Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Shel Horowitz (2nd nomination)


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. Randykitty (talk) 15:24, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

Shel Horowitz
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I'm not seeing WP:GNG here. The only citations in reliable sources are passing mentions and don't meet WP:SIGCOV. There are a number of non-independent/self-published sources, and that's where the meat of this article comes from. Using only RS, there doesn't appear to be an article to be written. It appears to be largely a promotional vehicle rather than an encyclopedia article. Marquardtika (talk) 02:08, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Massachusetts-related deletion discussions. Eastmain (talk • contribs) 02:09, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of New York-related deletion discussions.  CAPTAIN RAJU (T) 04:37, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Authors-related deletion discussions.  CAPTAIN RAJU (T) 04:37, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Businesspeople-related deletion discussions.  CAPTAIN RAJU (T) 04:38, 9 August 2018 (UTC)


 * Withholding judgment for now. keyed his name into a proquest news archive search, the fact that the first few hits, and many on the first page of the search were to press releases is not a good sign. The is, however, some actual; coverage of his life, career, and books he has written (alone or together with his wife) in WP:RS, as a paragraph or two in a longer article.  I haven't found a profile article yet or looked to see whether any of his books have gotten attention.E.M.Gregory (talk) 10:55, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks for working on this. FYI, has disclosed that he is the article subject, and I notified him of this discussion so he may weigh in here as well. Marquardtika (talk) 15:30, 9 August 2018 (UTC)


 * Delete for lack of WP:SIGCOV  and the failure of my searches to find it, for him or his books (I used a Proquest news archive search).  His career has been as a marketing consultant, apparently focusing on promoting writers.   Here's a sentence, lifted from the page "Horowitz has been marketing online since 1994, and using social media since 1995."   I give him credit for self-parody, but the page  - created by an SPA - is WP:PROMO for a non-notable marketing guru, and, as Marquartike states above, has been edited more recently by, who has admitted tha thhe is the article subject.     Thanks to User:Marquardtika for finding this and bringing it here.E.M.Gregory (talk) 10:21, 12 August 2018 (UTC)

Shel Horowitz responds: 1) The most recent significant profile is in Forbes: . There have been several other ones including this one, which gives some interesting insights into my influences and heroes: Some of the profiles go back to the pre-Internet days and are not archived online, including one in Bottom Line/Business and another in the Christian Science Monitor. 2) My books have been published by John Wiley & Sons (Guerrilla Marketing Goes Green), Simon & Schuster (Marketing Without Megabucks), Chelsea Green (Grassroots Marketing), Morgan James (Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World), and Stackpole (Nuclear Lessons), as well as my own imprint. You can see all but the Stackpole book on Page 1 of the Amazon page for my name: Foreign publishers in six countries (Japan, Korea, India, Mexico, Italy, and Turkey) have republished my books (the Mexican and Indian editions are on page 2 of the results; the site would not load to page 3). The Korean publisher was The Economic Daily, Korea's equivalent to the Wall Street Journal. Four of my US books have won at least one award, and another was a finalist. My booik with Wiley was a category bestseller for more than 30 months. 3) My books have been reviewed in Midwest Book Review, Library Journal, Christian Science Monitor, Publishers Weekly, and many other respected sources. 4) I confess that I am mystified by E.M. Gregory's reference to "books he has written (alone or together with his wife)." My wife, novelist D. Dina Friedman, has published two works of fiction and has a poetry collection forthcoming. She and I have collaborated on a few published articles but never on a book. I have co-authored two books with Jay Conrad Levinson, who has authored or co-authored about 100 books in the Guerrilla Marketing series. I also co-authored my first book with literary agent Richard Curtis and his prior co-author elizabeth Hogan. And a client, Ana Weber, very generously gave me a co-author credit on some books I ghostwrote for her. 5) I am not familiar with Prosearch but I did a search on Google, subtracting results from all the active sites I own. This brought back 14,800 results. The actual query was -site:greenandprofitable.com -site:frugalfun.com -site:frugalmarketing.com -site:goingbeyondsustainability.com -site:shelhorowitz.com -site:transformpreneur.com -site:greenandprofitable.com -site:thecleanandgreenclub.com -site:guerrillamarketinggoesgreen.com -principledprofit.com "shel horowitz" and the results URL was I looked through the first two pages of results and found links to my 2014 TEDx talk, a link to my four articles published on GreenBiz.com and one on Sustainable Brands (two highly respected and credentialed publications in the green business world), a link to 20 blog posts I published on Fast Company , to my bio page on the Family Business Center of Pioneer Valley , where I published at least 62 articles over several years, and links to several podcast interviews and profiles. 6) While many of the citations are brief, it's worth noting that I have been quoted as a source repeatedly in top-tier media. That they keep coming back to me as a source says something about my credibility. I've been quoted at least 57 times in Entrepreneur, five times in the New York Times (not counting several letters I've published there) , twice in the Wall Street Journal . I've been featured in two short national segments on ABC TV, interviewed on hundreds of radio broadcasts and podcasts, and quoted in hundreds of newspaper and magazine articles. I've even been quoted in a Reader's Digest story about how to get kids active on environmental issues (scroll 3/4 down to "Bring it up at dinnertime") 7) I am a 2011 inductee into the National Environmental Hall of Fame and operate the first business ever to receive Green America's Gold-level green business certification.

