We attended Sotomayor's talk as part of the overflow flow at the Portland Art Museum. She was wonderful, well spoken, brilliant, and sincere. I wish my daughter Belinda had been there, for the advice was apt. My only objection was that Sotomayor kept referring to her book. That made it sound like a book tour sales pitch. In reality, what is important is that it is her story. Everyone has a story, and hers is remarkable and noteworthy. But though her name is the only one on the title page, the book itself is not only her own product. It's the product of pages and pages of the people who helped her bring it to fruition. Reading it I cannot help but be reminded that every sentence has been gone over by collaborators, editors, and the publisher many times. So naturally it's a best seller.
Margolin, a local mystery writer of renown, published a children;'s book, but they had to hold his hand through the entire process so the vocabulary of the children's book was appropriate to the audience. They had his name and his idea as selling points.
When an author is published by a major publisher she is part of a stable of authors, just like a horse in a stable of race horses. Illustrators of children's books are also part of a stable. The books produced are properties that belong to the publishers. The author' name becomes a product like Coca Cola. The books are not the sole product of the author, for there are cover designers, book designers, layout people, copy editors, a literary agent etc. who all contribute to the final product. That's not the case of an ebook author. An ebook doesn't need special design and can stand on its content alone. That's the author's own words. I have thirty-five books published. With minor exceptions (at Wing Press) they were done without an editor, designer, and in most cases without an artist. I've done my own illustrations. When I look at the result I can proudly say, "This is my book. I did it by myself." No agent, no editor, no book designer, no middle man, no commissions to pay.
