Snubbed by a famous Libertarian Author

In the name of utilizing a multi-pronged strategy to land an agent, we thought it would be a useful effort to contact our favorite authors of freedom for advice.

We weren't seeking any unsolicited handouts or pity. We were hoping for any assistance, large or small, from those whose message of liberty and brotherhood were the driving forces for us to write this book.

The circle of great Libertarian speakers, authors, and politicians is small and, assuredly, tight. Often times you see the top writers speak at the same functions with the top politicians of the movement. They appear to help each other out. Why not drop them a line?

We sent out some feelers, hoping that someone would at least be interested enough to find out more about the project. Well, while we're still waiting to hear back from most, one prominent Libertarian author, whose work we used in our research, did get back to us. I was super surprised to check my iPhone an hour later, only to find a response!

Mr. Sorweid, I'm afraid I can't help you; has an astute Google search not turned anything up? Anyway, best of luck.

Gee, that's your advice? Check Google? Not only is that tidbit completely useless (I run my own search engine optimization business), but actually pretty patronizing. The usage of the word 'astute' implies his disapproval with our attempt to reach out to him for help, suggesting that it was amateur.

But why is our request so hard for him to understand? Does he not remember what it was like when he attempted to publish his first book? Any little bit of help goes a long ways, even if its just positive words of encouragement, like 'hang in there' or 'it took me awhile and its tough work, but keep working hard'.

I think what frustrated me the most is that this author makes quite a bit of money speaking on campuses throughout the country to young people who are interested in shrinking the size of the federal government while returning long-lost civil liberties to all. Its his sole goal during these campus visits to educate and motivate young people to take personal responsibility and help save this country from socialist destruction. We honestly thought he'd be stoked to see some of the very people he speaks in front of to take initiative in furthering the message of freedom by writing a book of our own. He clearly couldn't care less.

What does he get by not helping us? We can only speculate. Perhaps, he's interested in clinging onto a stronghold of the Libertarian book & speaking circuits. Certainly, Libertarians love being outsiders so they can always say 'I told you so' while rarely having the responsibility of decision making. Maybe they only want to keep the movement at 'cult status' indefinitely. Perhaps, he was busy, but then why the quick response? Maybe he thought our project was a poor one, which is doubtful because that would negate the work he does at campuses dozens of times a year. Perhaps I'm over-analyzing everything. Can you blame me?

The way I see it, if our message of mobilizing the youth to take back our freedoms from the government is spread, then there would be more people growing up interested in the liberty movement. This would mean more people listening to Libertarian speakers, buying Libertarian books, and voting for Libertarian politicians. Odd that he'd want to prevent that with mere lip service.

Interestingly enough, he's speaking on a local campus this month and we told him that we'd love to chat to perhaps pick his brain over our project. No response.

As much as part of me wants to tell the world who this author is, the point of this post is not to burn bridges or to generate pity. I've learned early on that doing either won't get you very far in life. The reason I posted this is to show you that publishing a book is tough. Even the people who you have long felt were your allies are quick to turn their back. Becoming a published author means gaining entrance to an elite club, and I'm not surprised that people are wary of newcomers.

Rest assured, when we get our book published, I will not hesitate to help another author in need.