The rest will rise in 2026
On what readers and publishers will want next year (and my own need for rest)
The revelation came in mid-August, midway through one of Friedrich Nietzsche’s long walks through the Engadin valley—perhaps the most beautiful place on Earth, if you dig a Swiss Alpine vibe.
He came up to a rock—hulking, pyramidal—on the shores of Lake Silvaplana. There, the thought struck him like summer lightning: time is a circle. Human life, with all its joys and sorrows, its inexplicable behaviors and petty embarrassments, repeats eternally.
Eternal return, Nietzsche called it. For him, this was not just a cosmological principle, the order of the universe; it was marching orders on how to live well.
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This is a post on what readers and the publishing industry are going to want in 2026. Walk with me. You’ll see.
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Nietzsche wrote, “What if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: ‘This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more?” Would the news excite you, or would you run screaming into the sea? To live well, he wrote, is to live a life you would repeat, agonies and all.
From this idea, Nietzsche crafted Thus Spoke Zarathustra, a phantasmagoric fictionalized philosophy bible ostensibly narrated by the prophet most English speakers call Zoroaster. Perhaps its most famous passage is “The Midnight Song,” a meditation on the human condition:
O Mensch! Gib Acht!
Was spricht die tiefe Mitternacht?
„Ich schlief, ich schlief—
Aus tiefem Traum bin ich erwacht:—
Die Welt ist tief,
Und tiefer als der Tag gedacht.
Tief ist ihr Weh—
Lust—tiefer noch als Herzeleid:
Weh spricht: Vergeh!
Doch alle Lust will Ewigkeit—
—will tiefe, tiefe Ewigkeit!“
O man! Take heed!
What saith deep midnight’s voice indeed?
“I slept my sleep—
“From deepest dream I’ve woke and plead:—
“The world is deep,
“And deeper than the day could read.
“Deep is its woe—
“Joy—deeper still than grief can be:
“Woe saith: Hence! Go!
“But joys all want eternity—
“Want deep profound eternity!”
Saith woe: “Pass, go!
Eternity’s sought by all delight—,
Eternity deep—by all delight!”
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Notice how often Nietzsche repeats the word “deep” there. The world is deep: in the darker moments of our lives, amidst all the suffering and confusion and self-consciousness and despair, depth is the thing to which we come back and back, the reassurance we seek. We want to know that even in our deepest darkness, there is the possibility to go yet deeper and—inexplicably—find light.
That’s what all of us are craving right now, I think: a way to go deeper, deeper, deeper down into this impossible ::gestures out the window:: until we find the light on the other side. To go down, go quiet, rest, then renew.
I believe—for all kinds of reasons, data-driven and not—that this is what readers will crave in 2026: sacred silence, deepening. More on that in a moment.
But first: Sacred silence is certainly what I crave right now as I wrap up a season that’s left me burnt out, tense, drawn. I’m not going to lie, guys: I’m wobbling. I need some time to deepen alone.
Why am I telling you all this? To help you anticipate the book market in the year to come, of course, but also to note:
For the first time in five and a half years, I’m about to put “How to Glow in the Dark” on hiatus.
Just for a month and change, mind you. My plan is to come back some time in the first half of January.
I’m not going to charge any of you paying subscribers during that time. Instead, I’m going to turn on Substack’s “pause payments” feature, which as far as I understand it will add however many weeks I take off onto yearly subscribers’ plans and temporarily suspend charges for those of you on Team Monthly. Billing will resume in January alongside my typical 3-4 new posts per month.
During this hiatus period, no one will be able to buy any new paid subscriptions to the newsletter or unlock premium posts. If you’ve been planning to purchase a paid subscription this holiday season—to access my proposal tutorials or whatever—best do it now.
I’m going to keep payments active on the site till this Wednesday, and until then:
I’m running a 30% off sale on yearly subscriptions.
You can buy them here.
To repeat: no matter when you bought (or buy) your subscription, no one will be charged during my hiatus. You’re going to get however many weeks I take off tacked onto your subscription at the end of the year.
Thanks for understanding—and please stay on my subscriber rolls! I am absolutely going to be back in January; part of why I want to take this pause is to fertilize my brain with a bunch of publishing history books, conversations, interviews, and deep thoughts I just haven’t had the time to read/do/think. Plus, I have a lot of client work to wrap up for the year. And my oldest kid is applying to middle schools. And and and.
I just need the time, really. And I love you. See you soon.
Anyway, back to our main topic: the deepness of the world—and readers’ desire to engage with it in the coming year.
On a family hiking vacation last August—one hundred and forty-four years after Nietzsche, almost to the day—I stood in front of that same rock on Lake Silvaplana. Whether or not you believe in divine revelation, you have to admit that it emanates Big Aura:
On this spot where one lonely, loony, brilliant man’s life changed forever, I ached for such a galvanizing moment in my own. Nothing came for me but the aching and Alpine air—and honestly, it was enough.
The aching is a sacred thing in itself—and as the data increasingly demonstrates, it’s a desire shared by many members of the book-buying public.
Let me explain.
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