Thirty Years On,
and Still Hoping to Reach an Audience

Edward J. Dodson

[Presented at the Council of Georgist Organizations conference, Evanston, Illinois, July, 2006]

As a young college student, I enjoyed writing serious essays and even research papers. Yet, almost until the end of my undergraduate years, my primary means of self-expression was the visual arts. At my college, the English Department sponsored a campus literary magazine, and for three years I was a member of the student staff - not writing, but illustrating the work of other students. During my senior year I finally decided to try to "break in" as a contributing writer.

My first effort was rejected as not appropriate for our publication - it was a not all that original portrayal of Jesus as a campus radical (this was the sixties, after all). Eventually, however, our faculty adviser approved one of my submissions, and my writing career was off and running. Not that I anticipated future fame and fortune, only that I gradually began to spend more time writing and less time drawing and painting. In fact, my last painting efforts from the mid-1970s now occupy a special place under the basement stairway in my home.

An important thing to know about me is that neither art nor journalism were career objectives. As a high school student, I briefly gave thought to enrolling in art school to pursue some type of career in commercial art. My other thought was to go to college and major in history, my other great interest. As it turned out, however, I entered college as a business major and ended up with a degree in accounting and finance (with enough education credits to teach the subjects if a "real job" did not materialize). My high school guidance counselor did not think much of art as a career choice. And, he told me that a business degree would get me much farther in the world than a degree in liberal arts. For reasons I cannot explain - because I cannot remember -- I took his advice.

Anyway, working in the business world required me to write frequently -- memoranda, letters and occasional analytical reports. My personal interests had matured during college, thanks to the exposure one gets to thoughtful professors and fellow students who care about values and issues. I became a fairly frequent writer of letters to the editor of newspapers and other publications. Also, I was not afraid to challenge other writers directly when I found myself in disagreement with their positions. However, not until the early 1980s, after I had completed my education in political economy studying Henry George's works, did I begin to write and submit articles for publication. By choosing well - that is, by sending my writing to local periodicals - I had some early success. My position in the business community (I was now a mid-level officer of a Philadelphia-based bank) also helped.

At this time, Steve Cord also recruited me to write and edit the Henry George Foundation's newsletter, Equal Rights. Also, I became a frequent contributing writer to Land & Liberty. It now seemed that I was always writing something. Writer's block has never been a problem for me, probably because I seem to have opinions on just about everything. What became a frustrating challenge was finding editors of major (i.e., nationally subscribed) periodicals willing to publish my writing. After several years of nothing but rejections, I essentially gave up and concentrated on writing letters to the editor as a way of getting my opinions and insights printed. This avenue has continued to be productive - if not financially remunerating.

Earning a masters degree in liberal arts from Temple University in Philadelphia required the writing of many, many papers on history, economics, political science, public policy analysis, philosophy and other subjects related to the liberal arts. It took me about five years to complete my course work and write my final thesis paper. Perhaps most importantly, my experience as a student convinced me of the need for an interdisciplinary course in political economy that might be taught to college freshmen. I decided to develop this course and try to get support from my department chair at Temple to introduce the course as an elective. That effort failed, so I brought the course -- "The Search for the Just Society" -- to the Henry George School, where George Collins, then the Director in Philadelphia, and I hoped it might bring in students who might not otherwise enroll.

In preparation for teaching this new course, I was constantly engaged in research of original and secondary texts. After two or three years, my lecture notes became the basis for a first draft of what ultimately (seven years later) became an eighteen hundred page manuscript on the history of how societies develop and what key thinkers have had to say about this process over the centuries.

With the manuscript essentially completed, I began my search for a publisher willing to take on such a huge project from an unknown, and marginally-credentialed author. Five, ten, then twenty rejection letters mounted up. Some editors had kind words to say about the content and my writing ability but could not see a market developing for my book. If only the book had been written by Milton Friedman, one editor commented. Perhaps I should consider finding a collaborating author who could edit the manuscript and whose name would appear first. This might help to find a publisher.

At some point in the late 1990s, Heather and I were discussing the problem of finding a publisher. I was not interested in sending the manuscript to one of the vanity presses, incurring thousands of dollars of costs to have the book published and just sit in boxes unsold. Heather suggested I consider what was then a relatively new type of book publishing option, publishers that accepted manuscripts, charging only for the cost of typesetting, and printing books only upon order. Her own experience with such a publisher - iUniverse - had been good, so I decided to take her advice and was soon working with iUniverse to publish the first volume of The Discovery of First Principles.

The process of manuscript submission to iUniverse to receipt of the first copies of the book took no more than about two or three months and cost me only a few hundred dollars. Submission was done over the internet, as were final corrections made to the manuscript. The iUniverse staff designed the cover (the book was to be printed in soft cover) and set the price ($35.95). The only disappointment I had with the outcome was the publisher's inability to produce a subject index as sophisticated as I created from the original manuscript written using Microsoft Word. The first volume became available in 2002, but only about 80 copies have been purchased to date.

I submitted the second volume the following year, of which about 40 copies have been purchased. Although the manuscript for the third volume is completed, I have decided not to have it published by iUniverse (at least not for the time being). My hope is to eventually find a publisher who will obtain the rights from iUniverse to publish the earlier volumes and then publish all three together as a set. Because of the minimal sales of the first two volumes, I have not felt any pressure to bring out the third volume. A few people who have purchased and read both volumes have inquired about the last volume. I am giving some thought of making the third volume available free to download from the School of Cooperative Individualism website. My thinking is that doing so might stimulate purchases of the first two volumes.

Most of what I am writing these days is for publication in one of the Georgist periodicals. Two years ago I took on the job (again) of writing Equal Rights for the Henry George Foundation, and I also contribute articles for most every issue of GroundSwell, the Common Ground, U.S.A. newsletter. I have another - much shorter - book in mind that would provide the Georgist solution to the crisis in affordable housing that plagues the United States. Despite retirement from the corporate world, other priorities have kept me from getting started on this new project idea.