I write because I want to write and because I CAN write. My undergraduate degree was in business with a concentration in marketing. If necessary, I can develop a marketing plan, but that has little to do with selling, which is a skill I do not have.

I’m with the man in your example: I expect the publisher to do the heavy selling, helped, if someone is crazy enough to think I am an asset, by me. But IMHO, an author’s participation in the process should be the icing on the cake, and only after two or three cakes have demonstrated that he’s worth meeting.