What does "non-commercial writer" mean? It seems so amorphous as to be anything.

> James Foster Wallace committed suicide

David Foster Wallace, and he was certainly a commercial writer. He's actually pretty famous for his commercial writing about tennis in particular.

> JD Salinger

He went into exile because his debut novel was so fabulously successful that he couldn't take the pressure of a follow-up. This seems like he'd be the very definition of a commercial writer, that his debut novel is extremely commercially successful.