Lit-Mums oust Lit-Chicks in baby boom

The launch of a poetry book does not normally attract the sort of marketing associated with the latest bonkbuster. But the publisher of Gillian K Ferguson's latest collection is pulling out all the stops.

In addition to the normal book chains, Edinburgh-based Canongate plans to promote Ferguson's work in supermarkets, chain stores, chemists and hospitals. Deals are being sought with flower delivery companies and magazines, and promotional competitions are being organised.

Why? Because Baby, published last week, charts the "love, exhilaration, fulfillment and humour" of conception, pregnancy, birth and a new life – it falls neatly into the genre of Mummy Lit, publishing's latest hot property.

For parenthood, it seems, has become the latest literary phenomenon. Novelist Rachel Cusk has just delivered A Life's Work, an account of "a year of modern motherhood", detailing "a farewell to freedom, sleep and time". Tomorrow, Naomi Wolf, better known for such titles as Promiscuities and The Beauty Myth, produces Misconceptions, "an exposé of the birth myth" and "a critical look at pregnancy in the modern world".

Both have achieved that sure-sign of a publishing sensation: newspaper serialisation. And journalist Allison Pearson is enjoying the rewards of having conjured up Kate Reddy, a fictional fund manager, mother-of-two and juggler-supreme. The star of a weekly newspaper column "I don't know how she does it", Reddy is due to appear as a novel next summer – and Miramax has bought the film rights for more than £700,000.

There is no shortage of theories about the plethora of new parenting titles. Says Pearson: "We're much more self-conscious about the business of bringing up children. I think the first generation of women who went out to work were grasping for independence. My generation think more about who pays the price for that."

Ferguson thinks it might be a sign that feminism has moved on, to a more self-assured place. "There was a time when having babies was all you were allowed to do. Then there was a time you weren't allowed to do it if you had a career. Maybe women feel stronger now and aren't afraid to write about motherhood because it's too 'womanly' a subject."

Sociologist Frank Furedi blames"a crisis of adult identity". "These books are different from previous parenting books... It's therapy." Furedi's own contribution to the genre, Paranoid Parenting, appeared earlier this year.

But it's all a bit much for at least one author of more traditional child-rearing fare. "It's not really my kind of stuff," admitted Penelope Leach, popular writer of a host of child development titles.

After reading one of the recent clutch of pregnancy tales, she was left, she said "wondering who the hell wanted to know". It's a comment to make one wonder just how much life this publishing phenomenon has left in it.