The Future for Non-Fiction: Trends, Tidbits & Tactics for Indie Authors

The Future for Non-Fiction: Trends, Tidbits & Tactics for Indie Authors

July 4, 2025

As the Alliance of Independent Authors’ Non-Fiction Advisor, I recently sat down (across the world via Zoom) for one of my regular catch up sessions with ALLi Campaigns Manager Matty Dalrymple. We were exploring what’s ahead for indie non-fiction writers in a rapidly shifting publishing world.

From the rise of AI and short-form content to the enduring power of memoir and the creative resurgence of zines, we discussed how authors can adapt and thrive. Whether you write to inform, inspire, or build a brand, the next chapter in non-fiction publishing is all about agility, authenticity, and thinking globally from the start.

Read on for insights into:

  • How AI is reshaping reader expectations—and why craft still wins
  • What shorter books, podcasts and creative formats like zines mean for authors
  • Why writing a book is still a cornerstone of authority and opportunity
  • How to future-proof your non-fiction for translation, marketing, and new readerships
  • The growing blend of memoir and advice—and how it’s cutting through in a noisy market

AI and Its Impact on the Non-Fiction Category

Matty: What do you see coming in your advisory area that you think is important for ALLi members specifically and indie authors in general to be aware of?

Anna: Well, I think obviously the big one’s AI. Nonfiction has seen a slight drop in sales compared to fiction, whether that’s people moving more to romantasy—there’s a lot happening in the world, so people want to escape more—so maybe fiction has had a bit more of a surge because readers enjoy that escape through fiction.

But I think the horizon is with AI: if people can get such instant, comprehensive answers tailored to their exact circumstance, will they do that, or will they read a whole book? So I think that a thing coming up for nonfiction writers is that as people discover more and more about how to prompt AI and tailor it to their unique needs, that might detract from sales for some nonfiction books.

But to counter that, there’s going to be more emphasis on short books that really get to the meat of something. We want instant answers. Our brains are being trained for instant answers. So, shorter books I think for nonfiction are going to be a thing as well and as an example, there’s an Australian business book coach, Bev Ryan, who’s trademarked the phrase: ‘Short read: long impact books.”

How Readers Consume Content

Matty: That surprises me because I would almost think the opposite, which would be that people can get the short answers from AI, and what they’re looking for is the more in-depth commentary, a person’s perspective on it. Not just the dry facts.

Anna: Yes, but they’re also getting that perspective now from podcasts and there’s only so much content people can consume. There’s only so much time. So if they’re going to be reading on the screen and doing AI and reading a bit of fiction or some other things, they might get that commentary from podcasts. And they think that that is enough.

Everyone’s going to be unique and different in how they approach and consume things, but we’re talking about younger generations coming through, not people who have grown up with books as their main form of entertainment and information. Younger generations are screen trained and audio trained.

Craft Still Matters

Anna: I will say that as part of this, craft will really matter. A well-written non-fiction book still has it all over AI. But books are like restaurants: some people are happy to eat fast food, others like to home cook, while others will always seek out the best restaurants in town.

Writing a Book as a Path to Authority

Matty: I can imagine there are two categories of nonfiction authors. One is people that want to write a nonfiction book, specifically a book, and then there are people who have information they want to get out. And, a book is one way to do it, but podcasts could be another way to do it. Are you seeing people that are in that second category are just dispensing with the idea of writing a book and just going right to trying to get on podcasts or maybe using the books as a way to get on podcasts?

Anna: I think people still need to write the book, because they still have to refine their ideas to make it worthy of being on a podcast. So the whole process of writing the nonfiction book is actually what makes someone an expert. They have to distill ideas. They need to really find the key to what they’re speaking about. They have to interview people or go in-depth into memory to be able to create something that can fill a book.

So you still need the writing of a book to become an expert, because that’s the process of all that refinement. But the book might then be split into podcast episodes as well, delivered as an audiobook, perhaps chapter by chapter released on an online platform like Substack, or used as a podcast, and distributed that way. So the writing of the book is what gives them the authority, but how it’s then delivered to and consumed by the audience can be via a variety of ways.

So the actual authoring is still the most important thing—the actual creation of ideas and thinking and that clarity of thought and that creativity and coming up with different takes on things—that’s what needs human energy and creativity.

Beyond Royalties

Matty: For my own nonfiction books, one of the ways I’m trying to make it not so it’s just something someone could go to AI to get an answer to, is really emphasizing personal stories to illustrate the points.

And the other thing that’s making me think is that you need to write the book to think through the ideas. It would be very interesting if there were statistics that say for people who write nonfiction books, how much money are they making from the nonfiction books and how much are they making from opportunities that their book opens?

