Months ago, in what now feels like another era, publishers planning their 2020 schedules hoped to avoid releasing books in the fall, typically the industry’s biggest season. Editors and writers worried that new releases would be lost in the deluge of political news leading up to the presidential election, so publishers jammed some of their biggest titles into the spring.

Now, a reverse exodus of sorts is taking place. Publishers are pushing back the release of dozens of books to summer and fall, in hopes that by then the coronavirus outbreak will be waning, bookstores will reopen, and authors will be able to tour and promote their work.

Some of the most anticipated titles of the spring have been delayed by weeks or months — including the latest by the best-selling children’s book author Jeff Kinney, literary novels by Graham Swift and Ottessa Moshfegh, and nonfiction books by Representative Eric Swalwell of California, the Netflix chief executive Reed Hastings and the comedians and late-night television hosts Desus and Mero.

“Bookstores are shuttered, everyone right now is worried about their health and their livelihoods, there’s so much anxiety,” said the writer Laila Lalami, whose new nonfiction book, “Conditional Citizens,” was scheduled to come out from Pantheon in April, but has been moved to the fall. “It makes sense to postpone it until there’s a bit more clarity, until we know what’s going to happen.”