#MeToo, Coming to a Bookstore Near You

To explore the commercial possibilities of #MeToo, observers say, look no further than the publishing industry. Editors are tweaking ideas to focus on the strength of the sisterhood, publishers are seeking collaborations with female activists and writers are citing the movement in their pitch letters to agents.

At the same time, the definition of what constitutes a feminist book is changing, expanding to include not only cultural commentaries like

Roxane Gay’s

“Not That Bad: Dispatches From Rape Culture,” out in May, but titles that see female empowerment and political resistance in areas as diverse as fitness, cooking, sex and crafts.

Another literary agent,

Myrsini Stephanides,

says about six, or roughly half her current projects, are related to #MeToo. Two have already sold. In October, she signed

Shannon Downey,

a feminist embroidery guru whose wry takedown of sexual harassers using a profane play on the phrase “boys will be boys” went viral last fall. At New York’s Carol Mann Agency, where Ms. Stephanides works, she says the appetite for #MeToo books is fierce. “It’s been constant conversations of ‘How can we contribute to this conversation?’ ”

It isn’t clear how many more feminism- and gender-related book deals are on the horizon, or how the flood of new titles will fare at bookstores, but publishing has already struck a #MeToo seven-figure book sale.

Kristen Roupenian

in December snapped up a two-book deal that publishing sources say went for more than $1 million, after her short story “Cat Person,” which related to sexual consent, went viral in the New Yorker.

Ms. Roupenian and her publisher, Scout Press, declined to comment.

What might be called the first #MeToo memoir arrived this week with “Brave,” actress

Rose McGowan’s

account of Hollywood misogyny.

In the book, which climbed up Amazon’s top 100 bestseller list the day it was released, she details her longstanding accusations of rape by movie mogul

Harvey Weinstein,

referring to him in the book as “The Monster.” “The fact that it comes out at a time that aligns with this global conversation is inexplicable synchronicity,” says Hilary Lawson, Ms. McGowan’s editor at HarperCollins.

In a statement Tuesday,

Ben Brafman,

a lawyer for Mr. Weinstein

,

denied Ms. McGowan’s allegations of nonconsensual sexual contact, calling it “erroneous and irresponsible to conflate claims of inappropriate behavior and consensual sexual contact later regretted, with an untrue claim of rape.”

Books connected to #MeToo continue a wave of feminist titles released after the election of President

Donald Trump.

Last year, sales of books around sociology, feminism and feminist theory reached 370,000, a 70% jump from 2016, according to NPD BookScan, which covers most of the trade print market but doesn’t include Amazon sales. In children’s nonfiction, the girls and women category increased sixfold in 2017 to 300,000 books sold, and young-adult nonfiction sales in that category more than quadrupled to 60,000 over the same period.

In her new book, personal trainer

Sarah Hays Coomer

combines feminism and fitness. She doesn’t order women to 5 a.m. boot camp. Instead, she writes about rejecting diet culture and exercising for “accessing power.”

“There is precisely zero chance we will be able to achieve equal stature while chronically apologizing for our own perfectly healthy, unconventionally beautiful bodies,” she writes in “Physical Disobedience: An Unruly Guide to Health and Stamina for the Modern Feminist,” set to hit shelves in August.

New arrivals like

Kayleen Schaefer’s

“Text Me When You Get Home: The Evolution and Triumph of Modern Female Friendship” were in the works well before #MeToo but use the rallying call in their marketing language. A Dutton publicist calls this February release “the perfect guide” to the current cultural moment.

Amid this competition, books are bound to overlap. This winter marks several women’s suffrage histories—two for younger readers as well as

Elaine Weiss’s

“The Woman’s Hour,” out March 6. The female body is the subject of at least two books coming out in March: “The Wonder Down Under: The Insider’s Guide to the Anatomy, Biology, and Reality of the Vagina” by

Nina Brochmann

and

Ellen Støkken Dahl,

and

Abby Norman’s

“Ask Me About My Uterus: A Quest to Make Doctors Believe in Women’s Pain.”

Editors are working to bring out female solidarity and strength in existing projects. A book by ordained western Buddhist nun

Lama Tsultrim Allione

coming out in May was originally about mandalas, the circular symbol of the universe in Hinduism and Buddhism. But last year, Zhena Muzyka, publisher at large of Enliven Books, an imprint of Atria, asked the writer to refocus the volume on “the fierce feminine.”

“We need to give women tools in order to bolster their energy and rejuvenate them,” says Ms. Muzyka. The book, whose working title was “Meeting the Mandala,” now has a new name: “Wisdom Rising: A Journey into the Mandala of the Empowered Feminine.”

Advice manuals are another increasingly popular feminist genre.

Emma Gray,

HuffPost’s executive women’s editor, takes a journalistic approach in “A Girl’s Guide to Joining the Resistance: A Feminist Handbook on Fighting for Good,” landing in February. “Your Story Is Your Power: Free Your Feminine Voice” by

Elle Luna

and

Susie Herrick,

due out in March, features what Workman Publishing calls “measured outrage” alongside self-worth exercises and inspirational quotes.

Some publishers are wary about efforts to profit from the movement. “We’re at risk of saturating the market,” says

Brooke Warner,

co-founder of the independent feminist publishing house She Writes Press.

“Any issue can be framed as a feminist issue if you twist it around enough,” she says. “I think that definitely dilutes the feminist message.”

Krista Suh,

a 30-year-old co-creator of the Pussyhat Project, says she is all for scholarly conversations around feminism, but she doesn’t want to take the same approach in her writing. “I don’t have those ego games anymore of like, ‘Oh, I want you to recognize these great intellectual ideas,’ ” she says. “I want it to be practically helping people on the ground and resonating with people and inspiring them.”

Ms. Suh’s newly released book, “DIY Rules for a WTF World,” features make-your-own stamps with the word “Valid” and a new knitting pattern for gloves with big watchful eyes on them.

Other fiction editors, particularly since the success of “Cat Person,” see opportunity in female solidarity.

Cindy Hwang,

editorial director at Berkley, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, has moved the release date of debut novel “Vox” from next year to this September.

Written by

Christina Dalcher,

“Vox” is set in a dystopian future where women are limited to 100 words a day. “This book is so important to talk about now,” Ms. Hwang says, “we want to be able to capture the moment.”

Write to Ellen Gamerman at ellen.gamerman@wsj.com