Because I know for me, I definitely made more money with speaking engagements for all the topics of my nonfiction books than I have from the nonfiction books themselves.

Anna: Absolutely. And you can write one article based on your book that will earn you more money than selling 30 books. It’s the writing of the book that gets you all those gigs that makes people want to come and consult with you. It’s the book that opens the doors in business and in community.

So it’s not one without the other. Books build personal brands and businesses. Books build reputation in a way that other things can’t. So much value can be created by writing a great book, whereas poorly written, produced and edited books can do the opposite, especially if readers feel like you wasted their time or just rehashed old ideas.

Memoir and the Power of Lived Experience

Anna: Obviously, memoir is a category that can’t be AI’d. I mean, yes it can help with editing, but a computer can’t live your life! Memoir comes into its own in the niches.

I’m not talking celebrity memoir. It’s those niche stories—whether it’s about a farmer, someone who ran a bakery, a surgeon, or a prison guard. Those are the books that are going to cut through because they’re going to be able to find that niche audience and they’ve got a story that matters to people at a certain moment in their lives.

There’s been a trend in the last few years of women writing books about alcohol in their life. In Australia, there’s something called Dry July—people stop drinking for July and raise money for cancer charities. So at certain times, different books come out and then suddenly there’s a whole new category created. Often it’s when people burst out from group think.

That sober-curious category seemed to arise quite suddenly. So there are all these niches that non-fiction—and particularly memoir—can meet in the moment, or even create a whole new movement.

The Memoir–Help Book Hybrid

Matty: People always say, “nonfiction and memoir, which is kind of a different thing,” but I can see that as the power of those very personal aspects that AI can’t produce becomes clearer and clearer, the lines may blur.

That somebody maybe wants to write a book about their experience with alcohol or something like that, and they’re thinking of it as an advice book—a nonfiction advice book about how to deal with this. But they’re going to bake in memoir-esque aspects because they know that is going to demonstrate their humanity.

Anna: Yes, and they have lived experience, whether they’ve been a counselor working with people, or whether it was their own journey. That’s what they can deliver. And that kind of nonfiction help book/memoir combo can be really powerful.

I’ve seen some really well-done ones. One was called Shy by Sian Prior about being an introvert. She wove in her own story as a child and as an adult. But she also interviewed experts and there was rigor and professional insights in the book.

So it actually could explain more to people—not just her experience—but also the why’s and what’s. That kind of powerful combo, I love as well. It also cuts through marketing-wise and is easier to get publicity for because you have a personal story and stats and facts and insights to back it up and make it more relevant to others.

That’s what I recommend to the authors I work with. Interviewing experts makes a better book and builds your network. You do need to sift through your interviews to work out what elements to include—and this may mean you need to leave a whole lot out.

The thing is, the book needs to work for the reader, not for the person you interviewed.

Human Curation vs AI

Matty: I think that curation aspect is another important thing that humans are going to do better than machines at the moment. That recognition that an expert might give you a true fact, but in the context of the book, it doesn’t make sense, or it’s off topic, or it’s suggesting something you don’t want to suggest.

Anna: Yes, where’s the beating heart in the book? You have to find that. The reader needs to feel it and curation is what helps you get there.

And like I said, this kind of rich research and speaking with experts gives you so much information for marketing—statistics you can share in social posts, quotes you can use, and a network around your book and your niche.

Non-Fiction and Translations

Anna: Non-fiction authors, especially from smaller countries like Australia, can dramatically boost income through translations. A lot of non-fiction authors don’t even think about translation, but if you’ve already created the content, why wouldn’t you try and reach other markets?

Matty: I’ve thought about that for my own nonfiction books and what has stopped me—among other reasons, like cost—is that I’m not positive how they apply in other markets.

So for podcast guesting, I listen to a lot of podcasts mainly based in the US. I listen to some that are based in the UK and Canada—they’re pretty much the same. I feel like advice I gave on one would be another.

But if somebody said, “Do you want to translate it into Greek?” I’d be like, I don’t think so because I don’t know what is translatable in a practical sense—not in the language sense. Do you have recommendations on how people assess whether the topic of their nonfiction book is going to be applicable in other markets?

Anna: Well, you can tailor it as well. You could add a chapter up the front: “How to get on American and UK podcasts when you are from a different country,” because that is hard to break through.

You could give tips on that, but you could also just say, “This is how we do it over here,” and let them decide for themselves if they want to buy the book.

We can learn from so many different cultures. There’s a big trend in books coming out of Southeast Asia now as well, because the publishing industry’s been so New York and London focused. And there’s all this incredible writing and thinking out of so many countries—from Japan to Indonesia—so many beautiful poets from the islands.

So, I think that’s going to be another trend as well. There’ll be more openness to translated works, because you can only read so much of the same stuff.

