Almost since the pandemic started, agents and publishers have been generally discouraging of dystopian fiction submissions. The most cited cause: Many today feel that we’re living in a dystopia, and few want to read about a fictional one.
However, both pre-pandemic and today, Alex Newton at K-lytics reports that Amazon sales ranks show that stories about diseases and plagues remain among the most sought after. But before we get into further detail, let’s talk about category definitions.
The terms post-apocalyptic and dystopian often get used interchangeably on Amazon for marketing, even though they refer to different types of literature. Newton has created comparison charts to delineate the features of each. For example, in dystopian fiction, the setting is often a place that appears perfect on the surface but is bad and undesirable underneath. Typical themes focus on oppression, class systems, and injustice. In post-apocalyptic fiction, the setting is related to the aftermath of a cataclysmic event. Typical themes involve starting over, survival, and rebuilding civilization. As with all fiction, definitions can get blurry, and one book can contain elements of both categories.
As an identifiable category, dystopian lit goes back to at least the 1960s, according to the Google Books Ngram Viewer. Interest remained at a low level until reaching a growth phase in 1990, then it gained dramatic momentum in 2010, which roughly coincides with Amazon and the Kindle platform for self-publishing. Both dystopian and post-apocalyptic fiction (PAD) are subgenres within SFF and also mix with romance and mystery-thriller-suspense. Generally speaking, interest in dystopias is higher than in post-apocalyptic books.
Dystopian fiction peaked in terms of Kindle sales rank in 2017 and has declined ever since. By that measure, it’s not just the pandemic affecting demand, and traditional publishers and agents have reason to be lukewarm on the category. The good news for self-publishing authors: Amazon ebook sales for post-apocalyptic and dystopian fiction stabilized in 2021. “Authors who hung in there now reap the rewards,” Newton says. (Also, note that fading interest in zombies and The Walking Dead likely played a role in declining post-apocalyptic category sales.)
The overall PAD category is closely related to other categories, such as YA dystopia and YA dystopian romance. Notably, YA dystopia and YA post-apocalyptic fiction have performed even worse than other PAD areas in terms of Kindle sales rank. Also, the horror category often used by post-apocalyptic and dystopian novels has declined in performance. A new area that is doing well, however, is disaster fiction, a new category recently created by Amazon. A current bestseller in this niche is the Edge of Collapse series by Kyla Stone.
Successful indie authors to watch: A.G. Riddle, Mike Kraus, and Franklin Horton. Traditionally published authors in this category include Suzanne Collins, Stephen King, and Kiera Cass (YA dystopian romance), as well as Margaret Atwood.
Bottom line: Post-apocalyptic tropes currently performing well are informed by current events and include stories about experiments/laboratories as well as ecological and environmental disasters. Trending down: snow, ice, and winds. Dystopian tropes that are trending up: caste/class and slavery. Trending down: wealth and money. Pandemics and plagues still represent the highest share of books and estimated royalties for post-apocalyptic fiction on Kindle. For a much deeper dive into PAD fiction, you can buy the full report at K-lytics.
Jane Friedman has spent her entire career working in the publishing industry, with a focus on business reporting and author education. Established in 2015, her newsletter The Bottom Line provides nuanced market intelligence to thousands of authors and industry professionals; in 2023, she was named Publishing Commentator of the Year by Digital Book World.
Jane’s expertise regularly features in major media outlets such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, NPR, The Today Show, Wired, The Guardian, Fox News, and BBC. Her book, The Business of Being a Writer, Second Edition (The University of Chicago Press), is used as a classroom text by many writing and publishing degree programs. She reaches thousands through speaking engagements and workshops at diverse venues worldwide, including NYU’s Advanced Publishing Institute, Frankfurt Book Fair, and numerous MFA programs.
