Some people do argue that literary fiction is another genre. Genre people seldom do so, because genre until very recently was considered to be trash or worse by the literary crowd. Kurt Vonnegut’s line sums it up: “I have been a soreheaded occupant of a file drawer labeled “Science Fiction” … and I would like out, particularly since so many serious critics regularly mistake the drawer for a urinal.” Genre fiction wasn’t “real” fiction, and as a publishing category it was distinctly separated not just from from literary fiction but from all fiction that wasn’t genre. Publishers created lines of science fiction, fantasy, mystery, and other genres separate from their mainstream fiction lines. Popular trash could be included in those lines but genre almost never was.
Mainstream in this sense may not be well known outside of the genre community, but everybody in publishing and writing understands the distinction whether they use the word or not. I’m not aware of any word used inside publishing for the distinction you make. I’m not sure I agree with it either. What impact on the overall culture has John Grisham ever had? Or Stan Robinson for that matter?
I don’t want to get sidetracked into a debate on particular individuals and lose sight of my main point. And that main point is that to be part of the mainstream, an author has to be read by readers. Genre doesn’t matter. Authors like John Grisham or Stephen King or J.K. Rowling or Tom Clancy or Heather Graham are all mainstream authors because tens of millions of people read their books. An author who is read by a few hundred, or even a few thousand people, is not part of the mainstream.
Fine. Words can be used in different ways. However, you need to realize that mainstream has that other long-established sense, so you just need to make the distinctive way you are using it clear.
I dunno… suppose you have a brand-new author, just starting out, trying to get their first story published. The editor calls the author in, clutching her manuscript, and the editor asks her what kind of stories she writes. It seems to me that it’d be perfectly reasonable for the author to reply that she writes mainstream stories, even though nobody but her immediate family has ever read any of it.
You seem to be trying to imply that I have some definition that I alone hold. If so, I feel you’re wrong. I’d say my definition of what’s mainstream is at least as widespread as yours is.
Of course, you might argue that it doesn’t matter how widespread a definition is. If I’m understanding your position correctly, you feel it’s a definition used within the professional writing community and therefore the meaning is set within that community. It’s like how a legal term can be best defined by lawyers or a medical term can be best defined by physicians, even if the general public has a different understanding of the terms.
If so, it appears the difference in our opinions is irreconcilable. We’re not only disagreeing about the answer to the question, we’re disagreeing about how the question should be answered.
Probably true. But this just illustrates my point that this definition of mainstream is one used by authors and editors.
Suppose this same person was at a cocktail party having a conversation with people outside of the writing industry and somebody asked her what she did for a living and she said “I’m a mainstream author.” Don’t you feel she’d be implying by her response that her work is read by a large audience?
Mainstream authors never say they are mainstream authors. They are simply authors.
Well, they might make the distinction they they write literary fiction or popular fiction. But they don’t have to. They are the default. (Or were. It’s somewhat less true today with the tsunami of self-published online fiction, the vast majority of which is genre.)
You can claim that your usage is frequently used, but I’ve never heard it before. Searching on mainstream author brings up hits with a variety of definitions. Yours is there, sort of, but other definitions are someone with a publisher rather than an indie writer, writers who are respected by the literati, or a writer of popular works rather than literary (regardless of sales). Bestseller writers are now considered to be part of a genre all their own - you can even find how to write a bestseller guides - because there are similarities among that kind of popular fiction. Other books do make it to bestseller status on occasion without being written like a James Patterson novel, so that’s another reason why separating them into a genre is helpful. The awesome modern sales of YA and children’s books confuse the issue even more: those were always considered separate fields from mainstream fiction but the distinction is increasingly blurry.
In such a situation, the author wouldn’t say “I’m a mainstream author”. The adjective “mainstream” is never used unprovoked. If you’re mainstream, you just say “I’m an author”. The only reason you’d say “mainstream” would be if someone else just introduced themselves as a fantasy author, or if the person you just met asked “what kind?”.