So for translations, look at how you can serve that audience. Can you add something to your book and then leave it up to them to decide if they want to buy it?

For example, Spanish language—that’s a huge market of people who might need that information as well. And for your topic, ‘being a good podcast guest,’ it probably is similar in many parts of the world so you’d have a lot of great advice there.

And then I suppose it’s just working out if it works for your business, depending on the cost of the AI translation, or if you can find and work with fabulous human translators, which is always obviously number one, if you can afford that—to be able to support another human in their creations.

Matty: I can imagine that would be an area where use of AI would not be denying human translators work, because a lot of these would be work that would never have been translated had it not been for the machine.

But the advantage of you running it through an AI translator and then hiring a native speaker—or even tapping into beta readers as a more economical thing—is that you don’t really need an editor. You need somebody who’s fluent in the language to read it and say, “Oh yeah, that makes sense” or “No, that’s a phrase that we would never use in this context.” That translated in a weird, literal way that is not what was intended.

That could open up a lot of exactly what you’re saying—books from Asia that I might never otherwise have an opportunity to read—opening up the option for more variety in that way for readers.

Anna: And the book that I have been working on for so long now is about my whole built-in/baked-in book marketing concept. So in that case, what I’d say to non-fiction authors is: if you’re going to include experts in your book, find an expert, for example, who is Spanish or German or French or from Singapore.

Don’t just interview people in America or the UK or Australia. If you actually want to have a global audience for your nonfiction book down the track, interview experts from other countries and cultures. Because that makes your book hopefully much richer—but also gives you marketing opportunities.

So it’s all that forethought when you’re creating your non-fiction book—building opportunities into your book itself, not waiting till it’s out and thinking, “Oh, maybe I’ll translate it now.” If you’d interviewed the expert from Italy, you might have had a market in Italy as well.

And then it’s being judicious about what country you really want readers from. Maybe you might have to do two editions of the book. Maybe you decide, “I am going to do an edition just for Australians, and then I’m going to do an edition just for French.”

Or perhaps, you can go back to a book you’ve written and re-edit it to include an expert from the country/countries you want to target.

Matty: I like that idea that you had suggested earlier about the fact that you can have a swap-out chapter.

I can imagine it could be quite time-consuming to go through an entire book and tweak it, but to have that leading chapter that says, “This book is written from the perspective of an Australian (or American or Canadian or Italian or whatever), and since I see that you, dear reader, are from Mexico, here’s the little bit that goes into my books that are being sold in Mexico that describes a perspective that’s specific to Mexico (or Greece or Italy or wherever).”

That would probably be a relatively time-economical way of handling it.

Anna: Yeah. And also, it’s smart to test, isn’t it? So don’t think you have to go and suddenly do 12 languages. Maybe just test market it—one or two. We’ve gotta make it easy on ourselves, Matty!

Matty: Yes. It’s complicated enough. We don’t need to add more complications unnecessarily.

Zines: A Creative Format for Non-Fiction Authors

Anna: Yes. And then I think my final kind of thought is about zines. I picked one up at a writers’ festival the other day. So it’s a nice heavy board, it opens up. It’s all cute, hand-done, lots of cool info. $AUD12.

So people are willing to pay for a good zine on a topic that they like and to support the creator. So when I say short books, zines are not that. Zines are more creative and fun and sassy. But it’s just another thing nonfiction and fiction authors can create.

Matty: It’s very graphic-intensive. There are what look like hand-done drawings with the text around the drawings there. So working with an illustrator, maybe?

Anna: You can work with an illustrator or do it yourself—you can cut and paste things. That’s just one example. Zines are just mind-blowing in the directions they can take.

Matty: That would even be a cool addendum—you could have your book and then you could have the zine version, which is what the person would keep on their desk or have thumbtacked to their bulletin board, what they would want to be touching and feeling and holding.

Anna: So that’s another thing we’re coming back to—that it’s very, very human-created. It’s unique, shows creativity, and it’s just that little bit of difference in something an author can do in nonfiction.

It’s your content, but instead of just putting everything onto social media for it to disappear in the blink of an eye, you get to craft it into something with a bit more you and a bit more longevity in the readers’ hands.

Matty: I didn’t know anything about zines—now I’m looking forward to listening to the podcast episode.
👉 Listen here to hear Anna Featherstone and Rebekah Lambert discuss all things zine.

You can also listen to other episodes about book production and book distribution from Anna’s Self-Publishing with ALLi podcasts here.

Want to Go Further?

If you’re exploring your non-fiction writing path and want practical support or inspiration, here are a few ways we can connect:

Got a question or an idea you’d like to explore? I’d love to hear from you. Let’s turn your knowledge into a lasting legacy—one well-crafted book at a time.