I am currently trying categorize a manuscript. What is the actual definition of commercial literature?

Answer 1

Commercial versus literary fiction or literature is debatable. Many people believe commercial literature (usually commercial fiction) is a form of pure entertainment, with settings, characters, scenes that often follow formulaic patterns and tend to break many old grammar rules. An example of commercial fiction is almost every New York Times Best Seller fiction novel by authors such as Nora Roberts, James Patterson, Michael Crichton or Kathy Reichs.

Literary fiction or literature often follows the grammar rules more precisely and tends to delve into the human characteristics of the main characters. It is often unpredictable and follows no clear pattern.

This being said, there are many cross-overs and often nowadays novels are very hard to classify/categorize. :)

Publishers generally specify what they are looking for and the best way to see if your novel fits "their" definitions is to buy one of their books and see if the style is similar to yours.

~Cheryl Kaye Tardif
Author of Whale Song, Divine Intervention and The River

P.S. My novels are commercial fiction.

Answer 2

Commercial fiction is generally divided into genres. There's romance, mystery, thriller, science fiction/fantasy etc.

Anything that cannot be categorized into one of the standard genres generally is labeled "literary fiction," which is commercial fiction's artier sibling. More emphasis is placed on choosing just the right word and crafting delicate, beautiful paragraphs in literary fiction.

Commercial fiction has the books and authors you've actually heard of: Danielle Steel, John Grisham, Nora Roberts, Tom Clancy, Dan Brown etc.