Regular readers of this blog will know that I’m not just a lover of books, but have an avid interest in the workings of the publishing industry as well. And 2015 is proving to be a very interesting year for the book business. It’s the first year in recent memory where a significant percentage of revenue is likely to come from a most unlikely category: adult literary fiction.

Before this week, the year already included publications by marquee authors: new books by Toni Morrison and Jonathan Franzen. But the news that Harper Lee is publishing her first book since To Kill A Mockingbird is the hugest of all. It’s a book that could be not just a massive bestseller, but a blockbuster that could bring people who don’t normally buy and read books into bookstores.

The book business, like so many other businesses, depends on blockbusters. Each year sees a handful of moderate publishing successes—books that pay out and then some, thanks to the reliable book-buying habits of the people who consider themselves avid readers. For the most part, these successes are enough to balance out the hosts of books that fail to find a readership.

But those few moderate successes aren’t enough. For the publishing business to see a really good year, they need a few blockbusters—books that become the “it” book that everyone who considers themselves well-read feels like they need to read, or even better, the one book that people who don’t normally read that much choose as their one or two books to read that year.

These blockbusters come along once every few years, mostly from the world of genre fiction and YA: Twilight, The Hunger Games, Fifty Shades of Grey, Gone Girl, The Fault in Our Stars, and Divergent have been the most recent examples. When people are buying these blockbusters, overall sales for the publishing industry tend to be up. When there’s no title that’s broken through as a blockbuster that even people who don’t read much want to read, numbers tend to be flat or slightly down.

As an aside, I’d hasten to add that the above analysis shouldn’t be taken as evidence of any kind of weakness in the publishing industry or the immanent death of the book as a viable medium in the 21st century. These same dynamics are at play in most media businesses, including movies and TV: the money made from blockbusters tends to fund the rest, which tends to lose money or break even at best. If you don’t believe me, read Blockbusters, Harvard Business School professor Anita Elberse’s analysis of the media business. It’s fascinating.

Getting back to publishing, what you notice when you look at the list of blockbuster books is that there’s one category conspicuously missing: adult literary fiction. As in every content business, the success of the popular stuff tends to fund the existence of the stuff that critics and avid consumers like: the serious kind of stuff that wins Pulitzers and National Book awards (and Oscars, and Emmys…).

But in 2015, these few titles could turn that around.

Toni Morrison is a giant of American letters, the winner of a Nobel, and perhaps the greatest living American writer. It’s an event every time she comes out with a new book. She’s popular, too, thanks in part to Beloved being part of Oprah’s book club, but mostly because she’s awesome and writes an experience that is still under-represented in media: girls and women of color.

Jonathan Franzen is the enfant terrible of American letters. The guy’s a pain in the ass, but he writes novels that are both smart and entertaining and generally—due to the controversial persona of their author—become the center of fierce debates.

And Harper Lee. Of these three, I think Harper Lee is the one who is most likely to sell a boatload of books in 2015. The reason for that is simple: To Kill a Mockingbird is one of the most beloved and popular books of all time. According to her editor, it still sells nearly a million copies every year. Millions upon millions of people read the book in high school. Many of them—even those for whom reading novels is not currently part of their lives—count the book as a favorite. Lee’s new novel is likely to be one that everyone who considers themselves “well-read” will have to buy or borrow, while snagging a lot of people who haven’t picked up a book in months or even years.

I could be wrong. But I have a feeling that—due to the power of just a few literary celebrities—this could finally be the year for adult lit fic.