Comments on: In Praise of Billy Mays

By: Billy Mays A Legend

Billy Mays A Legend — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 03:31:05 +0000

I think Billy Mays could have sold just about anything. He was confident in what he sold and he did a darn good job of selling!

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By: Andrew Kent

Andrew Kent — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 01:52:34 +0000

I didn’t take much notice of Billy Mays’ passing, except noting that I will oddly miss his sincere approach and voice like a vacuum cleaner. But what surprised me is how kids were saddened. It turns out that Billy Mays had earned a special place in the hearts of kids as “the best” sales guy on TV. He entranced them to some extent, and they also appreciated the liveliness of his approach. Sell on, Billy. Sell on.

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By: Francis Hamit

Francis Hamit — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 19:08:11 +0000

Henry, I do agree with your comment about traditional publishing reducing books to a commodity. That’s one of the problems we confront; how to overcome their brute-force distribution and marketing and make our books stand out above the norm. That’s where another business principle can help us. It’s called “Kaisan” or “Continuous Improvement”. Think of it as product development for authors — how can I, as a writer, make this a better book for the reader? I’m suspicious of the word “literature” at times because it is used as an excuse for poor or unclear writing in the name of ‘art”. When you go get into rolling your own, then you have to be very careful about editing and presentation, but none of that will help you if the story itself is unconvincing or poorly executed. You can have “literature” and still have a good product. In fact I hold that you can’t have a good product unless the writing is literate and clear. The writing is the product. The final product is designed to show that writing off to best advantage without the distractions inherent in bad or incompetent execution.

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By: Henry Baum

Henry Baum — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 17:16:18 +0000

I have to take issue with some of this (“You should think of it as a product and not a work of literature.”) I get what you’re saying, but the problem with traditional publishing is that they’ve reduced books to widgets – i.e. it’s not about the writing, it’s about the product. To compete with traditional publishing, you might need to take the same approach, but it’s an approach that I wish would go away.

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