Horror is experiencing a boom like it hasn’t seen since the 1980s.
- In 2023, Circana BookScan reported a 24.2 percent increase in US sales of horror titles; in the UK, Nielsen BookScan reported a 54 percent increase, the biggest year for the genre since accurate records began.
- In the UK this year, sales are up by 37 percent in value against the same period in 2024 (subscription may be required). Sales volume is up 18 percent.
Tor announced its horror-focused Nightfire imprint in 2019, and within the last 18 months additional publishers have launched horror imprints, including:
- 12:01 Books, a partnership between Atria imprint Emily Bestler Books and 12:01 Films
- Orbit’s Run for It
- Soho Press’s Hell’s Hundred
The industry moves are less sudden than they appear. From the outside looking in, the emergence of these new imprints appears to signify a momentous shift. But from the inside looking out, these imprints are more of a formalization of a shift that has been underway for years. Literary agent Cameron McClure, who secured an early deal with Run for It for author Andy Marino, pointed out Marino had two prior horror novels with Orbit. “So it didn’t feel like such a new thing … that’s also been my experience with Tor and Nightfire,” she said.
Meanwhile, the genre’s rise has prompted greater interest. “People started writing more horror. Enough horror worked that people wanted to write more horror,” said Emily Bestler, senior vice president and editor-in-chief of Emily Bestler Books and 12:01 Books. “I don’t know what it is in the zeitgeist that has made it be the case that there is a lot more really, really high-quality horror fiction available than has ever been my experience.”
“It feels to me like a lot of it’s coming from film and TV, because film and TV, for the entire breadth of my publishing career, have always been looking for horror, and they want horror because it’s cheap,” McClure said. “For years, film agents and producers would say to me, ‘What do you have that’s horror?’ … I would be optioning rights to things that were published by tiny little niche horror presses, because the film and TV appetite was there before the publishing appetite was there.”
As demand for the genre grew, the industry became less hesitant about using the horror label to promote novels. “When [Nightfire’s] first books hit shelves in 2021, it was still sort of a gamble of where they would be, whether I could find them in fiction or science fiction/fantasy. A lot of indie stores were like, ‘We just don’t have a horror section. Where are we going to put that?’” said Kelly Lonesome, Nightfire’s executive editor. At the time, even larger bookstores like Barnes & Noble didn’t have shelves dedicated to horror.
Jenny Kiefer, horror author (Crafting for Sinners, October 2025) and owner of the horror-focused bookstore Butcher Cabin Books in Louisville, felt the gap in the market. “Around 2020 or 2021, I was becoming more knowledgeable about the modern horror genre and its writers. I was making lots of friends with other writers and involved with a horror book club. It was a little frustrating that it was difficult to find most horror titles,” she said. “I wanted to create a space for the genre that would allow for smaller presses in addition to the big publishers.” Butcher Cabin Books opened in 2022. That same year, Lonesome recalled noticing the first horror sections in bookstores.
A scary world prompts scary stories. It doesn’t take deep detective work to correlate the increasing interest in horror to the period of political polarization ignited by Donald Trump’s first presidential campaign/administration and the pandemic, and the recent wave of new imprints corresponds to the 2024 presidential campaign and the start of Trump’s second term. During the general chaos surrounding these events, marginalized communities have been especially concerned. “The scarier the real world is, the more important horror is, because it’s cathartic in a lot of ways, but it’s also illuminating how bad things can go, but also giving you hope that things don’t have to get that bad,” Lonesome said. “I feel like horror is in itself resistance. Surviving is resistance.”
Horror’s resurgence has been characterized by expanded diversity—in its representation and subgenres. “More people are figuring out that horror doesn’t necessarily just mean one thing. It’s not just a slasher in the woods or a ghost story; horror itself has so many subcategories,” Lonesome said. Horror as a genre also blends into other spaces, such as science fiction and fantasy.
One subgenre that’s been especially prominent is social horror, such as Manhunt by Gretchen Felker-Martin and Tell Me I’m Worthless by Alison Rumfitt. “Horror can be a really great home for anyone who has been marginalized or othered, because it’s a way to express how that feels,” said Emily Hughes, author of Horror for Weenies and formerly the editor of Unbound Worlds and TorNightfire.com. “I think we’re going to see a lot more value in telling those stories and communicating empathy.”
Kiefer also noted a recent peak in interest among her customers for religious and cult horror such as This Is My Body by Lindsay King-Miller and American Rapture by C.J. Leede.
Bottom line: Interest in horror is likely to continue for some time. Kiefer said, “We really don’t see any signs that [demand for horror is] going to stop in the near future. There’s tons of events and conventions popping up all the time that are solely focused not only on horror but horror authors or books. Bigger publishers are acquiring more horror, and many of the current batch of horror authors are very young, in their early 30s or 40s, with many years of publishing ahead of them.” The Bookseller cautions that very few horror novels have broken out in the UK, but with more titles and authors hitting the market, that may change.
- Related: To learn more about the current landscape for horror fiction, Publishers Marketplace recently hosted a Buzz Books panel focused on the genre. Watch at YouTube.
E. J. Wenstrom believes in complicated heroes, horrifying monsters, purple hair dye and standing to the right on escalators so the left side can walk. She writes dark speculative fiction for adults and teens, including her new release, a young adult dystopian novel titled Departures (August 10, 2021). When she isn’t writing fiction, E. J. Wenstrom is a regular contributor to DIY MFA and BookRiot, and co-hosts the Fantasy+Girl Podcast. Learn more at her website.
