If You Think Authors Are Writers

Fashion models are not clothing designers. What they put on their backs, to parade down the catwalk, are items that were handed to them.

So why can the same not be said for "authors"?

Fashionista Kate Moss has launched her book amid much book launch partying. The volume is a retrospective of her career, and it features never before seen photos to entice those who have seen it all. Those who want to know where she came from and how she got where she is today will want to find the volume under their Christmas tree next month.

Just as she did not make the clothes she modeled, so too did she not write the book she is said to have authored.

Her name is there on the cover. If you believe everything you read, you'd believe she's the author.

But she didn't write anything.

It's no different than the way her real job functions. Someone hands her a dress, someone else does her hair, another paints her face, and that dress becomes more than a piece of fabric when she brings it to life.

So someone else took words, another selected photographs, and draped it on Ms. Moss' slight frame, and it was a book.

It will sell because she is a celebrity. It may not sell through, especially given the high price, but Rizzoli can expect to benefit from a ghost-written tome. That benefit comes from book buyers taking a look at other offerings from the publisher famous for the lush photography in their books.

Have you ever cracked open one of their cookbooks? Kate Moss could gain ten pounds just from looking at the pictures of the food, they are so spectacular.

So not all authors are writers. Especially at this high end of the publishing stratosphere. It's more about beautiful pictures with Rizzoli. And with Kate Moss, it's always been someone else behind the camera.