“Publishing never had a golden age” argues this Guardian blogger, who works for one of “the big four”.

Twenty years ago we all wanted cheap food and loved supermarkets; then we noticed that the supermarkets had put all the small shops out of business and were offering us bland food … cheapness and conglomeration have a detrimental effect on quality, whatever the business.

What about all the celebrity rubbish, I hear you cry? Well, again, it is hypocritical to bitch about publishers buying celebrity-penned (or not) books, when the marketplace, and readers, seem so very thirsty for it. Perhaps nobody who contributes to this blog ever reads Heat (not even over another’s shoulder), watches reality TV or uses YouTube? Yes, publishers can be accused of copying trends and following the herd – but so can we all. Publishers are businesses; they need to make money and if there are a million readers willing to buy a celebrity biography, is it really possible to argue that they shouldn’t publish it?

Read the discussion below too.