein
- Daniel Yergin
- Ira Glass
- Sam Tanenhaus
- William F. Buckley
- Brooke Nevil
- Anne Applebaum
- Ross Perlin
- Michael Luo
- Pankaj Mishra
- Michael Pollan
- David Lodge
- Charles Darwin
- Karl Marx
- Sigmund Freud
Institutions
- Politics & Prose
- The Washington Post
- National Endowment for the Humanities
- Barnes & Noble
- Tattered Cover
- Amazon
- Simon & Schuster
- Scribner
- Houghton Mifflin
- New York Times
- The Guardian
- NielsenIQ
- PBS
- CNBC
- Financial Times
- The Hill
- Barron's
- Fortune
- YouTube
- Freakonomics Radio
- Serial
- This American Life
- Morning Joe
- Rachel Maddow
- Firing Line
- ICE
- Academy Awards
- Broadway
- Pulitzer Prize
- Nobel Prize
Locations
- Denver
- United States
- New York
- Queens
- Chicago
- Minneapolis
- China
- Middle East
- Israel
- Iran
- Strait of Hormuz
- Pakistan
- Afghanistan
- World Trade Center
- Pentagon
- Gaza