Recession a boon for great literature

Ali Al Saed in Gulf News Daily makes valid points:

My darkest nightmare, in which publishers decide to only publish trite-overblown-scandal-laden celebrity books, is predicted to become a reality over the next few years, thanks to the recession.
As major publishing houses suffer a big knock to their credit, many are now expecting a doom-and-gloom end to literature as we know it.

The publishing industry has been suffering over the past few years anyway, and patterns of it falling apart were loud and clear.

The major publishing houses lost the plot and in the race to sign up the "potential" next big things in literature, they began making unrealistic targets. And the lucky few authors during that period managed to emerge with six-figure advances for books that never managed to recuperate quarter of that!

Full story here