Some gatekeeper.

Traditional publishers consider themselves the "gatekeepers" for quality reading material.  They claim to make sure that no low-quality writing makes it past them.  Which says nothing for low-quality ideas, like the ones articulated in this article, about celebrity writers who are contracted to write absolute dreck, but don't deliver.

Honestly, I find it kind of funny that Penguin had authors contracted to write books like "a book to help teenagers cope with depression" (like Judy Blume hadn't already done that, and done it better) without specifics, and then got miffed when the authors didn't deliver.  Or, "collections of journalism" which I assume means it's already written and published work, but not yet collected and bound together (like anyone's reading "journalism" anyway--ask the major newspapers who are losing readership because of such "journalism").  I find it funny that this publisher has paid advances for work that isn't even done yet, and are shocked that it's not getting done, now that the money's already been paid out and spent.

In other realities, we have authors with more than one book written that they can't find agents or publishers for, despite the writing being fairly high-quality, simply because the ideas are fresh and unlike everything else being published (and therefore, a risk).