Selling to the Establishment

I'm thinking less about a mainstream publisher and more about doing something on my own. Mainstreamers only listen to their anointed gatekeepers, their book agents, so I hear. And book agents are looking to make as much money as possible. First, they want writers who are well-known, if not as writers then as celebrities of some kind. They want name recognition. Tiger Woods, for example, could sell a novel far easier than I could. What book browser is going to pick up a book at B&N authored by one George F. Smith? Probably the handful who mistake me for George H. Smith. (Actually, as I just discovered, even George H. is plagued somewhat by the science fiction writer of the same name.)

Secondly, they want material with a proven history that presents a unique viewpoint. Radical political intrigue has been around for a long time, and some of it has been highly successful, such as David Baldacci's Absolute Power. Publisher's Weekly has this to say about it:

Casting the president of the United States as a crazed villain isn't a new idea -- Fletcher Knebel worked it 30 years ago, in Night of Camp David -- but in this sizzler of a first novel, Baldacci, a D.C. attorney, proves that the premise still has long legs.

I can't say if Baldacci's treatment of government is comparable to mine because I haven't read the book. The movie, however, doesn't go beyond the president as a power-mad villain, as I recall. It doesn't present the holders of political power as an organized criminal gang with an aura of legitimacy.

The Ron Paul candidacy, along with the Bush II presidency, have perhaps opened doors that I have overlooked. Some publisher might be willing to take a chance on a first novel by a largely unknown writer who portrays government in the Nockian sense:

Nock therefore defined the State as that institution which 'claims and exercises the monopoly of crime' over a territorial area; 'it forbids private murder, but itself organizes murder on a colossal scale. It punishes private theft, but itself lays unscrupulous hands on anything it wants….' (from Murray Rothbard, The Betrayal of the American Right)

I will have to reconsider my views about mainstream publishers.

I will have to read Baldacci's book and perhaps try to contact him.

Yesterday I sent a query to G. Edward Griffin, author of The Creature from Jekyll Island, who founded a publishing house. I asked him if had any interest in publishing a novel about the Fed. Mr. Griffin has not published fiction and has published almost exclusively his own work. My query is a long shot. He may not even reply.

Creature, incidentally, is #2 in Amazon's Money and Monetary Policy category. That's highly encouraging. Not so encouraging is the #7 ranking of Nathan Lewis's Gold: the Once and Future Money. It doesn't deserve such a high place.