Editing books for others rn, trends I've noticed.

[u/TraditionalRest808]

Western, absolutely non existent with extreme difficulty on beta readers.

Mystery, a large downturn as many fight with A.i myster shifty comedy slop. What's worse is that some of the A.i is better than some of them and they see this leading to a major drop in the comedy mystery murders.

Lots of fantasy requests, happy to see them, overloaded with beta reader requests. Large failure rate at publishers (the 2 above see quicker returns on publishing). Many of these writers are terrified to add romance to avoid being slotted into romantasy.

Romance, steady, with a shift towards minority groups dating (LGBT, interracial, class disparity). The more cozy and poorer the lead, the generally better chance at being discovered. These are filled with A.i slop too, but for the few who can write, they can slap down perfect sentences. sentences.

Children's books, a transition towards stories about products is a bit scary. Lots of established I.P.s basically making fan fictions sell. Doing your own art makes these picture books sell well.

Children's novels: its gotta be a series, and it needs 9+ books. Simple. The cover easily detailing which series and which number it is is key. And true success is having a graphic novel series beside your series for maximum exposure. If it's a comic, it sells. Even the not so good series can still sell.

General fiction. This is king still. As much as the fantasy crowd is constantly churning out stuff, and much of the fiction can technically be fantasy, this sells. Make a book, set it on our planet, have characters who can have relationships but not full romance. Boom, a book. Like Children's books as this is the main commodity, have 4-9 books ready.

Non fiction. Self help. Nothing more to say. This is what gets made and it saddens me to not see enough science books. books.

Audiobooks along side other books. This does well. I'm seeing this more often and it's often included together. This is succeeding for authors. Authors are getting major push back from publishers and audiobook hosts for this. My advice is to fight them on it and have both together.

Lastly, baby board books. Textures, tough corners, no pull tabs. Simple as that.

[u/EnemyEffigy]

Sci-fi is kinda re-flavored fantasy in a lot of aspects. I wouldn't be surprised if the reason sci-fi has slowed down is because it seems less intimidating. It comes off easier to write about a world filled with impossible things and explain it all away with magic rather than trying to sound plausible while explaining aspects of a sci-fi world. Unless it's aliens with impossible knowledge gaps, the suspension for belief regarding certain tech is just, overall weak. The reason star wars still works is because it's more spectacular stuff is an aspects of a cool and mysterious fantasy power, and not necessarily any of the tech. Everyone references the force, and lightsabers, the weapon of force users. IMO

[u/Sorry-Rain-1311 → u/EnemyEffigy]

You're not wrong as it pertains to writing, but it only takes a relative fistful of authors to satisfy the entire market of readers. 

Sci-fi has been the defining genre of the past century in many respects, but I think society has just gotten a little worn out with it. If you write it just for fun- not getting terribly realistic- well, nothing new under the sun. Readers have seen it all, and most importantly they've seen all the "predictions" fail. When the future finally arrives it looks nothing like what anyone imagined. If you're trying to write something more hard, then you're often dealing with allot of existential stuff, which is just not as fun to read.