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Booksellers hail 'rolling Super Thursday' as publishers spread out big autumn releases
A "rolling Super Thursday" is how booksellers have described the industry’s heaviest publication day for 2025, with key autumn titles noticeably "more spread out" than in previous years.
In August, The Bookseller reported that this year’s Super Thursday, which falls on 9th October, will be the lightest since the phenomenon was first identified in 2008 by the publication’s former charts editor, Philip Stone. Just over 1,000 new titles will be published on the day, including 316 hardbacks, according to NielsenIQ BookData. By contrast, 1,900 books were published on Super Thursday last year, 457 of which were hardbacks.
Instead of just one big day, booksellers have reported multiple key publication dates in 2025, from August to October, with 11th September being the second biggest autumn publication date, with 299 hardbacks – including 201 trade titles – published on the day.
Will Williams of The Cleeve Bookshop in Bishops Cleeve, Cheltenham, said that "there are probably four Super Thursdays" throughout the autumn this year. "It is noticeable that the key titles are more spread out this year and that’s a good thing… because the more drawn out release schedule sustains footfall each and every week, rather than concentrating it into a shorter and more concentrated week," he explained.
This was echoed by Jess Allan, the store manager of Queen’s Park Books in London, who said that there are "three of four big release days", which are "more manageable for everyone". This spread out publication schedule also offers customers "weeks of exciting new releases".
Allan highlighted key autumn titles such as Olga Tokarczuk’s House of Day, House of Night, translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones (Fitzcarraldo Editions), and Mick Herron’s Clown Town (Baskerville), which were released on 11th September. The September Super Thursday also became a key date for Sarah Dennis, the owner of Mostly Books in Abingdon and the Borzoi Bookshop in Cheltenham, and Muswell Hill’s Children’s Bookshop owner Sanchita Basu De Sarkar, who noted that "children’s publishing has created its own Super Thursday" to coincide with back to school.
The "book of the season" for Children’s Bookshop is Michael Rosen and Helen Oxenbury’s Oh Dear, Look What I Got! (Walker Books), which was released on 11th September, alongside other highlights such as Katherine Rundell’s The Poisoned King (Bloomsbury Children’s Books), Maz Evans’ The Last Bard (Chicken House) and Mikey Please’s Cave Downwind of the Café (HarperCollins Children’s Books).
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October’s Super Thursday remains important, according to Dennis, but book releases have become more staggered from August through to October. Publishers increasingly recognise that clustering major releases on the same day can hurt their chances in the charts, she argued. Key titles including Richard Osman’s The Impossible Fortune (Viking) and Philippa Gregory’s Boleyn Traitor (HarperCollins) are scheduled for publication before 9th October – on 25th September and 7th October respectively – while RF Kuang’s Katabasis (HarperCollins) was published on 26th August.
Meanwhile, Williams highlighted that a range of anticipated autobiographies by "incredible icons" were slated for publication in late September, including Lionel Richie’s Truly (William Collins), Priscilla Presley’s Softly, As I Leave You (Headline) and Björn Borg’s Heartbeats (Sphere).
However, October’s Super Thursday still holds the release dates of some highly anticipated autumn titles, including Bob Mortimer’s The Long Shoe (Gallery UK), which Dennis said the booksellers have had a lot of pre-orders for. Alex Call, The Bookseller’s charts editor and owner of Bert’s Books in Swindon, also noted that Mortimer’s third work of fiction will be a key title for his bookshop, alongside Jamie Smart’s new Bunny vs Monkey instalment (DFB Phoenix).
Call also highlighted key autumn titles including Philip Pullman’s The Rose Field, illustrated by Christopher Wormell (Penguin and David Fickling Books), and Travis Baldree’s Brigands & Breadknives (Tor), which will be released later in the autumn, on 23rd October and 13th November respectively. He noted that September has been a particularly busy publication month, and that it would not be "a bad thing" if there were fewer frontlist releases on Super Thursday, noting that "the industry probably publishes too much in general".
"Super Thursday isn’t that big a deal for us in the shop – we don’t really see an uplift in trading off the back of it," Call said. "The biggest impact it has is that we suddenly have to balance a lot of stock in preparation for when the festive trading begins."