I believe this response demonstrates that I have sufficient credibility to be seen as an expert and to justify the article. I've published award-winning books with major houses (and my books have been reviewed many times), spoken at major conferences including a TEDx, written for respected publications and been a frequent expert source for journalists. I've been recognized by my peers for my achievements in green business.

Thank you for your attention. As I noted to User:Marquardtika in my earlier response, I share your interest in maintaining Wikipedia as a high-quality authoritative source, and I believe my entry adds solid content.

--68.118.253.102 Shel Horowitz (talk) 15:12, 12 August 2018 (UTC)
 * As article subject writes, I was in error of the co-authorship, with his wife, it was of articles, not of books. However, I had indeed found and read the 1998 article in the Christian Science Monitor Work, Wedlock, & Co. .  It came up in a Proquest news archive search  search.  It is, however, NOT quite a profile of Horowitz, but, rather, an article about wife-and-husband teams that run run businesses together, in which Horowitz's wife and Horowitz are discussed.  The other "profiles" he cites are on a website of the Nonfiction Authors Association and one at Forbes is a Q & A that looks like it is part of Forbes' enormous stable of blog posts.  I do see the 1993 review in a group review of several marketing books in the Christian Science Monitor, here, in full copy paste:  MARKETING WITHOUT MEGABUCKS: HOW TO SELL ANYTHING ON A SHOESTRING, by Shel Horowitz (Simon & Schuster, 384 pp., $12) is a scrappy and practical guide for a business owner or manager with limited means. Horowitz is a true salesman for his ideas and provides detailed examples of what can be accomplished. Even the typically introverted manager who has only a small inclination in this direction should be able to try a few of his ideas. The goal is for a company to cut through the "information deluge," or the din of other advertising impressions that threaten to engulf the one main message the firm is trying to push.  While Horowitz exhorts businesses to go after all the free publicity they can get from the news media, he also rails against the common pitfall of driving customers away once they are lured in.  The book's suggestions are not glitzy. They are ideal for would-be marketing mavens who just happen to be a little short on cash." However, like Forbes' blogs, the Midwest Book Review does not pay writers for and does not edit the book reviews it publishes.  As with Forbes' blogs, it's writers are volunteers.  Publisher's Weekly runs a snippet review of every book a reputable publisher is pushing.  If Horowitz's books have been reviewed in edited publicaitons that assign reviews to paid editors - or in academic journals - I advise him to bring those reviews to this page and flag me to reconsider.  At this point, I agree with him that coverage of him has been almost entirely confined to being quoted, and I see this page as PROMO for a non-notable busiessman.E.M.Gregory (talk) 16:18, 12 August 2018 (UTC)


 * Delete: does not meet WP:NAUTHOR; significant RS coverage not found. Appears to be an autobiography and overly promotional at that. K.e.coffman (talk) 03:46, 13 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Delete I read through the last no consensus deletion discussion. basically they argued since he wrote a chapter in a book that made a best seller list, he was notable. Even being the lead author of a book that makes a best seller list is not going to gaurantee notability, but writing a chapter is downright not a sign of notability.John Pack Lambert (talk) 02:16, 16 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Weak Delete – There is a lot of information about him that could be useful for an encyclopedia, but none of it is notable. Redditaddict69 11:34, 17 August 2018 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

Further note from Shel Horowitz: I spent several hours last week collecting documentation, and particularly gathering and citing media coverage, especially reviews of my fifth book Grassroots Marketing: Getting Noticed in a Noisy World (Chelsea Green, 2000) and my eighth book Guerrilla Marketing Goes Green (John Wiley & Sons, 2010; also translated and republished in Italy and Turkey). Unfortunately, apparently I neglected to hit the Publish button and the changes were unsaved. Yesterday, my computer restarted itself and those changes were lost. I really can't spend another several hours recreating all that documentation. So instead, here's one review each: http://www.csrwire.com/csrlive/commentary_detail/3581-CSRwire-Book-Review-Guerrilla-Marketing-Goes-Green (Guerrilla Marketing Goes Green--note that this was original content initiated by an employee of CSR wire and that I have never been a client of theirs). http://web.archive.org/web/20060615054938/http://bookpromotionnewsletter.com:80/reviews.htm#grassroots (Grassroots Marketing). Also, here is the Publishers Weekly review of my self-published Principled Profit (2003). It is very rare for a self-published book to be reviewed in Publishers Weekly. This book also won an Apex Award and was republished in India (as Ethics In Marketing, published by Jaico first in hardback and then in paperback) and Mexico (Mercadotecnia basada en las personas, later retitled in the second edition as Mercadotecnia basada en ganar-ganar). Again, it's quite rare for self-published books to be picked up by foreign publishers. --68.118.253.102 (talk) 15:14, 26 August 2018 (UTC)