Nonetheless, sales of Speech Therapy — which had sold only 3,000 copies before the nomination — have soared from that low base since her Mercury win.
Debelle's play for a pop audience follows on the relatively disappointing sales of Speech Therapy, which suffered the worst-ever chart showing by a Mercury winner.
Burns supplements his film income with book sales and speeches to universities and businesses, perhaps $50,000 a speech to help his wife's nonprofit (Room to Grow supports infants born to poor families) or repave the driveway of his home and office, a remodeled barn in Walpole, N.H.
Among the assets for sale is speech recognition technology developed by Dragon Systems, a company Lernout acquired in 2000 for more than $500 million in stock.
What is indisputable is that Carson has, as he puts it, "made it", having accrued a fortune from book sales, motivational speeches, positions on the boards of corporations including Kellogg's and Costco.
Copies of the sales-meeting speech were circulated to family members.
L&H's recent surge has given it new momentum in its battle with Dragon Systems, the Newton, Mass.-based company that holds a sizable lead in overall sales of speech-recognition products.
Notable 2007 deals: the public offerings of MetroPCs and Data Domain, as well as Level 3 Communications ' $1.4 billion acquisition of optical networker Broadwing and the $140 million sale of speech software maker BeVocal to Nuance Communications.
Sales of the speech programs once made by Lernout began contributing to ScanSoft's revenue on Dec. 12.
